Transcript No Slide Title

Effective Presentations
How to communicate effectively
with your audience
Winter 2015
ECEn 490
Lecture #8 1
One of the key attributes of Leadership
is Communications
1. Great ideas, poorly communicated, lack the
power to motivate.
2. Don’t assume that everyone is as involved or
knowledgeable as you.
3. Oral communications tend to be informative;
4. Written communications are usually definitive.
Winter 2015
ECEn 490
Lecture #8 2
Effective Presentations
We will discuss techniques to help you
improve your group and personal
communications skills in both informal
design reviews and
formal presentations.
We will also discuss general techniques for
improving all presentations.
Winter 2015
ECEn 490
Lecture #8 3
Rules for all presentations
1. Tell them what you are going to tell
them—introduction.
2. Tell them—Body of the presentation
3. Tell them what you told them—Summary
and Conclusions.
Winter 2015
ECEn 490
Lecture #8 4
Process Review- Where are you??
Phase 1
Concept
Development
Phase 2
Phase 3
System-Level
Detail
Design
Design
Phase 4
Testing and
Refinement
Phase 5
Production
Ramp-up
Mission
Statement
Identify
Customer
Needs
Development
Plan
Establish
Target
Specs
Generate
Product
Concepts
Select a
Product
Concept
Test
Product
Concept
Set
Final
Specs
Plan
Downstream
Development
Perform Economic Analysis
Benchmark Competitive Products
Build and Test Models and Prototypes
Concept Development
Winter 2015
ECEn 490
Lecture #8 5
Design reviews and Checkpoint meetings.
Design
Activities Reviews
Checkpoint
Meeting
A
B
C
1
Proceed to
next phase
E
2
D
Redirect
Project
3
Development Phase
Winter 2015
ECEn 490
Cancel
Project
Lecture #8 6
Effective Presentations
Differences between design reviews and formal
presentations.
Design reviews are informal in nature.
•The objective of a design review is to show progress in
selective areas of development, and to solicit inputs from
knowledgeable individuals on key issues that are still being
resolved.
•The attendees to a design review are generally peers and
first level managers who are directly involved in the project
or similar projects.
•This kind of meeting will not generally result in a decision,
but will generate additional information that the team needs
to help further the project.
Winter 2015
ECEn 490
Lecture #8 7
Effective Presentations
Check-point meetings are more formal in nature.
•The objective of a check-point meeting is to show that
the team has met the requirements , with some limited
set of exceptions, of a particular phase of a project and
is ready to go on to the next phase.
•The attendees are generally higher level managers who
have budgetary or multi-project portfolio responsibility
in an organization.
•These meetings are expected to result in important
decisions.
Winter 2015
ECEn 490
Lecture #8 8
Effective Presentations
There are 8 steps in making an effective presentation.
1. Identify the customer.
2. Establish objectives for the presentation.
3. Establish the critical body-of -facts for your project
4. Quickly cover the alternatives you considered on
critical issues
5. Present the team’s proposed solutions and the plans
for execution of the next phase of the project.
6. Summary and Questions
7. Always capture the action items and decisions
resulting from the meeting.
8. Have supporting documents available.
Winter 2015
ECEn 490
Lecture #8 9
Effective Presentations
The Process of making a Presentation
1. Identify the customer.
Who is going to be in the audience? What are
their issues and concerns?
How big will the group be? With smaller groups
you can be more informal, but with bigger
groups you will need to have a more formal
approach with more control.
Winter 2015
ECEn 490
Lecture #8 10
Effective Presentations
2. Establish objectives for the presentation.
What are the desired results? What action do you want
from the reviewers? Remember not to have too many
objectives or the meeting will wander and lose focus.
Start the presentation with a statement of expected
meeting results. Remember that the outcome of this kind
of meeting is a decision or set of decisions. Make sure the
reviewer know what their role is in the meeting.
Try to sum up in one sentence what message you want to
leave with the audience.
Winter 2015
ECEn 490
Lecture #8 11
Effective Presentations
3. Establish the critical body-of -facts for your project.
What information is necessary for the review team to know
in order for them to make a decision? State your critical
assumptions. Don’t assume that the reviewers have any indepth knowledge of your project. This is where you make
sure everyone is on the same page and has the same basic
understanding of the facts surrounding your project.
For example: This is where you should review the status of
completed project objectives. Compare the project results
against the objectives set at the last meeting. Review the
project schedule against the original plan.
Winter 2015
ECEn 490
Lecture #8 12
Effective Presentations
Famous Quote!
“Remember, Managers have no facts, and
in the absence of facts, will continue to
make arbitrary and capricious decisions.”
Doug Clifford
Winter 2015
ECEn 490
Lecture #8 13
Effective Presentations
4. Quickly cover the alternatives you
considered on critical issues.
This helps show that you have been
thorough in your investigation. It also helps
save valuable discussion time later in the
meeting, where reviewers often ask if the
team has considered their pet alternative.
What is a good method for explaining your
choices?
Decision matrices!!
Winter 2015
ECEn 490
Lecture #8 14
Effective Presentations
5. Present the team’s proposed
solutions and the plans for
execution of the next phase of the
project.
Show how your proposed plan meets
the development objectives,
customer needs and product
specifications for your project.
Winter 2015
ECEn 490
Lecture #8 15
Effective Presentations
6. Summary and Questions.
•The summary should reflect back on the meeting
objectives and show how the team has met these
objectives.
•This is where you make the argument that the team is
ready to move ahead on the project.
•Always allow time for discussion and questions from the
review team. It is smart to develop some sample questions
before the presentation and to have prepared answers to
these questions.
•It is also important to highlight those areas where results
have not met expectations and what actions the team is
doing to correct these deficiencies.
Winter 2015
ECEn 490
Lecture #8 16
Effective Presentations
7. Always capture the action items and
decisions resulting from the meeting.
You may not have time to go over these in detail
at the end of the meeting, but you should
publish this list with the appropriate ownership
of all the action items as soon as possible.
Winter 2015
ECEn 490
Lecture #8 17
Effective Presentations
8. Have supporting documents available.
It is wise to distribute these project control documents
before the meeting so that the team can review the
contents and be better prepared to contribute to the
meeting.
I expect that the teams will have updated Functional
Specifications Documents, a Concept Evaluation and
Selection Document, and a preliminary Schedule
showing team activities for the upcoming development
phase.
Winter 2015
ECEn 490
Lecture #8 18
The Mechanics of Effective Presentations
Don’t write out the entire presentation. Use notes
and/or key words to remind you of your thoughts and
the sequence of points you are trying to make.
Feel free to move around as you make the presentation.
You will seem more dynamic if you move around. Avoid
standing behind a podium if possible.
Maintaining eye contact with the audience is essential.
Don’t focus on any one individual for more than 5
seconds.
Don’t speak too fast, but don’t drag it out either.
Winter 2015
ECEn 490
Lecture #8 19
Mechanics, continued.
Make liberal use of visual aids. Most presentations today
are augmented with computer generated slides and/or
animation.
Decide on how much detail to present in the supporting
material. Too much detail can drag you and the audience
into a low level discussion that can take too much
valuable time.
Practice the presentation in front of your team.
If you get too many interruptions from the audience, you
will need to “take the discussion off-line” or have a
“parking lot” for issues.
Winter 2015
ECEn 490
Lecture #8 20
Homework
Complete the “Concept Generation and
Selection” document, due next week, by
end of day on Thurs.
Prepare your design review for next week.
Read the notes for Scheduling lecture. We
will discuss scheduling your project in the
next lecture on Feb 10th
Winter 2015
ECEn 490
Lecture #8 21