Oral and Written Communications.

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Oral and Written Communications
MEC

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Contents

• Introduction.
• Principles of Technical Writing.
• Oral Presentation.
• Presentation Outline.
• Practice Sessions.
• Design Reviews.
• Project Reports.

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Communicating Designs

• Communicate final design results through
• - oral presentations.
• - final reports may include design
• drawings, fabrication specifications etc.
• - prototypes and models.

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Principles of Technical Writing

• Know your purpose.
• Know your audience.
• Choose and organize the content around the
  purpose and the audience.
• Write precisely and clearly.
• Design the pages well.
• Think visually.
• Write ethically.

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Know the Purpose.

• Understanding objectives and functions for a
  designed artifact.
• Understanding what the designed object must be
  and must do.
• Understand the goals of a report or presentation.
• Design documentation seeks to inform the client
  about the features of a selected design.

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Know the Purpose

• Design team may be trying to persuade a client
  that a design is the best alternative.
• Designer may wish to report how a design operates
  to users.

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Know the Audience

• Design team to structure its materials to its
  targeted audience.
• Understand the technical level of the audience.
• Set the material at an appropriate level.
• Know the audience interest in the design being
  presented.
• May prepare multiple documents for different
  audience.

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Know the Audience

• Confine calculations or concepts that are of
  limited interest to a reports primary audience
  to the specific sections of their reports.
• Understand the target audience to ensure that all
  the members appreciate the documentation.

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Choose and Organize the Content

• Structure the presentation to best reach the
  audience.
• To present the entire process by which the design
  team selected an alternative.
• To organize information, may go from general
  concepts to specific details (analogous to
  deduction) or from specific details to general
  concepts (analogous to induction or inference),
  and describing devices or systems.

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Choose and Organize the Content

• Translate organizational pattern into a written
  outline.
• Team to develop a unified, coherent document or
  presentation.
• Avoiding needless repetition.

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Precise and Clear Writing

• Effective use of short paragraphs that have a
  single common thesis or topic.
• Short, direct sentences containing a subject and
  a verb.
• Active voice and action verbs allow reader to
  understand directly what is being said or done.
• To clearly identify opinions/viewpoints.
• Goals of both technical and non-technical
  communications to be the same.

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Design Your Pages Well

• Use headings and subheadings, identified by
  different fonts and underlining to support the
  organizational structure of the report.
• Long section divided into several subsections.
• Select fonts to highlight key elements or to
  indicate different types of information.

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Design Your Pages Well

• Tables to be treated as a single figure, not to
  be split over a page break.
• White space on a page to keep readers alert and
  avoid a forbidding look in documents.
• Utilize the characteristics of the media wisely.

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Design Your Presentation Well

• Careful planning of presentation support
  materials like slides and transparencies to
  enhance and reinforce important concepts or
  elements of design choices.
• Using fonts that are large enough for the entire
  audience.
• Simple and direct slides to encourage readers to
  listen to the speaker without being distracted
  visually.

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Design Your Presentation Well

• Text on a slide to present succinct concepts that
  the presenter can amplify and describe in more
  detail.
• Slides not to show every relevant thought.
• Not to fill slides with so many words (or
  content).
• Audiences not to choose between reading the slide
  and listening to the speaker, but both.
• Filling slides with many words dilute the
  presenters message.

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Think Visually

• Designs often start as sketches, analyses often
  begin with free-body or circuit diagrams.
• Plans for realizing a design involve graphics
  such as objectives trees and work breakdown
  structures
• Judicious use of visual representation of
  information help designers and audience.
• Tables help concentrate on data.

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Think Visually

• Should not allow graphics capabilities to seduce
  design team into clouding the slides with
  artistic backgrounds that make the words
  illegible.
• Know the purpose and the audience, use the medium
  appropriately.

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Write Ethically

• Not to get tempted to present designs or other
  technical results in ways that only show what is
  favourable.
• Not to suppress unfavorable data or issues.
• Present and discuss facts fully and accurately
  even the worst favoured.
• Ethical presentations to describe honestly and
  directly the limitations of a design.

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Write Ethically

• Acknowledge the originator, authors and previous
  researchers.
• Mention your references.

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Oral Presentation

• Presentations may be made before the award of a
  contract to do the design work.
• Focusing on the teams ability to understand and
  do the job in the hope of winning the contract in
  a competitive procurement.
• During the project, call upon the team to present
  the understanding of the project.

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Oral Presentation

• Alternatives under consideration and the teams
  plan for selecting one, or simply the progress
  toward completing the project to be mentioned.
• The team to undertake a design review before a
  technical audience to assess the design, identify
  possible problems, and suggest alternate
  solutions or approaches.

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Oral Presentation

• Design teams to report on the overall project to
  the client and to other stakeholders and
  interested parties.
• Variety of presentations and briefings to make.
• May not be possible to examine each of them in
  detail.

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Key Elements for Oral Presentation

• Identify the audience.
• Outline the presentation.
• Develop appropriate supporting materials.
• Review and practice the presentation.

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Audience

• Many types of audiences from different streams
  and departments having individual different
  concerns.
• Most attendees interested in at least some aspect
  of a project.
• To identify such interests and other dimensions.
• To consider factors such as varying levels of
  interest, understanding, and technical skill, and
  the available time.

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Audience

• Design team to tailor the presentation to the
  required audience.
• Presentation to be properly organized and
  structured.
• To articulate a rough outline to have a clear
  structure.
• To formulate a detailed outline.
• To prepare proper supporting materials, such as
  visual aids or physical models.

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Presentation Outline

• Rough outline for a clear structure.
• Presentation structure and organization to be
  logical and understandable.
• Presentation to guide the preparation of
  supporting dialogue and discussion.
• Presentation to have a title, a roadmap, problem
  statement, material, objectives, constraints,
  functions, the design process involved and show
  prototypes if any.

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Sample Presentation Outline

• A title slide to identify the client(s), the
  project, and the design team/organization
  responsible for the work being presented and
  company logos.
• Roadmap for the presentation to show the audience
  the direction the presentation will take.
• Problem statement includes highlights of the
  revised problem statement.

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Sample Presentation Outline

• Background material on the problem, to include
  relevant prior work, references and other
  materials developed through team research.
• Key objectives of the client and users.
• Key design constraints.
• Design functions, and means for achieving those
  functions.

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Sample Presentation Outline

• Design alternatives including diagrams and
  descriptions.
• Highlights of the evaluation procedure and
  outcomes - key metrics or objectives.
• Selected design, explain why the design was
  chosen.
• Features of the design, highlighting its
  superiority.

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Sample Presentation Outline

• Proof-of-concept testing.
• Demonstration of the prototype, videos and still
  photos.
• Conclusion(s), any future work or design
  improvements.
• May exclude some of them depending on time
  constraints and the level of audience.
• Detailed outline after a rough outline.

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Presentation Outline

• Review the structure and details of the
  presentations, as well as detailed outline
  required by the reviews.
• Try to know the setting in which the presentation
  will be made including support and availability
  of required visual aids and devices, room
  settings, size and capacity, lighting, seating,
  and other factors.
• Bring backups.

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Tips on Visual Aids

• Limit the number of slides 1 to 2 slides per
  minute?
• Avoid rushing through the slides in the hope of
  finishing.
• Finish earlier to allow more time for
  interaction.
• Introduce yourself and your teammates on the
  title slide.
• A brief overall description of the project and
  acknowledgment of the client.

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Tips on Visual Aids

• Slides to highlight key points.
• Slides not a direct substitute for the reasoning
  of the final report.
• Speaker to expand upon the points in the slides.
• Points to be stated clearly, directly, and
  simply.
• Slides not to be too flashy or clever to avoid
  detraction from a presentation.

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Tips on Visual Aids

• Use color skillfully, avoid clashing colors in
  professional presentations.
• Some colors hard to read.
• Use animation appropriately, animated video
  informative but flying text not.
• Not to reproduce completed design tools.
• Highlight selected points of the outcomes.
• Refer the audience to a report for more detailed
  information.

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Tips on Visual Aids

• Size and distance of the audience to be
  considered if images of design drawings are being
  shown.
• Many line drawings hard to display and often
  harder still to see and interpret in large rooms.
• Not to read or quote the slides, audience may be
  doing that while hearing.
• Visual aids to reinforce the speaker, be simple.

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Practice Makes Perfection

• Practice, practice and practice your own part.
• Use words and phrases that are natural to the
  speaker.
• Speak to the audience in their language.
• Maintain a professional tone.
• Try to quote key points in several different ways
  as a means of identifying and adopting new speech
  patterns.

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Practice Sessions

• Practice sessions to be timed and done under
  conditions as close as possible to the actual
  environment.
• Setting the right pace, slides to be used if in
  actual presentation.
• Decide in advance how to handle and limit
  questions that may arise whether during or at
  the end of the talk.

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Preparing for Questions

• Generating a list of questions that might arise,
  and their answers.
• Preparing supporting materials for points that
  are likely to arise (e.g., backup slides that may
  include computer results, statistical charts, and
  other data that may be needed to answer
  anticipated questions).
• Preparing to say I dont know, or We didnt
  consider that. - very important.
• To be caught pretending to know undermines
  credibility and invites severe embarrassment.

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Choosing Speakers

• Depends on the nature of the presentation and the
  project.
• Choosing a speaking order depend on the
  circumstances surrounding presentation.
• A team may want to have all members speak.
• A team may want to encourage less experienced
  members to speak in order to gain experience and
  confidence.
• A team may want to tap its most skilled and
  confident members.

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Design Reviews

• A unique type of presentation, challenging and
  useful.
• Best opportunity to get undivided attention of
  professionals about the design project.
• A full and frank exploration of the design, to
  expose the implications of solving the design
  problem at hand or even of creating new ones.

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Design Reviews

• Team presents its design choices in detail to an
  audience of technical professionals who are there
  to assess the design, raise questions, and offer
  suggestions.
• A briefing by the team on the nature of the
  problem being addressed, followed by an extensive
  presentation of the proposed solution.

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Design Reviews

• For artifacts, an organized set of drawings or
  sketches allows the audience to understand and
  question the teams design choices.
• A challenge and an opportunity to the team, a
  chance to display technical knowledge and skills
  in constructive conflict.

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Design Reviews

• Questions and technical issues to be fully
  explored in a positive, frank environment.
• Team to resist natural defensiveness that comes
  from having a work questioned and challenged.
• Team may call upon the expertise of all
  participants to suggest new ways to frame the
  problem or even the design itself.
• Reviews can last several hours, or even a day or
  two.

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Design Reviews

• Team not to be tempted to move on quickly if the
  discussion suggests that a design must be changed
  in ways the team doesnt like.
• Team to resist the temptation to move on quickly
  if the team feels that participants have not
  really heard the teams point of view.

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Design Reviews

• Time management not to become a cover for hiding
  from criticism or belaboring points.
• Conflict in the realm of ideas is generally
  constructive, personality-oriented criticism is
  destructive.
• To continually maintain the reviews focus on the
  design, and not on the designers.

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Project Reports

• To communicate with the client.
• To ensure clients thoughtful acceptance of a
  teams design choice.
• Results in clear, understandable language.
• Highly detailed or technical materials may be
  placed at the end of the report for better
  clarity.
• May move technical and other supporting materials
  to separate volumes.

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Project Reports

• Best managed and controlled using a structured
  approach.
• Steps include
• - determining the purpose and audience of the
  technical report.
• - constructing a rough outline of the overall
  structure of the report.
• - reviewing the outline within the team and
  with the teams managers.

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Project Reports

• - constructing a topic sentence outline
• (TSO).
• - reviewing the outline within the team.
• - distributing individual writing assignments.
• - assembling, writing, and editing an initial
• draft.
• - soliciting reviews of initial draft from the
• managers and advisors.

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Topic Sentence Outline

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Project Reports

• - revising and rewriting initial draft to
• respond to the reviews.
• - preparing final version of the report.
• - presenting the final version to the client.
• A structure helps to learn how to create an
  organized report of the design results.

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Rough Outline of a Project Report
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Reference

• Clive L Dim, Patrick Little and Elizabeth J
  Orwin, Engineering Design, A Project Based
  Introduction, 4th Edition, Wiley, U.S.A, 2014.

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