Leadership Team Review: Final Design Presentation

Purpose:

1. Present your current system-level design, the decisions that have been made and those that still need to be made. Focus on recent decisions or those that have not been presented in detail in previous presentations.
2. Justify key design decisions based on safety, value, reliability, manufacturability, mock-ups, prototype tests, design analysis and other considerations (see decision checklist), Strive to demonstrate why your design is a “good design”, and not just one that "should work" and that the team used good design process, made use of appropriate tools, and reached a good decision.
3. Get feedback (and approval) for the major decisions, especially those that result in a major purchase.
4. Review your progress with respect to your planned schedule and present an updated prioritized schedule, focusing on one or more future milestones and laying out a critical path and describing how the team is apportioning time and resources to meet the deadline.
5. Review the predicted cost of the final production model (likely to be very preliminary, but include whatever meaningful info you have and whether or not you have concerns about meeting your target cost).

Reminders:

1. Make sure you set the context before getting into details. Good system-level images of the concepts are important, including users in operating position(s).
2. Show how the decisions support the specifications.
3. Do not depend heavily on "relative justification" (this idea is better than our preliminary design idea), your job is to convince the reviewers that on an absolute scale the current design embodiment is "good"
4. Specifics are good, generalities are bad/useless
5. You don’t have to explain everything your group has done, focus on key items the reviewers are likely to care about or have questions about
6. Pareto charts and other prioritization tools are useful for justifying how you spent your time and resources up to this point and how you plan to spend them in the future
7. The presenter is the spokesperson for the group. All questions should be directed to the presenter and initially responded to by the presenter. The presenter should repeat the question and make sure it is understood before attempting to answer or to defer it to another team member. The presenter may respectfully decline to answer any questions that appear off topic or inappropriate.
8. The presenter is required to review the presentation with one of the instructors, early enough so there is time to make any necessary changes.

Presentation Details

1. 1 presenter from each team. The entire team should contribute to the preparation and review of the presentation
2. Each presentation should be 9 -12 minutes, with ~15 minutes for feedback, discussion, and questions. There will be a short time for team discussion after the presentation, and each team will hen make one comment on a positive aspect of what was presented, and should ask one question concerning the project. There should be a different team spokesperson for each presentation.
3. Consider the purpose and target audience (Internal technical managers who are trying to help you make good project decisions and who must decide whether or not to allocate funds to support your proposed decisions)
4. Business casual dress is appropriate

Presentation schedule: See Calendar

Assessment Checklist

Notes

1. Quality of Work / Content of presentation o Overall quality of the system-level design in the team's focus areas - It appears to be a "good" solution to the problem § All design specifications are met o Justification for key design decisions is clear and correct. § Prominently features info from mock-ups, key design analysis, and numerous other design considerations. o Schedule, critical path and plan of action, preliminary budget, and other project planning details are prepared correctly with enough detail to be useful § Actions are prioritized & possible roadblocks are clearly identified 2. Quality of presentation and ability to participate in technical discussions. Clear communication of ideas/information · Good Organization and Structure (Arrangement and presentation of the information enhances understanding of the whole and the parts) · Style & pace make the presentation understandable to the target audience · Speaks to the audience (not the screen) with appropriate volume and clarity · Adequate time given to all key points (well rehearsed) Appropriate content · The material selected for presentation is appropriate for a leadership team review at this stage of the project · The level of detail is appropriate o Enough specific information to be understandable, but as concise and focused on key points as possible Visual aids are effective and used appropriately o Pareto charts, critical path charts, budget tables, system views, detailed views of design features, specification checkoff charts, and other visual means of presenting information are used as appropriate o Colors (including background), font sizes, line styles, and all other features of the visual aids are selected to make the visuals easy for the entire audience to see o Arrows, text annotations, and other methods of highlighting or directing attention are used Speaker exhibits professionalism in dress and behavior o Responds to questions in a professional manner o Repeats the question and asks clarifying questions if necessary Takes a non-defensive attitude o Provides a correct answer or defers the question to another team member

 Levels: 0 Unacceptable/Insufficient (0)  2 Adequate (~.75-.89)
 1 Needs Improvement (~.6-.74) 3 Excellent/Meets All Expectations (~.9-1.0)