Simple Steps for Project Delivery

Delivering a project presentation can be a daunting task, but there are ways to make the task less painful. The overall outcome of the project will often depend on how the preparation was executed. In the case of the project presentation, the delivering audience will be at multiple levels of experience. The content must be catered to a non-technical group while still remaining relevant (not boring) to the technical group that is there. Acknowledging this is important when curating the overall information to be presented to the audience. Typically aiming for a middle ground ensures that the majority of the audience is addressed, and will introduce an engagement factor that might be otherwise missed. In the word of Roy Tennant,

"Knowing to whom you are speaking is of the utmost importance. But this goes double for teaching technical topics. If you assume too much about your audience or select the wrong technical level to address, the results can be disastrous. You can actually leave your audience not only just as ignorant about your topic as when you started, but also much less likely to ever attempt learning the topic again. Once burned, twice shy." 

Allowing the presentation to move according to steps or blocks will allow one to ensure that the content is covered in a manor that will make sense to the audience, but more importantly allows one to present the content without getting lost in the details. Once the larger blocks of information are selected, its important to break down the large blocks into smaller points of information. For example on of the first blocks to consider is; an introduction of the individuals whom worked on the project, the title of the project, and for whom the project was done for.  Following this, presenting the core content and achievements of the project would be moving too quickly for the audience. Rather at this conjunction it would be in the presenters favor to show the audience the issues and why the team was contacted in the first place. After the presentation of the problems at hand, there can be a smooth detour into the presentation of the solution. 

Through out the presentation to remain engaged with the audience its highly advised to have an projector that can show images that one can reference to. Doing so allows one to guide the audience in the form of thinking the that project team had. It's important to remember that the client's information should be obscured when showing images. In the best case fake input to the images should be used to prevent a breach of nondisclosure. An example of this can be seen below from Apple's documentation on identifying product registration, note the presentation of the content, however at the same time obscuring the information presented.

By following the steps above, and practicing the presentation before hand. One can be assured that they will preform well during the critical moments before the client is allowed to select if the project continues. Just recall; organization into blocks of information, be genuine to the audience, insure that you are being engaging through out the project. Keeping all these in mind will make the whole ordeal less stressful.

Reference: 

 In-App Purchase Product Identifiers. (2015, November 10). Retrieved November 23, 2015, from https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/qa/qa1329/_index.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/DTS40009463 

 Tennent, R. (n.d.). Technology in Libraries: Essays in Honor of Anne Grodzins Lipow. Retrieved November 23, 2015, from http://techinlibraries.com/tennant.pdf 

There are never ending lists of qulaitfication thats employeeers are looking for, however today we will be looking at 10 qualities to make someone competitive in the job market. 

If we break down the qualities into technical skills and non-technical skills there is slight overlap between them, and there should be. The compounding effects of skills can be used to ones benefit to master a particular technique. "Soft Skills also represent of the fundamental attributes that the new knowledge-based economy seems to be demanding of the employers, employees, and organizations" Nitin Bhatnagar.

 A good amount of time will be spent working with others, from collaboration on projects, to delegating tasks, being able to communicate effectively will ensure that the return from the time spent on the tasks will be well worth the investment. However when one is speaking with another, its critical to be able to empathise with others, by placing oneself in someone else's shoes it allows you to not only see their perspective on things, but it also allows a more genuine connection with the person one is communicating with. Maintaining these relationships over the years of your employment will only be of benefit as ones network expands.  

Time Management is a critical soft skill to have, it places it's self high on my list because the range of tasks that it covers. It can be used in both non-technical, and technical tasks. Enabling oneself to balance both the work tasks and life tasks, ensures resilience to becoming burned out. A good time management tool that I've used and shared is OmniFocus. Omnifocus allows one to organize tasks to be completed so that one never has too look for work to do, the next required task is already present. 

If you wanted to learn more about using OmniFocus here is a great overview by David Sparks, https://inside.omnifocus.com/david-sparks

Technical Literacy important for a technical job, but its also useful in non-technical fields because it promotes a method of thinking that builds on itself, and encourages someone to be able to understand how they should be attempting to locate answers for the questions they have. Asking co-workers how to complete a task might be the easiest, but sometimes it wont be the most convenient for either party. Technical literacy breaks us into one of the best skills to attempt to develop, which is critical thinking. This is a skill that will take several years to develop, however its the gift that keeps on giving. Critical thinking, when tied to the other skills up here, allows one to have this hawk-eye view of what is going on, and why certain things are being completed as they are. All the other skills mentioned before provide more skills to become a better critical thinker, which in the end becomes one of the most desired skills to have.

 Regarding technical skills that are important to have, one of the most is to be comfortable in the various crosses of platforms and ecosystems. This enables one to work on a variety of systems without having to worry about running into issues of not being able to understand how tasks should be completed. A very large target to hit when going into the technical employment is a basic understanding of Linux/Unix systems, a skill that I often see missing in most classmates, this is important because a very wide variety of electronics use Linux as their operating system, and not knowing this can come back to bite someone. A good way to learn these systems is taking online classes at a local community college, within a year these skills can be developed, and will allow one to work on a good majority of platforms.

When someone asks me to do a task, i frequently think if there was a way to automate the task so i dont have to spend so much time and energy  on it. Knowing a scripting language is important to automation of simple tasks, but it also allows one to think of way to make their usage of time more effective, and plus if you're like me, doing repetitive tasks is not a good use of time. If one takes up learning Linux/Unix, a good branch from there would be learning Bash scripting. 

An ability to use emails effectively is often overlooked. However emails remains to be an industry standard in communication. Being able to organize, sort, flag, prioritize emails in the beginning of your job ensures that one does not end up with a big pile of mail, with no hope to cleaning it call. Having a good communication soft skill allows one to be very effective in what is communicated, consider working on them together. 

Data Security is something that's often over looked, but if compromised there are many negative impacts that can ripple through out the user base and company. In order to protect both the clients but also the company, one should be familiar with ways to prevent data breach, some examples would be; use of password managers, being able to identify phishing emails, understanding and implementing protections to user data, and limitations of employee access to data. 

Lastly would be Data Analysis, the ability to extract important information in the ocean of data is critical. What often is overlooked is the ability to take the information, extract the useful aspects of it, then translate the data into objectives that can be used. This can often be a difficult skill to have because of the overshadowing soft skills that are also required. However this makes the skill that much more marketable once achieved.

It's important to remember that often these goals are being worked on over a longer period of time. There is no way to get the skill down instantly, that would remove from the refining process of becoming skilled in something.

Reference:

 (n.d.). Retrieved November 9, 2015, from http://www.genreceng.co.za/pics/skills-development2.jpg

 

 Bhatnagar, N., & Bhatnagar, M. (n.d.). Effective Communication and Soft Skills (p. 448).