Presentation
Presentations in software engineering
- Important in every project phase
- Marketing to potential clients
- Reporting progress to senior management
- Reports and demonstrations to clients
- Communication with colleagues on dev team
- Important for career growth
- Unlikely to achieve leadership position if you cannot give decent presentations
- Not everyone is born a great presenter, but everybody can be well-prepared
- If you are uncomfortable, take every opportunity to gain experience
Presentations in CSC402
- Two required presentations:
- Midpoint Progress update
- Final delivery
- Every team member must present a portion of one presentation
- Less experienced presenters will be more comfortable presenting things they personally worked on
- Audience: your classmates and potentially clients (if they are available)
- May not be technical (internal projects: client is manager, not developer)
- Course staff will evaluate and provide feedback on presentation contents and technique
Planning for presentations
- Know your purpose, audience, and resources
- What is the presentation meant to achieve?
- Confirm understanding?
- Obtain client approval?
- Propose new feature?
- Solicit feedback on prototype?
- Build excitement/buy-in?
- Request assistance?
- Report progress?
- Train users?
- Who must attend the presentation for it to achieve its purpose?
- Prospective clients?
- Project management?
- System users?
- Other developers?
- How is your presentation constrained?
- Time available
- Projector/screen sharing?
- Internet access?
Time management
- CS402: 25 min for presentation, 10 min for questions
- Expect interruptions (presentation must serve the audience; is not an end in itself)
- Have an agenda that fulfils the presentation’s purpose
- Rehearse your presentation on the clock!
Remote presentations
- Good audio is essential
- Make a practice recording with all presenters in their anticipated locations/positions
- Good video needs good lighting
- Client must be able to see all demonstrations and visual aids
- Screen share
- Whiteboard/annotations
- Auxiliary camera
- Beware multiple computers in one room
- In-person presentations preferred (but rooms are hard to book)
Topics
- Topics on agenda should serve purpose of meeting
- Description of what you have agreed to deliver to your client (shared definition of success)
- Summary of progress since last presentation/report
- Unexpected events and risks
- Overview of remaining plan to complete and deliver project
- Test plan and test cases
- Results of user testing
- Technical hurdles (if client is technical)
- Demonstrations are always welcome
- Show mock-ups / demonstrations / prototypes before talking about them
CSC402 Topics
- Early-stage topics
- Confirm agreement on scope and goals “The project will be a success if …”
- Progress to date “This is our understanding of your requirements…”
- Mock-ups, prototypes, designs, etc.
- Schedule and plan “The main risks are…”
- What has changed since feasibility study?
- Mid-stage topics
- Demonstration of operational prototype or delivered features
- Results of user studies
Visual Aids
- Slides
- Common, but not required (and can be a liability)
- Keep things simple (purpose is conveying information, not entertainment)
- Must be legible
- Audience may have poor eyesight, projectors are lower resolution, screens are farther away
- Large fonts (including in figures!) – 20pt minimum
- Dark text on light background
- Use to facilitate presentation, not as a reference source
- Slides are not controlled documents. Lack version control, hyperlinking
- Handouts
- Can accommodate more simultaneous detail than a slide
- Beware potential for distraction
- Distribute handouts ahead of time, or after meeting, or else be explicit about when they should be referenced
Preparations
- Must have a rehearsal
- Include all demos and visual aids; don’t skip anything
- Use same laptops as you plan to use later
- Any unrehearsed changes are a risk – minimize them
- Time each section
- Plan presenter coordination
- Option 1: Moderator calls on each presenter
- Option 2: Each presenter introduces the next
- Test equipment in location if possible
- Projector connection, network connection, power availability
Presentation behavior
- Presenter (1) should stand; others should sit
- Appoint a recorder
- Briefly introduce each team member
- When asked a question,
- If presenter knows answer, answer it
- Presenter may ask another team member to respond
- Okay to make note and reply later
- Never interrupt your colleagues
- If you have information to add, raise your hand, allow presenter to decide if/when to call on you
Demonstrations
- Require preparation and practice to be successful
- Technical preparations:
- Load and configure all software before presentation. Test it, then change nothing
- If you need test data or accounts, create them in advance
- If complex commands must be typed, create a cheat sheet or shell script. Ensure they work verbatim
- Prepare a script
- Include setup, list of examples, task assignments, and cleanup
- Tell audience what they are seeing
- Production-ready code? Mock-up? Proof-of-concept?
Presentation tips
- Not a lecture!
- Also not an advertisement
- You are not the audience
- Try to imagine the client’s perspective
- Not an end in itself
- Be able to articulate its purpose
- Not a controlled document
- Should not serve as primary documentation
- Not about showing off
- Don’t mislead audience or overpromise
- Explain purpose of topics, figures
- Why should the audience pay attention to this?
Looking ahead: CSC402 final presentation
- Goals
- Personal & team satisfaction from handing over good work to client
- Complete course in good style with good grade
- Clean handover without loose ends
- A good basis for future involvement with client, team, or project
- Audience interests
- Client: has invested effort in this project
- Is it ready for production?
- Should they invest more to deploy/maintain it?
- Should this approach be abandoned?
- What has been accomplished?
- What has been learned?
- Is the client satisfied?
- Are you handing over a maintainable system?
Final presentation components
- Demonstration of operational system
- Walk through scenario
- Be honest about gaps, weaknesses
- Presentation
- Brief review of context, goals
- Honest summary of achievements and misses
- Summary of what is being delivered
- Time for discussion
- Must fit within 45 min
- Cannot walk through everything