Almost done with analysis

Well this week we finished analysis - so over to the design. Design is more my turf, as coding is probably my strongest point. I expected that the transition wouldn't be a stark one (recalling Peter's mentioning that a few times during the week 1 or 2 lecture) – and we saw what that in the last few phases of analysis.

• Developing an RFP


• Deciding on whether to go ahead via various feasibilities


• Representing general, technical and functional requirements


• The develop vs. outsource decision

In a nutshell, that was pretty much what the lecture was about. Unfortunately there isn’t a whole lot to reflect about there, because it was just a whole bunch of information – describing routines and standard ways to do things. Basically stuff like what is the format of a particular type of report. Honestly, I will never learn things like that during the lecture – it is more of a read-through-on-your-own-while-doing-the-relevant-part-of-an-assignment thing.

However, there was an interesting spinoff form the topics. Upon completing analysis, the analysts are expected not only to produce a written report - much like an extended version of our report; but also to give an oral presentation to the big-wigs of the client company who control the project and whom to give it to. This discussion obviously spins off into how to give a presentation; which in turns spins off into PowerPoint good vs. PowerPoint bad. I’ve read up on the debate (Tufte vs Norman).

While Tufte does make some seemingly valid points, I find myself agreeing with Norman’s criticisms of Tufte’s points. An old proverb comes to mind here: “only a poor workman blames his tools.”

Summarily: If you suck at giving presentations, don’t blame PowerPoint, blame yourself for putting together the lousy slides, or blame yourself for reading off your lousy slides.

I find that this problem is more prevalent than a lot of us at uni like to admit – it is just so extremely common for lecturers to read off slides in uni. If I may, I’ll advertise here what I think is the antithesis to the common evils we see in presentation styles. It is the Lessig method of presentation. I first saw it used at a Google Tech Talk held in uni first semester last year. Coincidentally I skipped a lecture where the lecturer habitually read off slides in order to attend that talk.

Anyhow, this technique uses just limit the number of words from one to about five per slide. Yes that is right, words, not sentences, not lines, words. And you might not believe it till you actually sit in on such a presentation yourself – the less words there are on each slide, the easier it actually is to follow a presentation.

I remember in fit1003 last year, at the end of the semester, my group presented using the Lessig method, and it got rave reviews (partly of course, due to the novelty factor). Definitely worth exploring.