Proposals and Oral Presentations
Created by Bing C. Wang
Modified by John A. Chandy
Engineering Design
Introduction
• Communication is key to
– Manage your project
– Getting your project funded
– Sell the merits of your project
• Communication skills required
– Oral presentations
– Written proposals
Engineering Design
Outline
• Oral Presentation
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Know your audience
Organization and Focus
Presentation Style
Time Management
• Proposals
– Know your audience
– Proposal requirements
– Proposal structure
Engineering Design
Oral Presentation: Know your audience
• Clearly identify the audience’s depth of
knowledge
– Do not derive semiconductor physics to investment
bankers
– Do show fundamental understanding of engineering to
whoever is giving the grades !
• Clearly identify the audience’s interests
– Investment Bankers want to make $$$$
– Your professors want to make sure you understand
engineering
– Everyone likes to be entertained!
Engineering Design
Know your audience
• Do research on your audience.
• What does the audience want to hear??
• Venture Capitalists?
– How you’re going to make them money
• Naval Research Managers?
– How you’re going to improve their ships’ capability to
communicate
Engineering Design
Outline
• Oral Presentation
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Know your audience
Organization and Focus
Presentation Style
Have fun! Enthusiasm is contagious
• Proposals
– Know your audience
– Proposal requirements
– Proposal structure
Engineering Design
FOCUS
• What is the point? Why am I
here?
– oral presentations
• For long talk, can lose audience
easy
– Avoid lengthy equations
• Unavoidable in most ECE
lectures
– A picture is worth a thousand
words
– NOT, a picture with a thousand
words
Too Many Details for
most talks
Engineering Design
Focus
• Remind audience of
important points.
• Detailed Technical figures
may be unavoidable in
engineering presentations
• If detailed picture is
absolutely necessary,
emphasize important
details visually
Conditions
Important!
T=25C
Engineering Design
Organization: Provide outline of talk
• Oral Presentation
–
–
–
–
Know your audience
Organization and Focus
Presentation Style
Time Management
• Proposals
– Know your audience
– Proposal requirements
– Proposal structure
Engineering Design
Organization
• Easy for audience to lose
big picture
• Get lost in details
• Useful tip: redisplay the
talk outline for each
topic
• Highlight present topic
• Remind audience the
organization of the talk
Engineering Design
Organization: Basic Structure
• Start with Introduction
– Motivations
– Why is this interesting
• Provide outline of the talk
– Can be redisplayed to show topic progression
• Background material as needed
• Your new ideas
– New and better ways to do …….ship2ship communications, make
$$$$, lose weight, etc
• Defend your ideas
– Examples are helpful
• Conclusion
Engineering Design
Organization
• Powerpoint Rules
– Keep it simple
• Cut clutter
• At the most two font families
• No more than one or two charts or figures per slide
– 666 rule
• 6 words per bullet
• 6 bullets per page
• 6 word slides in a row
– Be consistent
Engineering Design
Organization
• Powerpoint Sins (Joseph Sommerville,
http://entrepreneurs.about.com/cs/marketing/a/7sinsofppt.htm)
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Slide Transitions and Sound Effects
Standard clipart
Presentation templates
Text-Heavy slides
Text and images are too small
Reading the slides
Faith in technology
Engineering Design
Outline
• Oral Presentation
–
–
–
–
Know your audience
Organization and Focus
Presentation Style
Time Management
• Proposals
– Know your audience
– Proposal requirements
– Proposal structure
Engineering Design
Talk to the audience
• Obtain and maintain interest
– Make eye contact with people in different parts of the
room
– Use examples
– “We will build an optical communication network
using dense wavelength division multiplexing with
polarization division multiplexing to transmit Terabit
bandwidth telecommunication signals” BORING!
– “Doesn’t it drive you nuts when it takes you 20 minutes
to download the DOOM3 trial version?”
– “We will build a network that will download it in 10
seconds using optical fiber!”
Engineering Design
Dress Code
• Depends on the setting
• Conferences can range from shorts/t-shirts to suits
– Find out ahead of time what the prevailing dress code is
– Always err to the more conservative
– At a minimum - dress slacks and dress shirt
• Proposals
– Usually suits - at a minimum blazer with tie
Engineering Design
Humor
• Be appropriate!
• Invited talks, lectures, okay to use some
jokes.
• People are more awake if they’re laughing
• Proposal talks, i.e. asking for money in a
competitive bid, be more serious.
• Humor maybe misconstrued as not taking
the task seriously
Engineering Design
Outline
• Oral Presentation
–
–
–
–
Know your audience
Organization and Focus
Presentation Style
Time Management
• Proposals
– Know your audience
– Proposal requirements
– Proposal structure
Engineering Design
Time Management
• First rule of presentations
– KNOW HOW MUCH TIME YOU HAVE!!!
– Nothing irritates an audience more than a presentation
that runs long - especially if its boring
• Keep a watch or clock easily visible
• Know ahead of time which slides you can skip if
you are running long
– Skip implementation details
– Show results - that’s what impresses people
• Good rule of thumb - 1 to 2 minutes per slide
Engineering Design
Time Management
• Best way to judge time is to practice ahead of time
• Do a run through as a team and with your advisor
• Practice as if you were doing the actual
presentation
– You can catch places where you may not be expressing
the material clearly enough
– Use the notes feature to help you
• Practice enough times so that it is natural
– You should be able to know what the next slide is so
you can transition naturally
Engineering Design
Outline
• Oral Presentation
–
–
–
–
Know your audience
Organization and Focus
Presentation Style
Time Management
• Proposals
– Know your audience
– Proposal requirements
– Proposal structure
Engineering Design
Proposal: know your audience
• Research projects
– Proposals to government agencies are all peer reviewed.
• National Science Foundation funds 10-15% of submitted proposal
• Other external proposals also undergo competitive reviews by panels
or individuals
• Judged on strength of ideas, quality of writing, ability to deliver, and
team’s prior record
– Interested in advancement of science and/or engineering
– Need to convince agency your ideas advance science/engineering
– If there is a specific question, ANSWER IT!
• $$$ for ways to improve spectral efficiency of optical comm, etc
• So answer HOW you’re going to do that.
Engineering Design
Proposal: know your audience
• High Tech Start-ups
– Proposals to Venture Capital firms are reviewed by
firm’s partners
• Most venture capital firms fund <1% of proposal
• VC firm may hire experts or consultants for due diligence
• Judge on strength of team members, market appetite for the
ideas, and quality of ideas
– Interested in making money.
• What are the chances of this company going public? How
soon?
• What are the chances that a large corporation will buy this
company?
– Need to convince VC that the idea will make money
Engineering Design
Proposal: know your audience
• Internal project proposals
– Proposals will be reviewed by various levels of
management
• Management may or may not be technical
• Final project proposal may need sign off from different
divisions of the company including sales, marketing, support,
manufacturing, etc.
– Proposal needs to make a business case
• Does new project/product align with current business?
• Do the projected revenues justify the associated costs of
project development?
• Are there available resources within the company to complete
the project? - money, people, equipment, etc.
• If pure research, how does it advance the long-term goals of
company?
Engineering Design
Outline
• Oral Presentation
–
–
–
–
Know your audience
Organization and Focus
Presentation Style
Time Management
• Proposals
– Know your audience
– Proposal requirements
– Proposal structure
Engineering Design
Proposal Requirements
• Some proposals have multiple stages
– First cut: white paper, or pre-proposal
– Second cut: proposal
– Third cut: on-site presentation
• Page requirement is indication of how much the funding
manager wants to read!! If agency require 5 pages, and
you write 50 pages. Yours will be read last….if at all!
• Proposals require resumes of applicants
– Often not necessary for white papers
• You address very specific questions.
Engineering Design
Proposal Requirements
• Only in school will you get a letter grade, A, B, C,
D, F, on your proposal
• Everywhere else, it’s $$$$ or no $$$$
• School grades you on basic metrics, i.e.
organization, ideas, preparation, results
• Everywhere else, it’s competitive bidding. There
are no B+ or A-. You just won’t get a dime.
Engineering Design
Outline
• Oral Presentation
–
–
–
–
Know your audience
Organization and Focus
Presentation Style
Time Management
• Proposals
– Know your audience
– Proposal requirements
– Proposal structure
Engineering Design
Basic Outline
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Title
Summary
Background
Solution [technical proposal]
Project phases, timing, milestones
Budget
Information about personnel and collaborators
Engineering Design
Introductory Elements
• Attractive but meaningful title [title page typically
includes agency to which proposal is submitted;
contact point]
• Summary [clear statement of what is proposed]
• Background [statement of the problem to be
solved including importance].
Engineering Design
Technical Proposal
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Body of the proposal
Theory [clearly explain relevant theory]
Approach [clearly state your solution]
Preliminary experimental results
– Very helpful!
Engineering Design
Project Plan
• Phases
• Timing
• Milestones [what are the key intermediate
accomplishments]
• Graphical presentation works well here.
• Break down the work into modules. Look for a logical
organization. What tasks must be completed before
subsequent phases can be undertaken? Which tasks can be
done in parallel?
Engineering Design
Budget
• If you can, try to find out what the funding agency is
willing to spend
• Typically, funding agencies have detailed instructions on
Budget
• Should be reasonable for what you propose to do
• Typical categories
- Salaries [include indirect costs]
- Equipment
- Supplies
- Travel
- Administrative
- Overhead [40-60% universities, >100% companies]
Engineering Design
Conclusion
• Oral presentations;
– know your audience,
– organize and focus, and
– talk to your audience.
• Proposals for funding
- Know the funding agency government or commercial
interest?
- Present you case clearly and concisely
- Answer the question
- competitive process
Engineering Design
Proposal Presentation Schedule
• October 7:
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Team 193 Sikorsky "Wireless Instrumentation" - Bonner, Grogan, Rusch, Vold
Team 194 CT Corsair - Bertrand, Mosch, Sweat, Tartaglino
Team 176 Physical Inspection Technique - Guerrera, Nesbit, Stevens
Team 177 Virtual Lab - DiFederico, Tobey, Ward
• October 9:
– Team 175 Command and Control of UAV - DeJarnette, Sullivan, Zhang
– Team 184 Coordinated Command and Control of UUV - Domrese, Khare,
Maddocks
– Team 195 Autonomous Control of Vehicles - Henry, Wilson, Wood
– Team 185 Underwater Acoustic Communications Security - Grate, Gilbert,
King, Samir
– Team 182 Lenze - Aldrich, Huang, Norman, Trombetta
– Team 186 Hardware-in-the-loop Testbed - Eaddy, Gobin, Pence
– Team 187 Hybrid GoKart - Blake, Calkins, Ojha
Engineering Design
Proposal Presentation Schedule
– October 14:
• Team 178 UTC Carrier - Heng, Leask, Qeriqi, Raghunathan
• Team 191 iDevices - Dinh, Garrard, Guster, Rizvi
• Team 188 Miniature Near IR Imaging System - Capuano, Dhanakaran, McMenemy,
Miller
– October 16:
• Team 180 Koffee Karousel - Adamson, Barnett, Duffy, Okafor
• Team 192 Sikorsky "Stand Alone Flight Display System" - Radlbeck, Cai,
Hammerman, Wan
• Team 179 Phonon - Crespo, Rowe, Trapp, Ulatowski
• Team 181 Trans-Tek - Meyer, Soto, Williams, Wolff
• Team 183 Qualtech - Farley, Felekey, McLean, Zaborowski
• Team 189 Integrated Thermo-electric Photovoltaic - Wang, Weiss,
Xenophontos
• Team 190 Linear Induction Machine - Hackney, Rarey, Yela
Engineering Design