Technical Report Writing

Communication is one of a problem solver's core competencies. NASA has put together a guide for its staff on writing technical reports and it's out there for free on the internet. While it can be of help in documenting your work, it is helpful in other ways.

Chapter 1, Stages of Report Preparation, could also be though of as a high-level overview of stages of problem solving.

1. Gathering of data,
2. analyzing to extract information,
   
3. outlining to highlight missing information,
4. writing to build knowledge, and
5. revision to perfect communication and knowledge transfer

When faced with a problem. Don't just jump in aimlessly, gather your data, analyze it to diagnose the problem better, outline possible solutions. Write (or implement) a solution and finally, revise the solution to perfect it and address any oversights or limitations.

Creation, Consumption, and Communication

We engage in three basic types of activities: Creation of new ideas, consumption of existing ideas, and communication, either of existing ideas or our own new ideas. Each of these has importance and there must be a balance among the three.

I've posted about Isolation and Creativity before and there's a new book (and free e-book) about the need to focus in order to be productive. I've not worked my way through it (lack of focus I suppose) but it looks like the author will present various tools and techniques for eliminating distractions and the Data Smog that assaults us all the time.

I've also posted about consumption (or learning). One should spend time being exposed to new ideas, getting inspiration from others. Consumption shouldn't just be of the things we like or that agree with our mind-set but should expand our ideas. Not that we blindly accept everything that comes our way, but that we are able to see things from another perspective. Nothing is more dangerous than someone who is certain they are correct. Doesn't matter where. As Nassim Taleb points out in the Black Swan, Experts are people who don't know what they don't know.

And finally communication. Check the tag cloud for posts about that topic.

There must be a balance of all three. We will be strong in one of these areas. You must cultivate your skills in the other areas. While being able to switch from one to another is important, don't get into the situation which the author of Focus describes where you flutter from one to another so quickly that you cannot build up any momentum.

These three areas are a stool that your problem solving skills sit upon. Make sure each leg is strong and capable of supporting the weight of the problems you must address.

Unscientific America - Thoughts about communication

In their book, Unscientific America: How scientific illiteracy threatens our future, Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum make the point that it is not so much that Americans are not knowledgeable about science but that there is a lack of communication between scientists and the general public. The book examines many of the reasons for this but in reading the book, it brought to mind the "Curse of Knowledge" from Made to Stick.

As scientists and engineers, we address all sides of a problem, considering the advantages and disadvantages and weighing their relative merits. This is vital, but once a decision has been made, one should consider simplifying things in order to more effectively communicate. To what extent one simplifies depends on the audience. In Chapter 5, Mooney and Kirshenbaum write about Preston Manning who distinguishes between "source-oriented communicators" and "receiver-oriented communicators". Don't communicate from your perspective but "think about the audience and how to reach it". Are you talking to other engineers, to engineering managers, to business leaders, to the general public? Each of these audiences will need a different presentation tailored to their perspective.

There is a difference between transmitting information and communication information.

Chartjunk or Communication?

EagerEyes recently posted about a study investigation the memorability of graphics and data. That brings to mind my earlier thoughts about communication. You may have the best data in the world but if it's not communicated well, then you've missed the target. I suppose which path you take depends on your audience.

When you're presenting to an audience of a similar backround or perhaps more knowledgeable about that data than yourself, minimize chartjunk and seek to present the data in as unbiased a manner as possible.

When you're the expert and are seeking to communicate the results of your interpretation, resist the "curse of knowledge" and incorporate some of the suggestions from Made to Stick to increase the memorability of the results and analysis. A perfect data presentation following Tufte's guidance may not be the optimal solution.

Getting your solution to Stick

In their book "Made to Stick" Chip and Dan Heath make the following statement (slightly edited) in the Epilogue.

"[Problem solving] has two stages: the Answer stage and the Telling Others stage. In the Answer stage, you use your expertise to arrive at the [solution] you want to share. [...]
Here's the rub: The same factors that worked to your advantage in the Answer stage will backfire on you during the Telling Others stage"

After solving a problem, we know a lot about it. The problem is, the people who we are communicating the solution to, don't know nearly as much. This is where the "Curse of Knowledge" comes in. What we already know, we have to get across to others. The problem is that what we think is important may not matter unless you can get others to buy in to your solution. The book provides the recipe for SUCCESs.

www.madetostick.com is their website.

Multi-tasking, Learning and Phone Conferences

My company is getting more distributed. Workers on a project (problem) located at opposite ends of the country and even overseas. For that reason, we are having increasingly frequent phone conferences. They're great for touching base frequently without having to hop on a plane but I have some doubts about how effective these meetings really are.

My earlier post about multi-tasking cites evidence that multi-tasking is a misnomer and yet these phone conferences are a invitation to do so. One ear on the phone, sending an e-mail and perhaps even in IM or working on a document is probably pretty standard behavior for participants in a phone conference. Frequently someone is asked a question and their response is "Pardon, please repeat the question." Their attention was elsewhere.

In the chapter 9 of his book Brain Rules, John Medina reviews studies which show that optimal learning is when multiple senses are involved . In phone conferences, we only have one of our senses involved. When you're in a meeting, you're learning, unless of course you are doing all the talking. You're learning what others know, what you have to work on, what they're working on.

The phone conference is a less than ideal learning situation. I wonder if there are any studies on the efficiency of face-to-face meetings versus phone only and phone and visuals. I wonder where the break-even point is for the travel costs versus the wasted time in the meetings.

Some suggestions for your next phone conference.

• Send an agenda out beforehand so everyone is prepared to learn about the topics.
• Use some sort of desktop sharing program so everyone is seeing the same information.
• Send out minutes along with any visuals after the meeting is over so everyone can review the outcomes. (Another chance to learn what was discussed).
  
• If you're a participant. Pay attention. It may seem like you're more productive when sending IMs, EMs, but every time you ask for something to be repeated you're wasting x number of other people's time.

Modern technology has made many things more efficient, but our brains are still "primitive". We learn best by incorporating multiple senses and reviewing the information multiple times.

Distractions

Over time, the communications and information streams that we are exposed to have gotten more and more complex. This interferes with problem solving. Here is some recent research by a group at Stanford which demonstrates that multi-taskers are actually less capable multi-taskers than those who don't multi-task.

I've read about people who have figured out through data visualization techniques when most of their e-mails arrive. They then set aside a few times each day when the address e-mails. I only get 10s of e-mails a day. I can't imagine someone who may receive hundreds. They must develop an efficient system to wade through this smog.

If you cannot focus on the problem seriously, you will have trouble finding effective solutions. While there may be a time to get exposed to new ideas, and stimulate your creative problem solving, it is not in the midst of a problem.

Quantifying Uncertainty

Scientists and engineers are familiar with quantifying uncertainty in situations where we have data and measurements available. If we know the measurement standard deviation and the number of measurements we made, we can calculate a confidence interval in which the true answer lies.

Things are more complicated when we are asked to make a judgment call. For example, what if you are asked when you will get a report finished. You might answer, "probably tomorrow". The problem with this is that "probably" can mean something quite different to different people. "Probably" to you might mean "maybe" to another. Some will use the word "unlikely" instead of "might" or "might not".

Although it will seem uncomfortable, try to put some sort of odds on your judgment calls. If you answer, "there's a 90% chance I'll be finished tomorrow" it's a lot less ambiguous than "I'll probably be finished tomorrow". Even though the odds might only be 70% or 80%, they're certainly not 20% or even 50%. Attempting to apply some sort of numerical as opposed to verbal uncertainty will make your communication clearer.

Somewhere I've come across a study of what various verbal uncertainty terms meant to different people. I'll try to find it again and post it here.

Creating Meaning Visually

I've posted before on the importance of visualization in problem solving. Here Tom Wujec tells us how the way the brain creates meaning from images. More evidence on the importance of visualization in getting a handle on larger problems. A good visualization is critical when presenting your ideas to a group or when working together in a group where different people have different ways of thinking about a problem. Visualization techniques (like mapping or modeling) can help to get everyone aligned.

By the way, this TED site is a great place to stimulate your imagination by seeing presentations by excellent speakers on a variety of topics.

Changing E-Mail Subjects

Along the lines of my earlier post about e-mailing.

Have you ever been part of an e-mail chain where the subject morphed from the original to something else?

Don't be afraid to change the subject line or recipients of an e-mail chain or delete non-relevant sections. In addition to intellectual property issues, there can be a lot of waste associated with not keeping the e-mail header information current.

E-mail is pervasive and many people get hundreds of e-mails a day. If your subject does not communicate effectively, your message won't even see the light of day.

Bias in Visualization

When faced with a large amount of data, one if the first things I do is graph the data in some way to get a visual impression. I'll even graph simple linear calibration plots since a quick glance will give a better impression of the data than looking at the slope, intercept and correlation coefficient. In this case, the visualization shows more than the individual data.

However, the opposite can happen, even though I'm sure you're familiar with the adage, "a picture is worth a thousand words." Recently the Flowing Data site held a visualization contest. The results were interesting. Even though everyone started with the same data set, each visualization tended to emphasize something different about the data set. As a whole, the visualizations presented a complete picture and highlighted aspects of the data one couldn't see from just the numbers, but each individual visualization tended to focus on one thing at the expense of others.

This may be your intent when visualizing data, but watch out for your own bias. Always include the data used to create your visualization (or when this is not practical a reference to it) so that others with a different perspective can visualize the data their own way and perhaps glean something different than you did.

There is fine line between illuminating data for your audience and prejudicing them.

FreeMind

Sometimes when I'm brainstorming ideas about a problem or perhaps involved in a root cause analysis, there isn't a clear way to record the ideas in a word processing program. Perhaps the ideas are unrelated or you are jumping around. How do you visualize the brainstorming?

One useful tool is mind-mapping software. There are several commercial tools out there but if you just want to see whether you could use it or get a better idea, try FreeMind. It allows you to quickly record your ideas and link them together. There is a lot of flexibility in formatting that allows you to visualize your thoughts and how they are (or aren't) related. I even tried to use it as a mini-database to keep track of projects I was working on. You can attach documents and make links so it works as a high level indexing system if you take the time to set it up properly. The nice thing is that with just a glance, you can visualize what you're working on.

Document Design

Much has been published about good design of information graphics. Tufte's and Stephen Few's books The Visual Display of Quantitative Information and Show Me the Numbers are definitely books you should read if you make graphs and tables of data.

I just finished an equally useful book directed more at the text documents you create. Robin Williams' The Non-Designer's Design Book is definitely a book everyone (including technical people) who creates documents should read. It's easy reading and she gives many simple, concrete examples of how to make your documents stand out. I'm no designer and pride myself on avoiding fancy-shmancy graphics that don't add value but this book points out simple things anyone can do to stand out.

Anything that can help communicate your problem solutions to others effectively is adding value.

E-mail Subjects

In the problem solving process you frequently send e-mail communicating status and results. We all know that our e-mails should contain a subject. However, I suggest you go one step further. Your e-mail subjects should contain a concise description of what the message is about. Even better, include some keywords or even the conclusion or primary finding of the e-mail. Sort of like tagging posts in your blog.

The people you provide results to are often higher level managers. They are probably inundated by Data Smog. Your message needs to stand out and hopefully be easily located by whatever indexing method your addressees use. Not everyone sorts things the same way so try to add keywords that search programs will find. If you are referring to a specific project, start the subject line with that project name. But don't just conclude the message with 'latest results' or 'update'. Do something meaningful to you and your audience.

Don't assume everyone is as intrigued by your project as you. Make sure you communicate effectively.