General Engineering Projects/Team Weekly Summary Form

The team weekly summary at a minimum is a description of what happened during the prior week. At no point in the presentation should it be mentioned who did what. Everything is "we" in the weekly presentation.

Presentations should be short .. 2 minutes. Choose what you talk about carefully. Don't repeat what you presented last week unless you are practicing that part of the presentation because it didn't work last week.

Talk to the wiki page, don't read it. Add context. Tell stories.

The wiki page should have more detail on in than you cover. Skip lots of stuff. Go quick. Let the audience read the wiki page as you present it. Trust that those interested will listen, read and interrupt you with questions. Encourage questions. Write down the questions. Learn from the questions. Did the question disrupt your presentation or lead into the next thing you were going to talk about? Was the question so penetrating that it will change the direction of your project? Actively doing this will earn you more team weekly summary points.

Prepare answers to questions you anticipate in a FAQ. This will earn you more team weekly summary points.

Harvest the group mind. Come to the presentation with unsolved problems from your notebooks. The problem may be the big problem of your problem statement, but more likely it is something on the order of what is the name for this? ... and then draw a picture. Does any one have a spare broken or working microwave they can contribute to our project? Can anyone think of a way to do .....? These questions (not their answers) will earn you more presentation points. Involve the audience in your project. Think of the presentation as a way to get things done for the project. This will earn you more team weekly summary points.