Communication in ECE 297

Dr. P. WeissJanuary 11, 2010

The Communication Team

• Dr. P. Weiss, BA (UBC) MFA (UBC) PhD (Toronto)

Communication Instructors/Project Managers• Mr. P. Barrett, BSc (Toronto) MA (McMaster) PhD ABD

(Queens)• Dr. M. Cioni, BA (Calgary) MA (Calgary) Ph.D (Cambridge)• Dr. D. Del Degan, BA (Toronto) MA (Toronto) PhD (Toronto)• Dr. J. Gardiner, BA (Queens) BAH (Queens) MA (Toronto),

PhD (Toronto)• Dr. P. Kinnear, BA (Bowling Green) MA (OISE) PhD (OISE)• Dr. R. Lapointe, BA (Western) MA (McMaster) PhD (UBC)• Mr. R. Price, BA (Toronto) MA (York/Ryerson)• Ms. L. Rosove, BSW (Manitoba) MA (Carleton)

What you are expected to know

• A general engineering design method• Determination of stake-holders• Understanding of the user• Team formation and management• Project management• Appropriate methods of reporting to

supervisor and/or client• Credible statement

You are expected to improve

• Ability to document design decisions persuasively

• Paragraph level organization• Conscious use of rhetorical tools• Oral presentation skills associated with lab

demonstrations as well as formal final presentations

You are expected to use a combination of your experience and lecture material to develop a personal sense of a systematic design process

Image from Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right Design by Bill Buxton (San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 2007)

Why are you doing this?

• The economy needs new ideas, new initiatives, new applications for existing technologies.

• We have to start with what we have and go beyond it

How the principles in the textbook connect to the assignments

• Purpose• Genre• Audience• Memo• Team Rules• Assignment 1

There are two categories of purpose

1. The purpose of the writer2. The purpose of the writing

1. Express – highlight a single item clearly2. Entertain – draw a reader in with an emotionally appealing piece of

information (a “grabber”)3. Explore – draft an idea, gain feedback4. Inform – to explain or deepen understanding5. Instruct – enable the reader to perform an action6. Persuade – to draw connections to support a conclusion or

recommendation

Purpose implies audience

• Who is my audience?• How technical should I be? How

much do I have to explain?• What is the expectation?

Purpose of the writer is to get marks

• This is similar to the professional purpose of establishing credibility or developing trust

• Reader is highly educated – at least 2 university degrees – has high standards in regard to written and spoken English

• Reader attends lectures, is aware of course technical requirements, is looking for credible discussion of design decisions and trade-offs.

Each genre of engineering document has a unique purpose• Genre is a term that defines both the

structure of a document and the expectation of the reader of the document

• Common engineering genres are– Technical reports (lab report structure)– Proposals– Specifications– Progress reports– Instructions– Documents that advise

Weekly status reports confirm the integrity of a design process• They answer the question “Is our money

being well spent on this design team?”• They establish or reconfirm a

professional systematic and trustworthy approach

• They reconfirm that the team is in control of the process

• They reconfirm that the team is capable of resolving difficulties

Team rules must be established and agreed upon now• Follow the rule of the Fire Department:

do not think “what will we do if a problem happens,” think “what will we do when a problem happens?”

• Define real meaningful problems• Determine realistic, useful actions• Remember, this year you will be

evaluating each other’s contributions to each milestone

Problems to consider

• Work is not submitted or is substandard– code doesn’t work– programming has to be redone–writing is so full of error it has to be

rewritten

• Team member misses team-imposed deadlines

• Team member becomes impossible to contact

A few practical considerations…• What if we haven't found a team yet? Use the

Discussion Board. We would prefer you to pick your own team

• On Wednesday, at the latest, we'll close the team submission and group the left over students

• Wednesday, Mike Kucera from IBM will talk about Effective C development with Integrated Development Environments (IDE)

• Tech talks on Tuesday and Wednesday will be 5-6 p.m. in BA 1180.

Can you get a perfect grade?

• You can get a perfect score on your code submission, if your system builds correctly and passes all test cases.

• You can get a perfect score on your document if it is thoughtful, technically accurate, economically and clearly written, supports every statement meaningfully with either logic or data (your own or from research sources), has absolutely no "padding" of any sort, and contains no errors in grammar, syntax or usage.