John Araiza

Presentations have to be able to tell the story and NOT take more than 10 minutes and usually even less, depending on the topic and the company to allow for discussions/questions/action time during the overall meeting window. You will not be able have 100% of the info in the presentation. Have key personnel on your team standing by with portions of the presentation ready to deep dive into the area when/if requested. Practice with them so they know when THEIR input is being requested and how to make sure it is as seamless as the presentation. Done correctly you are allowing your subordinates opportunities to SHINE and provide management with a chance to see them communicate. Which can be invaluable to their future growth.

If there are multiple complex parts, I recommend writing down short hand versions and explaining/restating the areas so they understand what and why you are writing down the questions. This gives you time to collect your thoughts and form a cohesive answer to multiple portioned complex questions. Once you feel as though you have everything covered go over the areas of concern... "So for my understanding you want to know/are concerned about ...AA, BB, CC and want to know more about why DD can't be completed is that correct?" As an example. Once you are ready to respond in a logical manner use your short hand notes to keep you on topic and answer the question.

Preparation is REQUIRED! If you can't explain the material to yourself, you are not ready. Questions are expected Make sure key information (how it IMPACTs) is explained and don't just provide data. You do not want the audience asking themselves "so what". Questions are to gain understanding, not play stump the chump.(Unless you are talking to Naval Nuclear Propulsion Operators, then good luck!) Pause, take a breath or a drink of water. Restate the question and explain that you want to make sure you understand their concern. If you don't know the answer 100% that is okay! If you know a portion, answer what you can and then clearly state that you will follow up at a later time to go over the unknown. Thank them for their time!

I absolutely love this principle. While serving in the United States Navy, my more successful Commanding Officers really knew how to get movement. This usually came out in the form of "I don't need a 100% solution right now". Give me something in the 75% range (depending on topic/ risk) so we can start looking at the big picture. This style of clarifying really drove the point home. You can easily put together a shell of just about any project looking the key items, the must do's, long lead time items, extremely complex evolutions, and put together a timeline that can then be filled with finer details later. This allows you to spend more time on de-conflicting and re-arranging key events to fit the shell and sometimes they don't.

One thing I've found helpful is fully understanding your team when entering the planning process for a project. By understanding their individual strengths and experience in assessing and planning it allows you to provide backup in key areas that might have been overlooked by them. One way I have had success in this area is by using templates that help their planning process to get the desired inputs and levels the playing field across the group and helps aligns the priorities/focus areas/key events/and even MUST DOs.

In my experience in field observation, offers a great glimpse of how your craft are up to the task. Observe them, the work, the tools, the process they use to complete tasks, procedure/manual management and ask questions for your understanding of how they think. (Some things to observe) -Are they missing tools that were clearly listed? -Is the technical requirement utilized/ appropriately followed based on work requirements? -Can they clearly communicate the task they are completing and provide examples of hypothetical problems? -Are they generally relaxed or anxious if you observe them? -Do they attempt to hide errors from you if they don’t think you noticed? How do they respond when you ask for clarity on the potential errors?