Writing PPT, defense… It can be said that technology students forever pain. At the end of the year, many companies have also started the promotion defense, take advantage of this time, I talk about my personal experience, to give you some inspiration.
First, LET me explain my personal background. I am a technical director of a large factory. I have not only assisted the promotion of team members (I think the success rate of promotion is very good), but also acted as a promotion judge for many times (I have seen many cases of failed promotion).
The following thousands of words are extracted from the failed promotion experience of our team partners. I will give you a complete idea for preparing PPT and on-site defense, which is absolutely worth collecting and slowly digesting. Please be patient to finish reading it!
To be clear, this article is not about cutting corners, but how to improve your chances of getting promoted on a level playing field.
For students whose daily performance is not up to the requirements of their current position (such as poor performance), promotion is unlikely, because the judges are usually two levels above you, and even if you pass the initial screening within the department, chances are slim that you will pass most of the judges.
I’m going to give you an idea to refine and prepare for people who normally behave normally, and I’m going to help you keep track of what the judges like.
01 First important words
Many companies only have 30 minutes for a promotion defense, 15 minutes for a POWERPOINT presentation, and 15 minutes for answering questions from judges. So, how to convince the judges with your performance in this short half hour seems to be a challenge.
But IN my opinion, if you can understand the “promotion criteria”, and then targeted preparation, it is not as difficult as imagined.
How to understand “promotion criteria”? There’s only one thing you need to prove: by talking about what you did. What kind of results did you get? Show that you are qualified for your next rank. The details of how to disassemble will be elaborated later.
From this point of view, promotion is actually a proposition composition, which is certainly less difficult than the job interview, because the promotion PPT is prepared by you in advance, and the judges’ questions are basically based on your PPT. Even if you go beyond the outline, it will not be very ridiculous.
Therefore, if all of your preparation is fine-tuned around the “criteria for promotion,” and you do everything you can to be the best you can be, you’ll be better prepared and have a better chance of winning.
Proper posture for preparing promotion materials
Start by talking about how to systematically prepare your promotion materials.
For technical students, they usually choose their most convincing projects as the defense content, and then prepare a PPT for on-site presentation.
This step, many students are prone to make directional mistakes. Why do you say that? First of all, the selected project is not hit the right point, those projects that you think are “very impressive” may not be suitable for the defense materials (specific examples will be given later); Second, writing a POWERPOINT presentation is a lot like writing a technical design document. The technical points you present are not what the judges want to see.
If either of these two problems is not addressed, the chances of promotion are much lower. The most effective way to crack this isn’t that difficult. You need to go back to the judges’ criteria, understand the “requirements of the target rank” thoroughly, and then base your work and results on those requirements.
Only in accordance with this train of thought, the direction will not go astray. So let me expand on that.
2.1 How to understand the rank requirements more popularly
Most companies have a clear hierarchy and metrics, usually broken down into development, architectural, business, collaboration, etc., with detailed (very subtle, very obscure) standards of behavior for each.
Here are the specific requirements for P6 level “development capability” from my previous company:
Deep understanding of service each link of related principles in the process of actual operation, such as hardware (CPU, memory, hard disk, etc.), the kernel (process scheduling, memory management, etc.), application (design patterns, synchronous asynchronous design), network (protocol stack, etc.), clear the influence of each part of the actual service, and flexible application in the actual system development.
And that’s just the standard of conduct for one of these competencies, which would drive the judges crazy if they had to memorize all the competencies at every level.
So in real practice, the judges will not be using this standard is very rigid, but abstracts some * * “key words” and the “contrast characters” * * way to operation, first from their familiar with a few of the staff performance outstanding, at the same time and the target people of equal rank, candidates with transverse comparison with them.
Taking developing students as an example, from the perspective of the judges, they usually control the requirements of each major level in the following way:
1. Beginner: Able to work under the guidance of others; Ability to develop simple modules, code quality up to standard.
2. Intermediate: able to complete daily work independently; Capable of sub-module design, familiar with common technology stack.
3, Advanced: can guide others to complete the work; Have cross-module and subsystem design ability, have certain technical depth, have a complete idea of high availability, high concurrency, high expansion and other issues.
4. Experts: able to make overall business and technology planning; Capable of system design for complex business scenarios, able to systematically analyze and solve problems, with a comprehensive vision.
As you can see, the higher the rank, the more complex the task and the higher the requirement for technical ability. This is only the superficial understanding, behind the deeper interpretation is actually: from point, to line, and then to surface, systematic thinking and control ability, height should also keep up with.
This standard basically applies to our common large Internet companies, but some companies will further subdivide the large level into multiple sub-levels. Make sure you understand the criteria before you consider the following.
2.2 Choose the right idea of the project
The promotion of technical students usually takes “R&D project” as the carrier. The good or bad choice of project can directly determine the result of promotion, so it must be considered repeatedly.
For a promotion defense, a “good” program must have these two elements:
1. Project contribution: represents your achievements, which can be business value or technical value (such as improvement of R&D efficiency and reduction of R&D cost, etc.).
2, professional ability: represents your strength reflected in the process of doing things. It can be technical, business, coordination, etc.
As mentioned in the last chapter, some of the projects that you think are “awesome” are not really suitable materials for your defense. They must not meet both of the above requirements. For example, if there are good technical highlights, but no practical value (or the project has a lot of negative comments), in the judges’ opinion: or didn’t think clearly why? Or did you not figure out what to do?
The above two factors, project contribution is often more important than professional ability, there must be very specific things to let the judges see. If you are competent enough and not contributing enough, it will be difficult to get promoted.
In addition, ** both project contributions and professional skills must match the requirements of the target rank. ** If your target rank is technical expert (P7 and above), the selected project had better be able to help the business to a certain extent, or can be horizontal copy to affect other businesses, technically, it is recommended to sort out from the perspective of full link and overall architecture.
Having said that, how do you find the best project? You are advised to perform the following operations:
1. Comb through: Review all the projects you worked on during your promotion cycle and organize the technical highlights and results of each project. Some projects may not have a lot of shine, so don’t let it go, and then you can merge multiple projects into a series.
2. Preliminary screening: According to the results of the first sorting, invite your immediate leader and high P members of the team to conduct an in-depth discussion, conduct a preliminary screening according to the requirements of the target rank, and leave about 4 projects with the highest value (note: Some small projects with few bright spots can be combined into one big project, if you can find a thread that connects them).
3. In-depth excavation: For the projects screened out in step 2, dig more in-depth highlights and achievements. At this time, you can bring the business perspective into the project and sublimate the technical points based on your understanding of the business. Value is best reflected in specific data (business indicators, number of bugs in the development dimension, development duration, etc.). This time you need to organize all the highlights of the project.
4, fine screening: the results of the third step to do a fine screening, considering the defense time is only 15 minutes, generally select 2 can be. The criteria are: the results should be obvious and the density of technical highlights should be appropriate (at least 2 highlights per project).
Overall, project selection is a very core part of the project, if the project is not well selected, it may not be helpful to do well in the future, so we must pay high attention to it.
2.3 How to write a quality PPT?
After the project and the highlights of each project are determined, the next step is to prepare the defense PPT. Let me talk about how to prepare content for the “project section”.
What I have observed is that many people habitually write their defense PPT in the same way they write technical documents: first, the project background, then the technical scheme, and finally the technical details.
In fact, this idea is wrong, because the promotion defense is not a technical review, you do not need to include all the details, otherwise it will be too much information, and it will be difficult to highlight the highlights of your project.
I suggest this idea instead: ** organize your PPT around project highlights, because that’s what the judges care about. Start with the highlights and think about what you need to say that the judges will understand and recognize. ** By following this line of thinking, you can leave out a lot of unnecessary background and technical details and leave enough space for the highlights you really want to show.
What is a bright spot? These are the two core factors mentioned above: project contribution and expertise. Around highlights, the order of organization of content is suggested as follows: Business background description -> problem description -> Technical solution -> project results.
There are, of course, more than just projects. I suggest that a complete PPT for oral defense should include the following five parts:
1. Profile: Highlight your experience with your current company, such as when did you join? What businesses were involved at what point in time? If you have a more outstanding education or work background can also mention, deepen the judges impression on you.
2. Job review: Make a list of projects you worked on during your promotion cycle, highlighting those that made a difference.
3. Core project: This is the most important part of PPT, which needs to be stated, accounting for about 80% of the length. It can be organized according to the ideas mentioned above.
4. Other contributions: Any other information that further demonstrates your value, such as common component development, performance improvements, project management, or team management work, simply list what you did and what you achieved.
5. Future planning: it can be the technical planning to support the long-term development of the business, or the improvement of the scheme to solve the technical pain points, so as to ensure foresight, height, landing, and no ambition.
Of course, there are still a lot of details to be polished for a good defense PPT. The following suggestions are summarized based on some cases I saw when I was promoted as a judge:
1. There must be a very clear sequence of the hierarchical relationship of materials and the causal relationship of the conclusion of the argument, and no logical confusion.
2. Know which highlight you want to convey to the judges on each PPT page? Make full use of titles, bold text and other forms to highlight this highlight, remove unnecessary nonsense.
Pasting large chunks of code is not recommended. This is not a code review. You can present your ideas with flowcharts, class diagrams, etc.
4, PPT does not need to be very gorgeous, but the title, pictures, text and other styles should be unified, do not have typos or pictures can not see clearly, the technical students should have the rigor to reflect.
03 Key points of on-the-spot reporting
And then there’s the crucial on-the-spot presentation. You’ll have 15 minutes for a POWERPOINT presentation and another 15 minutes to answer questions from the judges.
3.1 How to make a PPT presentation?
Because the defense time is very tight, so we must rehearse. If possible, it is recommended to do two rehearsals within the team as a formal procedure. One is to help you find the right pace and make sure you can finish your powerpoint presentation in about 15 minutes. Secondly, it is also to find the imperfect content and expression for improvement and optimization.
Second, make eye contact with the judges. Use a cursor or laser pointer to guide the judges to follow your rhythm. At the same time, pay attention to observe the atmosphere of the scene and the state of the judges, if the judges appear absent-minded, sleepy and other phenomena, be sure to adjust your pace in time, draw the attention of the judges back.
Third, proper context is essential. The judges are not colleagues of your team, and they probably don’t know your business, your design background, and the historical baggage of the system, which makes it difficult for them to understand your solution, but don’t go into too much detail.
4. Know what will impress the judges the most. On the premise that logic runs smoothly, what the judges want to hear most is your thought process. Why do you design it this way? How do you judge and weigh?
3.2 How to deal with the QUESTION and answer session?
The q&A should be the hardest and most critical part of the promotion process. You can lose the whole thing if you don’t answer one question well.
First of all, you should definitely prepare the questions the judges are likely to ask in advance. There are basically two categories:
1. Problems within the scope of PPT: strongly related to PPT, which may be raised by the judges who do not understand your explanation logic; Or it could be that the judges want to complicate the question further, to see how well you can handle it.
2. Problems outside the scope of PPT: problems extended to the technology you use or the business you do. The judges want to see your big picture, and the higher the target rank, the more important these questions are.
Here are some specific examples to give you a better idea of how to collect questions:
1. Why did you choose plan A instead of Plan B? Why do you want to develop your own, rather than using open source solutions or mid-platform capabilities? (Judges want to determine if you have done in-depth research before doing something)
2. What technical challenges will the system encounter if the business is expanded several times or the concurrency is increased several times? How would you optimize the technical solution? (Judges want to make real life problems harder to judge your skill level)
3. What are the current problems of the business? What is the center of mass? What are the core business metrics? What can you do from a technical perspective to help your business better? (The judges want to see how sensitive you are to the business and whether it’s enough to see your thinking level from a higher level)
4. What has been your growth in the past period of time? What are the bottlenecks that need to be broken? What’s next for the team and for you personally? (The judges want to see if you are a good summarizer and look up at the road)
In addition, the two most practical tips are:
1. Do not have a technical blind spot or a business blind spot in every information point in PPT. At the same time, ensure that your technical solution and business data are reasonable and can withstand scrutiny.
2. In the face of questioning questions, do not have a defensive attitude and do not try to rationalize the insufficient consideration or logic in the project, but modestly accept the opinions of the judges.
The 04 is at the end
In this paper, from the perspective of the judges, very detailed interpretation of the technical promotion of each link of the train of thought and key points. While it’s important to work hard at the last minute, it’s also important to be more prepared and focused.
When you maximize what you can control, leave the rest to fate. There are many factors beyond your control that will determine the outcome of your promotion. Passing the review may not tell you everything about your ability.
What’s more, from a career perspective, one failed promotion may not have a substantial impact on your entire career. Instead, the following two factors are at the heart of what I believe will determine the height of career development:
Practice ability: it is necessary to know that the mastery of technology is not achieved in one day. When you try to do the things you normally do to the extreme, others only achieve 80 points, but you achieve 90 points or even 100 points. When you encounter a typical problem, others solve it and it is over.
Accumulate reputation: be a reliable colleague, do not care about whether more than others, do not talk about difficult things, do not find excuses, but try their best to complete and do well, you may be more than 80% of the people.
When you have the ability and reputation, it will be yours sooner or later.
If you have any questions or need guidance on promotion, please leave a comment in the comments section! I will give you the answer patiently.
About the author: 985 master, former Engineer of Amazon, now 58-year-old technical director
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