Presentation Techniques

At the World Tunnel Congress I got to sit in several presentations.

What I realized - please, don't understand me wrong, this is my opinion - I realized, that the presentations were good, full of information, facts and figures. However most of the speeches could be improved considerably. 

Therefore I want this post to be about presentation techniques.

It seems to me, if someone travels from far away to give a speech, they should be excited, and practice their speech, including the pronunciation in another language.

I think, the common engineer - including me - could improve their presentation skills. 

For me, I would ask myself some questions in advance / prior to create the presentation:

1. What do I want to achieve with this? Why do I want to talk about it? What is it going to give me?
2. Who is going to be my audience or who do I want to reach with it?
3. Why should they care to listen to me?

The presenter has something valuable to give to the listener, so she/he should address them. Not only with the content, also with the body language. This means, that if you are giving a presentation, you should talk to the audience and connect with them. Many did not. They stayed in their own little bubble and some just read their slides out loud without even looking at the audience. Boring!

The best speeches I heard during the congress, were the ones, where the speaker looked at me from time to time, spoke loud and slow enough to be followed in another language, showed emotions like engagement and interest in the topic.

I know, sometimes it is hard to stand in front of a big group - at least for me. But they just want to listen to you and hear about your work to get new input of information and new ideas.

What helps me to improve myself, is to ask a colleague for honest feedback. I had to learn not to feel offended by my colleagues and friends. They don't want to harm me, they want to help me and I asked them to do so.

I am not a presentation coach. But I want to give you my personal summarized feedback of the speeches I heard. 

I hope it will help for your next presentation.

Please, feel free to give me a feedback on this topic - good or what could be different or improved. I will be happy to listen to you.

What presentation resources can you recommend to us such as books, web sites, blogs, methods that could help us give better presentations?

World Tunnel Congress - Choice of Tunneling Method

I consider myself lucky that the World Tunnel Congress was in the country I live in.  Geneva is a beautiful city next to Lake Geneva (lac léman) in the south-west corner of the french part of Switzerland.

This meeting was just like all such meetings - full of excitement, business talks, a chance to see and be seen by colleagues from around the world, and to sit in on case study presentations.

The sessions, presentations, case studies and technical themes took place at the same time. So I could pick out what I wanted to see, and when to take a look around the exhibitions and talk to the exhibitors about their news, in which projects they are interested in and involved. 

My first step on Tuesday was to eat some lunch, meet my colleagues and go into the swiss sessions first. The theme of the swiss colloquium was the "choice of tunneling method".

At the beginning of a project, one of the main questions is how to go through the rock, how to excavate: drill and blast, with a tunnel boring machine (TBM), with or without a pilot tunnel, conventional excavation without blasting and how to excavate all the secondary elements like cross sections and niches.

The speakers talked about their chosen method, pros and cons, problems that occurred, the problem solving and suggestions which excavation methods could be applied in this situation too.

Here I will give you a summary of one speech:

The choice of driving method in soft ground - the Längholztunnel. This tunnel is situated in the western part of Switzerland in Biel / Bienne, not far from Berne, the capital of Switzerland. The tunnel goes through soft ground with a groundwater level of 3 to 10 m (9 to 33 feet) above the tunnel crown. First step, they did a risk analysis to figure out what kind of excavation method was appropriate for this kind of soft soil. After the first risk analysis they chose a Hydro-shield TBM out of EPB (earth pressure balance) TBM, compressed-air shield and conventional drive. The general analysis points were the standard cross-section, tunnel length, geology, overburden, close buildings and obstacles underground. The aspects for choosing the driving method were the evaluation of the ground conditions, process technology and budget considerations, surface settlements and reduction of time consuming measurements to improve the ground.

After taking a deeper look at the ground conditions, analyzing different tunnel cross-sections in soft ground - the project developer came to the interpretation, that an EPB drive was a better solution for the anticipated ground conditions.

The big advantage of an EPB shield is that a sudden intrusion into the extraction chamber isn't feasible with regard to the supported face. Also working conditions are better in terms of excavation noise. Among other advantages and disadvantages - like the difficulties with the earth pressure adjustments or the time it takes to enter the working area.  For reasons, the chosen excavation method was to go with EPB. Some criteria for the decision were the economy, face stability, cave-ins, dealing with boulders and blocks and the dumping capacity of the installation area.

The point of the speech was, that an enlarged and systematical risk analysis with detailed case scenarios and additional explorations of the geological conditions could result in a different driving method and should be considered in cases, in which the choice between similar kinds of driving methods are to be taken.