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The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster and the over-reliance on PowerPoint (2019)

mcdreeamiemusings.com

161–170 of 185 posts

Re: The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster and the over-reliance on PowerPoint (2019)

#161

My dad headed up the redesign effort on the Lockheed Martin side to remove the foam PAL ramps (where the chunk of foam that broke off and hit the orbiter came from) from the external tank, as part of return-to-flight after the Columbia disaster. At the time he was the last one left at the company from when they had previously investigated removing those ramps from the design. He told me how he went from basically wor…

It's funny how the thankless jobs of quality assurance become so critical so quickly. And I mean that ironically of course. To folks out there: do the important work, not the glamorous work, and you'll not only sleep well, but you might actually matter as well.

[dead]

Re: The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster and the over-reliance on PowerPoint (2019)

#162

> Why, given that the foam strike had occurred at a force massively out of test conditions had NASA proceeded with re-entry? What was the alternative? Columbia could not have made it to ISS. Columbia could not have repaired the damage in orbit. Columbia could not have lasted, after two weeks in space, long enough to launch a rescue mission. I know the "In Flight Options Assessment" said they could launch at an accele…

The alternative is to try.

Apollo 13 probably seemed pretty hopeless. They didn't just say "sorry fellas, maybe you'll get lucky and make it, good luck."

The late great Bob Hoover said, "If you’re faced with a forced landing, fly the thing as far into the crash as possible." You keep trying until you can't anymore.

Saying "well, maybe they'll survive," and not even telling them, is not the move when you have nearly a month to figure something out.

Re: The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster and the over-reliance on PowerPoint (2019)

#163
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love it when some company gets one of the engineers to do a demonstration, you know you got an actual engineer because it will be the worst sales pitch you ever received. They will tell you in excruciating detail all the problems with their product. Recognize and cherish these moments for what they are worth, despite the terrible presentation it is infinitely more valuable than yet another sales rat making untenabl…

Hence the role of "sales engineer" - who the customer things is from engineering but is really part of the sales team.

Right. They “engineer” “making the sale happen”.

Re: The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster and the over-reliance on PowerPoint (2019)

#164
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PowerPoint actually fine - bad communication possible in any medium - pptx in NASA even today! - issue is managers/SMEs communication differences - issues with technical papers - long - boring - vs word, excel, pdf... (Next slide please) Manager/SME Differences - context vs conclusion - tell a compelling story - but give away the ending FIRST - inherent personality differences - motivations/incentives/mindsets (Next…

Some time ago, I made up a PowerPoint show on effective communication[0]. I’ve found that most folks have no intention of improving their communication effectiveness. Everyone is much happier, blaming the audience. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44202502

Blaming the audience makes sense because after all, they're the ones not getting the message right and not asking the presenter to explain it better. But it remains the presenter's failure to catch their attention better and try to deliver a clear message.

Every time I had a presentation, I tried to analyze the failures (including listening to me when it was recorded, a really painful experience). Certain mistakes such as like having slides on a white background that makes attendees look at the screen and read instead of watching the presenter and listening to him can be devastating. Just because attendees are naturally attracted by light. It's not the audience's fault, it's the presenter's fault (and to some extents the tools in use). A good exercise is to stop slides from time to time during the presentation (i.e. switch to a black one), you'll be amazed how much you suddenly catch the attention, you feel like you're at a theater. It even manages to catch attention of those who were looking at their smartphones because the light in the room suddenly changes.

Also another difficulty which is specific to English native speakers is that many of them initially underestimate the difficulties of the audience to catch certain expressions (with some people it's very hard to distinguish "can" from "can't" for example, which complicates the understanding), or idiomatic ones, or references to local culture, because such things are part of their daily vocabulary. Of course, after a few public talk, when they get questions at the end proving there were misunderstandings, they realize that speaking slower, articulating a bit more and avoiding such references does help with non-native listeners. Conversely, when you present in a language that is not yours, you stick to very simple vocabulary using longer sentences to assemble words that try to form a non-ambiguous meaning. It can probably sound boring for native speakers but the message probably reaches the audience better.

In any case, it definitely always is the presenter's failure when a message is poorly delivered and their responsibility to try to improve this, however difficult this is. It's just important never to give up.

Re: The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster and the over-reliance on PowerPoint (2019)

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many years ago I had a fascination with security and fancied becoming the CISO for the multinational I was working for at the time - my boss at the time, the CIO, said the role would really have no power and would be there as a sacrificial lamb should there actually be a serious security breach. This rather put me off the idea.

Head of Quality Assurance is often also treated as ablative armor for existing management.

That's a very poetic description.

Re: The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster and the over-reliance on PowerPoint (2019)

#166
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want a slide to really hurt your brain search for “Iraq war PowerPoint slide” The principles of that slide apply to a lot of other circumstances.

This? https://armsandinfluence.typepad.com/photos/arms_and_influen...

I misremembered it’s the Afghanistan slide https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/apr/29/mcchry...

Re: The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster and the over-reliance on PowerPoint (2019)

#167

I don't see how this has anything to do with PowerPoint. There wasn't clear communication; the medium was completely incidental to that. They could have been writing on a chalkboard and had a communication failure, does that mean that chalkboards should be blamed in that case?

I think it's a lot harder to have this particular type of communications failure if you're writing on a chalkboard. Imagine trying to write out that whole slide, it would take forever. If you really did have to present that information on a chalkboard, you'd be significantly more likely to write something along the lines of:

"We checked the test data: possible to damage tiles significantly" "Foam that hit wing was way bigger than the tests"

Obviously you can miscommunicate via any medium, but I think the author's point here (which I agree with) is some mediums lend themselves to specific types of miscommunication.

Re: The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster and the over-reliance on PowerPoint (2019)

#169
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking of chalkboards, next time you have to give a presentation, bring a chalkboard and do your slides in realtime. Something about the visual show, auditory overload, and not least the novelty of the act makes it much more impactful and memorial than "another powerpoint that puts you to sleep" White boards are... ok... better than powerpoint but still fail to sell it like a chalkboard does. I think it is the nois…

Yes, the noise (which I'd call "the sound") is a big factor. I teach in a classroom that had blackboard that had stood the test of time for decades. When it was replaced with a whiteboard, things went downhill. The markers dry out quickly, without much notice, so that students often have trouble reading the material. And the whiteboards get harder to erase year after year. I guess the advantage of whiteboards is that…

Definitely on the people with color issues. I have some red-green issues, for most purposes it makes me horrible at choosing colors and horrible at choices involving subtle colors (picking the good produce) but rarely interferes otherwise. But a thin line of color is another matter. I generally can't tell the difference between a 1-pixel wide line of FF0000 vs 00FF00. Nor can I tell the difference of a few-pixel-wide indicator. I can't crimp Ethernet because the fine line of the coloring of the wires reduces it to not much better than a guess.

And a whiteboard from across the room is likely to be thin enough lines to give me big problems.

Re: The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster and the over-reliance on PowerPoint (2019)

#170

The slide is so bad it might be intentional. The intent would be to be reassuring enough that no one will point at Boeing and say "Boeing technical failure strands astronauts in space", while providing just enough information that in the event (at the time of writing the slide considered very unlikely) things go bad, they can say that nothing was withheld.

Yeah, the problem here isn't Powerpoint, it's what it said. This is a case of shoot the messenger. Powerpoint doesn't hinder communication, it lets people think they understand when their actual knowledge is superficial and can easily be a case of the primrose path.
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