Critical Reflection: Project Learning

I read and commented on technical reports at work. Most technical reports I've seen include a cover page, table of contents, and the proposal and recommendation. Even when I write tender documents, I had cover sheet, table of contents and main text.

Obviously, in the Effective Communication module, I learned to write a technical report in a different way that I have not been exposed to. Executive summary in the technical report, that amused me a bit.  In the executive summary, I had to present the research topic in a very concise and coherent way to convince the addressee. Another interesting area I came across was writing primary and secondary sources in the report. I understood that having primary and secondary sources in the report outlined the data and confirmed the relevant research. Insufficient resources would likely spoil the report or not analyse the proposed solution(s).

 

An important insight when writing a technical report was to be very concise, persuasive, and keep the report simple to maintain stakeholder interest throughout the report. I always tried to break down possible irrelevant ideas to be more specific about the problem(s) and solution(s). As part of a research project, my team had to present our ideas in a formal presentation. I learned to keep the slides as simple as possible. Also, our slides had to be less wordy, so we planned well as a team. The first step in our slide presentation was to analyse our audience that we were going to present to and be focused the entire time.

Finally, I had a wonderful time with my teammates, and we had good teamwork. My teammates were very spontaneous in completing their assigned task, which allowed us to finish the report and presentation on time.

In future, I would definitely apply the techniques that I learned in this module be it in my workplace or other modules reports.