RHIT Client Workshop Proposal

Authors: Alex Hobbie, Adrian Kam, Edward Shen, Jiaye Su

New-hired Engineers are Inefficient and Ineffective Communicators, and thats a Problem
Despite technological innovations that allow for fast and easy communication, companies are still facing
challenges with employees who are unable to efficiently and effectively communicate with clients.
Unfortunately, this is especially the case for engineers. According to a 2011 American Society of
Mechanical Engineers (ASME) survey a majority of industry supervisors consider the communication
skills of rookie engineers to be weak [1], and in a 2013 study conducted by the Project Management
Institute (PMI), Companies risk $135 million for every $1 billion spent on a project and new research
indicates that $75 million of that $135 million (56 percent) is put at risk by ineffective communications,
indicating a critical need for organizations to address communications deficiencies [2]. From this data
its shown that effective communication is an important skill not only for efficiency but also cost
reduction, and engineers need to be better equipped to use such a skill. Therefore, its important that
engineering students have the opportunity to get experience with a professional level of communication.
Thus, our group is seeking to introduce a workshop that we developed for Rose-Hulman students to hone
their skills in efficiently interacting and talking with clients. This workshop would be a great activity for
the career services team to run as it would provide students with valuable workplace skills they can use in
their future careers. Additionally, unlike a similar workshop at MIT that focuses more on the theoretical
approaches [3], our program will give students an opportunity to practice their communication skills in a
real-world setting as they undergo client meetings and different methods of team communication..

A Workshop that Provides Hands-On Experience with Professional Communication

The workshop we developed is designed to give Rose students a realistic professional experience working
with a team on a project that will be presented to a client. The focus of the workshop though, will be in
how the team communicates during the workshop, both with each other and with the client. Open to all
Rose students, the workshop is made to provide experience that will be applicable to any type of
professional work whether it be full time or an internship. Upon looking at the Leadership Academy
(LEAD), a present Rose-Hulman career workshop, there were some factors we wanted to utilize to make
our program as in line with what Rose is already doing. Similar to how LEAD runs over fall break [4],
our workshop is set to run for three days, during the latter weekend of spring break. This time allows for
the students to be focused on the workshop while not interfering with other classes they may take.

Though the teams will be applying their engineering knowledge to the projects, the focus of the workshop
is on communication. Therefore, teams will be guided to use effective and efficient ways of
communicating and be taught some of the common pitfalls of miscommunication. In Communication
Problems in Requirements Engineering: A Field Study, the authors, Amer Al-Rawas and Steve
Easterbrook, state that, documents are a poor substitute for interpersonal communication [5]. This claim
is because documents can be interpreted incorrectly since they are often written at a higher technical level
than may be suitable for its audience. Following the beliefs of Al-Rawas and Easterbrook, bettering the
students written communication is one of the main focuses of the workshop as can be seen below in a
brief summary of each day of the program.

First Day - Project introductions and Initial Client Meetings

Students are split into groups of five with attempts made to make them as diversified as possible
with respect to majors and grade levels.
After teams have met, they have an initial meeting with their client, played by a professor or a
workshop leader.
During the meeting, the client will present the team their project that will have them design a
product while working within constraints like cost and size.

Second Day - Focusing on Written Communication and Online Tools

Students will start the day with some lessons on efficient and effective document writing.
Groups will then split up and do some work on their own that they have to document in a way
that the rest of their team will be able to comprehend.
While theyre split up, the teams wont be allowed interpersonal communication and must make
use of online tools seen in real work environments such as email, Skype, and document sharing.

Third Day - Effective Presentation and Design Proposal Client Meeting

To start the day the teams will regroup with the individual work they did.
Then with some lessons instructed on presentations and more specifically how to effectively
present to a client, teams will spend the first half of the day working towards their proposal
meeting.
To finish the program, the work the students have done will culminate into a mock meeting with
their client where they will present their design proposal.
The client will then ask the team questions, testing the students on their preparation and on how
effectively they can communicate beyond what they have prepared.

Evaluating the Success of Our Workshop

One of our milestones for this project is gathering 30 students, roughly the size of a class, to participate
during the first implementation of the workshop. Another milestone is gathering enough
people/companies to role-play as clients for each group. Ideally, we have six clients, thus creating groups
with five students each. Once these milestones have been achieved, we would like to steadily increase the
numbers over the years.

By implementing this workshop, we believe students will improve their current communication skills,
while gaining professional experience interacting with clients. Specifically, this workshop is something
students will be able to put on their resumes and gain the interest of hiring managers. After the next
Career Fair, we will ask the participants which company took interest in learning more about their
experience in the workshop, and from those results, ask those companies why the workshop interests
them. If 70% of companies express that the workshop will help students along the hiring process and/or
their willingness to participate in future workshops, then it is a resounding success. In addition, after the
workshop, we will be conducting a survey asking the students whether our goal of improving
communications skills with clients has been achieved, as well as criticism from the clients that we will
apply for future workshops. Once we get to a point where the criticisms are minor and few, we can call
the workshop a success.

Bibliography
[1] ASME., Creating the Future of Mechanical Engineering Education, Vision 2030, pp. 196, Dec.
2011.
[2] The High Cost of Low Performance: The Essential Role of Communications, PMI's Pulse of the
Profession In-Depth Report, pp. 110, May 2013.
[3] E. Schiappa, Professional Communications for Engineers, Scientists, and Managers, Programs for
Professionals | MIT Professional Education, 06-Jul-2017. [Online]. Available:
http://professional.mit.edu/programs/short-programs/professional-communication. [Accessed:
22-Jul-2017].
[4] LEAD: Leadership Education & Development Program. [Online]. Available:
http://www.rose-hulman.edu/campus-life/student-services/LEAD.html. [Accessed: 22-Jul-2017].
[5] A. Al-Rawas and S. Easterbrook, Communication Problems in Requirements Engineering: A Field
Study, Proceedings of the First Westminster Conference, pp. 112.