Discovery Operations Guide
Production
Producing Presentation and Deliverables
Deliverables, Recommendations, and Immediately Actionables
At the end of a research round, with all the travel and coordination and mental exertion, it can seem daunting to go through the work of parsing and understanding the information you’ve gathered. This, however, is the final push before moving into the Design phase or a new research round. Communicating your rigorous and thorough Synthesis phase will allow your Leadership and Stakeholders to understand your project’s depth, interest, and richness. At the least, leave the synthesis session with these three sections of your work identified: Deliverables, Immediately Actionables, and Recommendations.
Deliverables should have been defined before the research began. Sometimes the deliverable from a project is simply a report of your work. Sometimes it is a report plus other visualizations of your work, such as a journey map. During the synthesis session, make a plan for how you will produce these items. Assign different team members different parts of the work, if appropriate and feasible.
Immediately Actionables are items you and the team identify from your research that can move directly into a design phase. Some aspects of you work will not need further research: you and the team see a gap or a need and know how to fill that gap or need. These immediately actionable items can be communicated to leadership in your report and be assigned for design and production.
Recommendations are the actions you see as needed based on the information you’ve gathered. These can include recommendations for further research, for partnership with other groups or individuals, or for project ideas. These recommendations should be formed based on the Opportunities you and the team identified. They give your Leadership and Stakeholders visiability into what is possible for the Design phase.
When your project’s Deliverable(s) have been produced, the Immediate Actionables packaged for decision-making action or non-action, and the Recommendations organized, the moment has come to develop a coherent, informative, and persuasive presentation of findings. Besides your oral presentation, you should also prepare a presentation deck. Use the layout on the following pages as a guide for developing the deck.
Framework - communication
Use this framework as a model for creating a presentation deck of your findings and deliverables. Your slide progression shows the story of the project. For maximum effect, each slide should contain large photographs or drawings and only a few words.
A well-crafted deck enhances a well-crafted verbal presentation. So, to make an impactful presentation, practice your speaking component with your visual component. Finally, a good deck will be useful if you want to continue to grow the project later with the same or different stakeholders.
