Last week I had my first demo in front of 40 other members of my department. I lived to tell the tale!
Every two weeks there my department has a demo where around 40 people join a call where people can show off the things they have been working on and the progress they have made.
It was my first one. Here a few things I learned from it:
It’s never as bad as you think
As soon as I started talking about what I was working on, any nerves/fear I had disappeared. At the end I thought, ‘that wasn’t so bad after all’.
Questions aren’t traps
People ask questions to gain knowledge and to understand what you are showing. It’s not a trick to catch you out. It’s an opportunity to clarify and explain in more detail to help others understanding. They’re not testing you. They just want to understand
Preparation is key
My demo only lasted 10 minutes. I had a few different things to show but I had everything ready to go. I had already run the code, opened any webpages, and had graphs to show the progression of the fine-tuning at different stages. Having these open and good to go before the demo helped me structure the demo and ensured I wasn’t wasting time waiting for code to run or webpages to load.
Everyone wants you to succeed
Demos are not there to catch you out. They help others understand your project and help you justify your own methods and design decisions. Everyone wants you to succeed and sometimes their suggestions and feedback is the best way to get better. No one is trying to make you fail. This is worth remembering.
Feedback makes you better
I would argue no one really loves doing demos. We would sometimes rather avoid them. But the best way to get better at them is to do more of them and get feedback. Luckily, my manager is great at providing feedback. If yours isn’t as hands on, you can always ask someone else. Or even record it yourself and watch it back. Feedback is vital.
Those are just a few quick thoughts about my first demo.
If you’ve got your first (or any) demo coming up, good luck. You’ll be fine!
Any if you’ve done one recently let me know how it went. I’d love to hear from you!
- Jonny