I am waiting to hear back on my defence invite, but am preparing like I’ve been invited. Solid advice any VCDX will give you. The design defence is an invitation to Palo Alto, Staines or Sydney to defend your design and run through a scenario. In today’s blog, I am going to talk about my experience when preparing for the design defence.
The design defence is you defending your submitted design. This is a 75-minute window for you to present your submitted project and defend your design choices. While it’s a 75-minute window, its recommended you prepare a c15-minute presentation. The other 60 minutes will be used by the panellists to ask questions about anything relating to the submitted design.
There are a few pieces of advice I found useful while preparing:
Know the slides like the back of your hand
Obvious, but practice makes perfect. Run through the slides on your own as many times as needed, until you are comfortable presenting on any of the slides. The panellists may make you jump around, so it’s important you are able to find your way back and continue delivering what you rehearsed.
The slide deck is your chance to tell the business’s story
Use the Powerpoint slides to your advantage. Set up the presentation so it triggers key talking points. Try to make your presentation tell a story, fluidity is something everyone appreciates. Use the notes section for additional reminders if needed.
Have as many backup slides as you need
I have between 40-50 backup slides that cover design decision and what-if scenarios. These can be used as a quick reference to answer panellist questions. Use quick links to help you bounce around between slides, so you can get your flow back asap.
Mock design defences
Find aspiring or current VCDX’s, preferably in your track to join and simulate a design defence. That said, using people from other tracks will spark interesting dialogue. This will help you build a stronger back-up slide deck and will get you used to all types of panellists. Mix it up! During some of your mock defences, ask your mock panellists to let you finish the presentation before they ask questions. In others, ask them to interrupt you during the presentation. Get used to all the scenarios as you don’t know what will happen on the day.
Learn to speak like a VCDX
Unless you are used to it, it’s hard to speak in the first person (i.e. I did, not we did). Speak about the design decisions and how they relate to the requirements and constraints. Your first answer should always business-related. Use that VCDX lingo you’ve learnt over the last n months.
Last but not least, know your design
You are defending your design and the panellists will be asking you questions about the high-level decisions and low-level decisions. Not remembering your decisions may create conflicting arguments and you don’t want that.
My Schedule
I’ve had 1 design defence per week since the first week of January. This has made me feel more comfortable without feeling over-rehearsed. The sessions I’ve had weren’t always structured design defences, some were open discussion about my design and deck. I feel this has helped me shape my slides and approach to a point where I cover all angles.
A reminder that I don’t have my number (yet), so grab that salt and take a pinch when reading this.