A lot of my time goes into explaining technical results to collaborators who don’t work with code or statistics. It’s an important part of the work, but it also slows down the analysis itself. I’m still figuring out how to communicate clearly without oversimplifying. How have others improved that skill?

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Being able to distill complex analytical results into an elevator pitch or a 10 second summary is the golden ticket to moving up. Like it or not - what the decision makers (& a lot of people in genera) are conditioned to pay attention to is the punchline and then ask questions to delve deeper (sometimes)

Few folks want to listen to all of the details and methodology up front…

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I don’t see an issue with oversimplifying the technical terms, just as long as you aren’t diminishing the work or effort. Sign of a strong understanding when you can boil it down to simple terms.

I get caught up in that at times, I work with mechanical issues but I have to explain them to people concerned with budgets. The main thing to keep in mind is keeping it simple, in the sense that non-tech people don't need to know everything that's going on. They need to know how things relate to their concern (cost, safety, and so on). One point that can be important is don't neglect to bring up the cost of doing nothing.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with oversimplifying if you keep an emphasis on the impact

I usually start by asking them questions to narrow down on what I need to cover
Then I make slides that give a good explanation in figures

My experience has been with a lot of non English collaborations sooo there’s that hurdle

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