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The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster and the over-reliance on PowerPoint (2019)

(mcdreeamiemusings.com)
210 points scapecast | 5 comments | 28 Aug 25 21:44 UTC | HN request time: 1.194s | source
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quacked ◴[29 Aug 25 02:08 UTC] No.45059248[source]▶
This isn't a failure of PowerPoint. I work for NASA and we still use it all the time, and I'll assure anyone that the communication errors are rife regardless of what medium we're working in. The issue is differences in the way that in-the-weeds engineers and managers interpret technical information, which is alluded to in the article but the author still focuses on the bullets and the PowerPoint, as if rewriting similar facts in a technical paper would change everything.

My own colleagues fall victim to this all the time (luckily I do not work in any capacity where someone's life is directly on the line as a result of my work.) Recently, a colleague won an award for helping managers make a decision about a mission parameter, but he was confused because they chose a parameter value he didn't like. His problem is that, like many engineers, he thought that providing the technical context he discovered that led him to his conclusion was as effective as presenting his conclusion. It never is; if you want to be heard by managers, and really understood even by your colleagues, you have to say things up front that come across as overly simple, controversial, and poorly-founded, and then you can reveal your analyses as people question you.

I've seen this over and over again, and I'm starting to think it's a personality trait. Engineers are gossiping among themselves, saying "X will never work". They get to the meeting with the managers and present "30 different analyses showing X is marginally less effective than Y and Z" instead of just throwing up a slide that says "X IS STUPID AND WE SHOULDN'T DO IT." Luckily for me, I'm not a very good engineer, so when I'm along for the ride I generally translate well into Managerese.

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1. mhh__ ◴[29 Aug 25 03:08 UTC] No.45059692[source]▶
If nothing else it's quite hard/uncommon to print out a PowerPoint and read it carefully in a quiet room by yourself, I do this with written stuff all the time.
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2. lupusreal ◴[29 Aug 25 09:23 UTC] No.45061949[source]▶
The whole point of PowerPoint is to pander to people who can't or don't want to sit down and carefully read a report. They want to sit back and passively consume information like they were watching TV. The problem then isn't so much PowerPoint itself, but rather these quasi illiterate people being in decision making positions. That's the real problem, and PowerPoint is just a symptom.
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3. ubermonkey ◴[29 Aug 25 12:12 UTC] No.45063027[source]▶
That's not really true.

Speaking in a meeting, or delivering a talk in a larger context, often works better with visuals. Delivering information in this way is not "pandering" to people who don't or won't read a detailed paper. They're different contexts with different goals.

Before Powerpoint, having any kind of visual aid to a talk was incredibly onerous. You had to print up transparancies, or literally have SLIDES made, and the whole thing was just an enormous pain in the ass.

The PROBLEM here isn't Powerpoint, or the existence of visuals during a talk. It's that humans are bad at communicating generally, and that the use of slides during a talk is something many folks absolutely do NOT understand or do well.

You've been to a talk where the speaker basically just reads the slides, right? That's pointless. What you want is slides that compliment and amplify what's actually being said, not duplicate it. You also want slides that "scan" well -- if your audience has to pause and read a 150 words on a slide, you've fucked up. (DoD and defense industry presentations are INFAMOUS for this, btw.)

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4. lupusreal ◴[29 Aug 25 12:32 UTC] No.45063236{3}[source]▶
Technical papers convey technical information more effectively than PowerPoint presentations, period. The only edge PowerPoint has comes from managers refusing to read technical papers, making the PowerPoint literally better than nothing.
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5. ubermonkey ◴[02 Sep 25 13:02 UTC] No.45102574{4}[source]▶
I mean, you can dig in your heels on that, but it's the rhetorical equivalent of putting your fingers in your ears.

I attended a former partner's PhD defense. She used PowerPoint during it for graphs and other visuals as she delivered DEEPLY technical information. Presentation software is valuable when giving presentations, period.

You just have to know how to use it properly.