OE1-1.1 Communication: Nature, Process & Technical Communication
You can describe the communication process and the downward, upward and horizontal channels, identify barriers, and define technical communication with its aspects, forms and four skills.
The channel model is more useful than it looks: most workplace communication failures are structural — the message went up when it needed to go sideways — rather than failures of wording. Technical communication is distinguished by purpose rather than subject: it exists to let a reader do something, which is why accuracy and clarity outrank elegance. Listening is listed first among the four skills and is the one nobody practises.
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Nature and process of communication
What communication is as a process rather than an act, which is the model the rest of the course refers back to. Noticing that it is a loop with feedback is the useful part.
Channels of communication: downward, upward and horizontal
The three directions information moves in an organisation, and why upward flow is the one that fails. Bad news travelling slowly upwards is a structural problem rather than a personal one.
Barriers to communication
What stops a message arriving as sent. This is the most immediately useful item in the topic, because you can act on it tomorrow.
Definition of technical communication; oral and written
What makes writing technical, which is the audience and the purpose rather than the vocabulary. It is the distinction the whole course rests on.
Importance and need for technical communication
Why engineers are asked to write at all. The honest answer is that work nobody can read is work nobody can use, which is worth taking seriously early.
Nature of technical communication
The properties that characterise it: accuracy, brevity, clarity and an audience that is reading to do something. Keep this list beside you while drafting.
Aspects and forms of technical communication
The shapes it takes, from an email to a specification. Recognising the form tells you the conventions before you start.
Technical communication skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing
The four skills, of which listening is the one nobody practises. Reading efficiently is the one that most affects how fast you can work.
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