Thinking Through (2)

This is a continuation of Part 1 here.
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So you have finished a piece of work and the next step is to seek the approval of your boss. And you can be sure he will be asking you questions about your work. So the next phase of thinking through is to ask the questions he may likely ask and satisfy yourselves you have got all ground covered.

But, do I know what questions will he ask? Try some of these.
Caveat: list below is not exhaustive.

1) Ask the basic/ fundamental questions. Bosses normally will not go into the detail at the outset because he knows he may be confused or led off-track. So he wants to make sure the fundamentals are correct.
- What is the aim/ objective/ purpose? (whilst the meaning of these words are essentially the same, you may find yourself giving different answers)
- What is the driver, ie why are we doing this?
- What is the basis/ argument and is this argument a persuasive one?
- What is the message? [spend a little more time on this]

So assuming your boss is satisfied with the fundamentals, he may now go into the details, ie the SUBSTANCE.

2) Going into the details
- Did you use figures, graphs, charts? If yes, are the figures/ trend accurate and what is the message conveyed?
- If the figures depict performance, are the figures impressive.
- Did you cite an example? If yes, is it an important example and is the example replicable?

3) The Unknowns
- What were your assumptions? It is all right to assume certain things, but you must know what these are and be able to argue why they remain as assumptions.
- Know what you do not know...YET. Cos you better find out before he does!