Executive Summary

Executive summaries present a succinct overview of a larger document in order to give salient details to key stakeholders (the "executives", whose decision to invest in a project may determine its success), who may not necessarily have the time or technical background required to read the larger document. It is important that executive summaries be only one page or less in length, and that they use accessible language aimed at a non-technical background. For our capstone design project, I wrote the following executive summary for our 80-page Critical Design Document, which was written after the implementation phase of the project. Note that the executive summary finishes with a concise reference to the total cost of the prototype, as well as the final recommendation for further testing -- for an executive skimming this document quickly, these details (budget and project status) would be of great importance. My ability to write these executive summaries will assist me in my professional engineering career as I write to connect stakeholders to my projects.