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07.07
Communicating 101: Keep Your Presentations
Simple
BY Raymond E. Floyd
Your boss recently stopped by your
office to tell you: "Congratulations, next week
you will present Project X to
senior staff." Too often, that's about as much information
as you're given to
prepare for such an assignment. When your
heart starts to beat again, and your breath
stops coming in gasps, true panic can set in.
"Why me," you wonder, "Why not Joe or Jill or ...?"
Aside from the fact that public
speaking is number one on many people's list of
fears, why do speaking
assignments cause such anxiety? Obviously, you're the most
qualified to talk about the project, which is
why your boss picked you for the job. Rather
than looking at the assignment as a burden, look
at it as an opportunity to demonstrate your
knowledge, acumen and ability to handle
challenging assignments.
It may come as a shock, but the
first things you need to do to prepare for your
presentation have little to do with the
presentation or its content. Before you put pen
to paper, so to speak, there are a number of
questions you need to answer:
-
where is presentation going
to be made?
-
who, and how many, will be in
the audience?
-
what type of presentation
media (i.e., slides, flip charts, power
point) is to be used?
-
how long is the presentation
to take (allowing for questions), and when
is it scheduled to take place?
-
are there standard formats,
colors or other chart requirements?
-
what time will the
presentation be given (just before lunch,
late afternoon)?
The answers to the first two questions can
help determine the
answer to the third. If you are presenting to a
group of three to five people in a relatively small room, flip
charts may be appropriate. When the audience
swells to 10 or more, and the room grows to
accommodate the larger crowd, slides or
power point are better choices (in some cases,
overhead foils may also be used). Perhaps most
importantly, find out what presentation media,
if any, is available in the room. If you don't
have your own projector, you'll have to use what
is there.
The length of time you are
allotted will help
to determine the number of pages in your
presentation (more on that shortly). You must
pay very close attention to
your timing if the presentation is just prior to
lunch or quitting time — most people don't want
to be late for either.
Some companies have standard report formats they
prefer for presentations. The format usually
contains a corporate logo, a date, any
confidentiality requirements of the material,
and preferred color scheme. Before you begin on
your slides, check to see if there are standard
templates available for use.
Once you've answered the
questions above, you should be just about ready to write your
presentation. A fairly common set-up for a
presentation, regardless of medium, would
be:
For the sake of discussion,
we'll assume you're going to use power point
slides as the your chosen presentation medium
(but use whichever best fits your scenario).
Most of the rules apply to the different
mediums, anyway.
Back to timing. How many slides will you
need? A good rule of thumb
is to allow one to two minutes per slide. For a 15 minute
presentation, with five minutes allowed for
questions, that means you don't have time to
cover more than two to five key points.
In the introductory slide, you
should address briefly the background of the
project, and the points you plan to expand
upon in the following slides. Avoid making the
slides look like text-heavy printed pages, with line after
line of text that can't be read from two feet,
much less 10 or 15 feet. Same goes for overheads
and flip charts as well. Use a few key words to
prompt the thoughts, and you provide the fill
material (so you're not standing there
reading the material verbatim to your audience). And don't
forget limit each slide to one to two minutes.
Each key point should
have its own slide. As with the introduction,
use key words and no more than five or six lines
for each key point slide. The first point should be
the most important, and you can focus more time
on that slide, pushing the time limit to the
full 2 minutes or slightly more (you can make up
the time off later charts.) The next slides
should cover the remaining key points in descending level of
importance, just in case you are suddenly asked
to skip to the conclusion (it happens —
don't take it personally).
The conclusion slide should
re-list
the most pertinent points noted, with no new
information inserted at this point. Some people
will list the "good" points first and the "bad"
points last. Some will do the reverse. It isn't
important, but, personally, I always prefer to
end on a positive note.
The final slide provides a summary
and makes your appeal. What do you want from the
senior staff? Approval to continue a project?
Additional funding? Again, no
new information should be introduced on this
slide.
If you're allotted more than 15
minutes, you can cover more points, or expand the depth of any given
slide. But remember, attention spans are short,
so try to adhere to the one-to-two minute rule
for each slide. And remember, it's always better to quit early, leaving more
time for questions or to move on to other
business.
You will spend much more time in
preparation for your presentation than you will
for the presentation itself, but being well
prepared and knowledgeable of your subject
matter can help soften even bad news.
So you've been given an
opportunity to make a presentation? Enjoy!
More articles on
presentations from TE Online...
Raymond E. Floyd is an IEEE
Life Senior Member.
Comments may
be submitted to todaysengineer@ieee.org. Opinions expressed are the
author's.
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