Presentations, How Do We Excel? - Part 1
In all likelihood you have come across this page in one of two ways. You are either an avid reader of the Butterfly Blog (and who isn’t?) or you reached this page, amongst hundreds of others on the Google search results for the above title, and decided this was the guidance for you.
Obviously there is a lot out there about how to stand before a host of people and talk at them for a while and keep it interesting. Much of it will be as good as what you read below and much will touch upon topics we will not have time for here. As a consultancy though presenting our ideas, strategy and technical solutions is a key part of what we do; we also really like to share what we have learnt internally and every week as part of our whole staff meetings will have one or two people do quick presentations. It is that kind of thing I have got in mind below - a talk for a reasonably well informed and thoughtful audience that needs to have something potentially complicated introduced, explained or convinced of. You’ll also notice this is part 1 of 2, and it is not just because every good presentation should leave the audience wanting more!
Know your stuff!
The very best presentations are given by people who really know the topic, talk about it often, and have given just a little thought to the below. The first part of that is key, someone who really knows what they are talking about can just speak naturally and passionately about a topic and is confident to go off script when they know it will be useful. If they have given a little thought to the level of understanding their audience is at they will be automatically engaging, because people like to listen to those who know what they’re talking about! Conversely if you are bluffing your way through it, are hazy on some critical details, or potentially are just flat out wrong in even just a few places it will stick out like a sore thumb.
As a Software Engineering University student I sat through, as I am sure you can imagine, a lot of lectures - which were of varying quality! There were a couple that were pretty memorable though and they both had one thing in common - they were delivered by external guests. They were brought in to speak on topics the Comp Sci department had limited experience in and it was clear they knew their subject areas inside and out.
Properly knowing what you are talking about when giving a presentation is a key way to overcoming shortcomings in every other aspect. There’s a good rule of thumb, you don’t really understand something until you can explain it well to someone else.
Don’t read - speak off the cuff!
Some years ago I had a role acting as a ‘Dragon’ on a Dragon’s Den activity for groups of students. At the end of a week developing a business idea they had to deliver a 15 minute pitch to myself and another judge. Throughout the week I repeatedly told them “whatever you do, do not get up there with a full script and just read it to us” but, sure enough, come the big day I ended up watching one unbroken reading after another.
There are of course obvious reasons why people like to have full scripts when delivering presentations. The most popular one is the fear of the mind going blank and not having a clue what to say. Others include general nervousness around public speaking and concerns about making mistakes.
Recommendation 1 above is the answer to most of the causes of these worries. People who really know what they’re talking about very rarely forget what to say or have their minds go blank. Maybe consider throwing in a bit of practice (especially to a sympathetic audience) if you still feel like you are lacking the confidence to ditch the script. If you have got to present on something that you are not particularly an expert then the temptation to fall back to a full script arises again. The solution here though is not to go that route but rather to limit the scope of your presentation to what you do know well or to present your material in a way that acknowledges your limited grasp but is focused on covering what is clear.
It takes an enormous amount of skill and experience to make a full script sound like naturally improvised speech. All it takes is one small mistake and tone changes dramatically. Often our writing style is quite divorced from how we naturally speak, with greater vocabularies and more complex statements. The written word is designed to be read and therefore can just be harder to follow and pay attention to that improvised speech.
A great middle ground is simple one sentence notes that if you tried to default into reading them would make no real sense. It can feel risky initially but typically just a few words, especially with some clever formatting being used, will bring to mind a wealth of information that a knowledgeable speaker will be able to use to speak confidently in a natural way.
Think Audience and Purpose!
The golden rule when deciding on your content is to think about your audience and the purpose of your presentation. Get either of these wildly wrong and it will not matter how much you know about a subject or how off the cuff you are being, the presentation just will not work.
When evaluating your audience you should think about:
What they already know about your topic and its associated subject area
What they will want to learn about the topic from your presentation
What they will want to get out of the presentation - this is just slightly different but critically so from the previous point!
What baggage they will bring to the proceedings - if you say certain things or in certain ways will it just turn them off listening?
If you are addressing a mixed audience you need to be especially mindful how you balance all of their needs. A simple approach can be to directly highlight that groups are in mind at certain stages. So saying something like “now those of you who know X will be interested in this…” and so on. Similarly if at one point you are going to go into detail that will be too much for others it is worth flagging up that you need them to bear with you.
When thinking about the purpose of your presentation it may be worth considering what you expect or want your audience to do afterward. If they are just going to go away being a little more informed but not actually putting anything into use that needs to shape your content. On the other hand if they need to achieve particular tasks afterward you need to have brought them to the point where they can get straight on with that. I have sat through many technical demonstrations that went into a level of detail I just didn’t need to know because I was not going to be using that tool anytime soon (and by the time I would, my memory of the demonstration may well have faded). Those presentations would have been far more successful if they spent their time on really making sure I was aware of everything I could do rather than give me detail on how I might do a few things.
