Developing Effective Presentations: Tactics and Tips

In Developing Effective Presentations: Tactics and Tips, you'll learn ...

• The strategy and mechanics of designing an effective presentation
• The four (4) different types of presentations
• How to keep the presentation/meeting on track while maintaining good will with the participants
• How to generate useful data from a group while minimizing follow-up work for the presenter/facilitator

Overview

Credit: 3 PDH

Length: 43 pages

This course is about the strategy and mechanics of designing an effective presentation and conducting a successful meeting within which the presentation is made.

It does NOT cover verbal presentation skills or visual design techniques. Toastmasters and Dale Carnegie are two very well-known and well respected sources for gaining presentation skills while endless examples of creating visually compelling PowerPoint presentations abound on the Internet.

Students of this course will learn that a presentation intended to give information to the audience such as the announcement of a new policy or a new initiative would be much different from one designed to get information such as getting feedback about a recent issue or event.

But as simple as that sounds, you can break it down farther into “give-information-with-no-discussion-expected” (such as the upcoming blood drive with the where, when, why details included) or “give-information-and-expect-a-lot-of-discussion” such as the company is changing health plans in the fall with a new premium and co-pay schedule.

Then there is the brainstorming (problem solving) or strategic planning presentation when you must filter the useful ideas from the flood of chatter that always results.

And none of those has anything in common with a presentation that must be persuasive so you can get something such as additional resources or approval for a new initiative.

The content includes these bullet points:

• Presentations aren't given in a vacuum; there must be some meeting management skills considered, too.
• What is the purpose of the presentation/meeting building toward?
• You must start with the desired outcome in mind and then design backwards from there.
• What are the specific take-aways that you must have as a result of your presentation?
• Assuming that "time is money," how can you determine whether the cost of the meeting (salaries, resources, and anything else) is justified by your presentation? (A link to the bullet above)
• Who must be in the meeting? Who should be in it? Is there anyone who should not?
• How will you engage the audience as quickly as possible? (You'll have about the first seven seconds to either grab them or lose them!)
• If it's an information giving presentation, will you also need handouts? If so, what will they contain? When will you give them out - before, during, or after your presentation? Will you anticipate a lot of discussion? Will there be follow-up meetings?
• If it's an information getting presentation, how will you collect the data without derailing the meeting? When will there be a follow-up to share the results of the data collected?
• If it's a brainstorming/problem solving (BS/PS) presentation/meeting, how will you collect the data quickly? Since this is typically a creative process, it is easy to get off-track with the flow of ideas. How will you stay on track without discouraging contributions?
• If it's a persuasive presentation, how can you make your case more compelling? How much data should you provide to make your case but not so much that it gets bogged down in minutia? Can you imagine what questions they could ask instead of just focusing on the ones they probably will ask and be prepared for them?

The course assumes that you will be making a PowerPoint presentation because that is the world standard. However, traditional flip charts can be used successfully with this same content.