[polar]

I'm in a technical white collar industry, and recently moved into a role where I run lots of internal and external meetings. Audiences span a variety of business and IT segments. The material covers lots of technical minutia, so each meeting requires at least one or two slides. Not much of the content can be recycled.

The format set by the powers that be squeezes in a lot of content per page - intro generally contains technical info (50-100 words across bullets and categories) followed by supporting tables and data figures. Materials have to be able to stand alone and can't be diluted with vector graphics or cutesy colors.

I'm spending too much time on determining what to include and exclude, put together the content, distilling key points, and to a lesser extent, formatting (moving shit around as the content changes on the page and spills into extra lines). Frankly, I freeze up when I get in front of a blank slide.

I know hotkeys and what most of the buttons do, including alignment. My strong point is data analysis and knowing the ins and outs, not distilling key points.

Any suggestions on technical presentation design guides and speeding up the process? Links would be helpful.

Thanks.

[Repo]

I do alot of these, some of which end up on the board of directors desk. A few tips that help me:


Start your workflow with your appendix, which you may or may not include in the final presentation. Your appendix can have slides with alot of information jammed together, but try to use colors or bold to make key points pop. 4 blockers or other shapes are ok here, no real lower limit for font size either. If you have 3 or more appendix pages, strongly consider an index at the front of your presentation.

Then ->

Executive summary: White space is your friend. This is the one page you dont want to jam with too much content. A few easy to read bullets with colors or bold to make the key points pop. Try not to go below 10 or 12 font. 4 blockers are a no-go for this page. This page should distill your main key points, use a few key numbers, but the audience can refer to the appendix for the real details. Since you already have the details from doing the appendix, it should be easy to pick out your key points for this page.

If necessary ->

Second page before the appendix but after executive summary. Here show your key charts, but no more than 4 blocks. 2-4 blocks are preferable. Again, show enough detail to make it easy to read, and you can refer to appendix for details. Try not to go below 10 or 8 font.



Also, it's ok to have your own "brand". Even if the format is set by the higher ups, apply your own unique touches to it, and if the presentation is well received consider re-using the format. The more you re-use the format, the more you will pick up small changes that improve the overall presentation that you can use for future decks. Then when you look back, you'll notice the deck your currently using is lightyears ahead of what you started with.

Lastly, get a fresh pair of eyes. Ask a coworker you trust for opinions. That's all I can think of for now. .

[Mig Picante]

There is a real tension between consultants that would dictate "One idea per slide" with minimal wording or crowding and denser technical slides that have a lot of information on them. (These lend themselves better to print-outs rather than presentations)

You need to storyboard your ideas so they present a logical story. Essentially, you should be able to read the title pages and get the overall point.

The Pyramid Principle
https://medium.com/lessons-from-mckinsey...885dd3c5c7

McKinsey have a structure Situation, Complication, Resolution (SCR) framework.
https://speakingsherpa.com/how-to-tell-a...framework/

You can also re-arrange this to present the answer first, then explain the situation and how you arrived there and finally repeat your conclusion.

[TopPanda]

God I'm glad I left corporate life to go and teach English overseas.

Of course I still use PowerPoint... a lot.

After 450 lessons I've learnt to slow down and say as much as I can possibly think of about each slide. Rehearsing chunks of this in your head works really well.

When my students make PPT's they cram an essay onto each slide. I've got mine down to 4 bullet points.

Oh, and I use 40pt fonts.

[monster]

(03-31-2019 09:37 AM)TopPanda Wrote:  

When my students make PPT's they cram an essay onto each slide. I've got mine down to 4 bullet points.

I agree. I think PowerPoint should function as the most basic outline only and secondarily provide helpful pictures or number data when needed. The point of a lecture is to hear the lecture itself not to read slides. Furthermore, this forces the audience to pay attention.

[polar]

(03-29-2019 12:59 PM)Repo Wrote:  

I do alot of these, some of which end up on the board of directors desk. A few tips that help me:


Start your workflow with your appendix, which you may or may not include in the final presentation. Your appendix can have slides with alot of information jammed together, but try to use colors or bold to make key points pop. 4 blockers or other shapes are ok here, no real lower limit for font size either. If you have 3 or more appendix pages, strongly consider an index at the front of your presentation.

Then ->

Executive summary: White space is your friend. This is the one page you dont want to jam with too much content. A few easy to read bullets with colors or bold to make the key points pop. Try not to go below 10 or 12 font. 4 blockers are a no-go for this page. This page should distill your main key points, use a few key numbers, but the audience can refer to the appendix for the real details. Since you already have the details from doing the appendix, it should be easy to pick out your key points for this page.

If necessary ->

Second page before the appendix but after executive summary. Here show your key charts, but no more than 4 blocks. 2-4 blocks are preferable. Again, show enough detail to make it easy to read, and you can refer to appendix for details. Try not to go below 10 or 8 font.



Also, it's ok to have your own "brand". Even if the format is set by the higher ups, apply your own unique touches to it, and if the presentation is well received consider re-using the format. The more you re-use the format, the more you will pick up small changes that improve the overall presentation that you can use for future decks. Then when you look back, you'll notice the deck your currently using is lightyears ahead of what you started with.

Lastly, get a fresh pair of eyes. Ask a coworker you trust for opinions. That's all I can think of for now. .

Thanks, these are all good guidelines, I'll experiment. A lot of my meetings are facilitating discussions between different business and IT segments, so the content tends to summarize the viewpoint of one of them and act as discussion points for the others' POV or to gather their input.

We do try to provide materials ahead of time for major meetings when possible, but given that most folks don't look at them ahead of time (due to other priorities and whatnot) it often ends up as a page turn - another reason for having everything self contained. It's not my job or pay grade to change that expectation.

(03-30-2019 07:21 PM)Mig Picante Wrote:  

There is a real tension between consultants that would dictate "One idea per slide" with minimal wording or crowding and denser technical slides that have a lot of information on them. (These lend themselves better to print-outs rather than presentations)

100% agree. Where I have say, I prefer the "one idea" approach, but the powers that be and the content I'm covering both lean towards technical.

Quote:

You need to storyboard your ideas so they present a logical story. Essentially, you should be able to read the title pages and get the overall point.

The Pyramid Principle
https://medium.com/lessons-from-mckinsey...885dd3c5c7

McKinsey have a structure Situation, Complication, Resolution (SCR) framework.
https://speakingsherpa.com/how-to-tell-a...framework/

You can also re-arrange this to present the answer first, then explain the situation and how you arrived there and finally repeat your conclusion.

Also really good. I think I'm going straight into the weeds, rather than going up and thinking about overall meeting and purpose.

These meetings are less "answer" and more "QnA" or discussion settings, so top level is mainly
"How we see the situation"
"Our question / proposed changes 1,2,3" (with technical experts, to get their revisions and approval)

(03-31-2019 11:03 AM)monster Wrote:  

(03-31-2019 09:37 AM)TopPanda Wrote:  

When my students make PPT's they cram an essay onto each slide. I've got mine down to 4 bullet points.

I agree. I think PowerPoint should function as the most basic outline only and secondarily provide helpful pictures or number data when needed. The point of a lecture is to hear the lecture itself not to read slides. Furthermore, this forces the audience to pay attention.

These are fair points, especially for lecture driven format. We're also getting into discussion of which approach to use when.

-Lectures - best as a summary of "key points" with message driven by text

Presenting summarized approach - MECE, Pyramid Principle, SCR (expectation of a largely un-interrupted presentation)

-Discussions - key points with more details readily available to provide examples and talking points (for example, in my case, open questions are things like "do we need to source field A, B, or both?" with tech, and "approach A or B?" with various expert teams, where pictures or tables are worth a thousand words)

-Most technical information and reference material - stick it in the appendix