Making an effective presentation

We've put together some advice below that should help your presentation stand out (in a good way) and allow you to relax and enjoy the experience.

As part of your final project you may come across a time when you are asked to put on a presentation. Most people are not fans of standing up and talking in public, but as you are very likely to have to face putting on more than one or two of these during your career, its best to learn the basic skills of a successful presentation right now.

Planning

A key part of making a presentation is to plan it properly. Ask yourself who your intended audience is, and what you can and cannot assume they know about the subject already. They will not take kindly to you spending half of your presentation going through material that everyone is already completely familiar with, since that’s a waste of everyone’s time. Equally if you wrongly assume that your audience already understands certain things, you’ll have lost them right from the start. A couple of slides at the beginning just to establish a common understanding of the starting point is therefore not a bad idea.

Plan in advance what you are going to say, giving yourself a script to follow, and your overall presentation a logical structure. Before you write anything up, get a piece of paper and write down what the single most important point you want to make is, how might the subject best be introduced, what support points to your main point need to be made and in what order, and what tone or style will help you convey your talk. Doing this will help get your message across.

Your audience

Always remember to consider your audience when planning your presentation, as their experience, knowledge, needs etc can all affect the information you should be covering and also how you approach it. Use the following as a useful tool:

Analysis – Who are they? How many of them?
Understanding – What is their knowledge?
Demographics – Age, sex, educational background
Interest – Why are they there? Who asked them to be here?
Environment – Where will I stand? Can they see and hear me?
Needs – What are their needs? What are your needs as the speaker?
Customised – What specific needs do you need to address?
Expectations – What do they expect to learn or hear from you?

Preparing the environment

Make sure you take into consideration the environment in which you will be doing your talk. If the venue is unfamiliar territory, it helps to have a look around before the talk. If it’s in a large room, try out your voice. If you can get a friend to tag them along, plant them in the back of the room to see if they can hear you. Simple things will also make your life a lot easier, and help you to come across as a professional. It is useful you see to know where the light switches and power points are, and how to draw the blinds if you plan to use slides or film. Another simple thing to do is find out how the windows open and close, and how the air conditioning works in case you need to regulate the temperature.

Timing

When planning, consider the time of day and how long you have got for your talk, as the time of day can affect the audience. For example, after lunch is known as the graveyard section in training circles as your audience is more likely to want a nap than listen to a talk, so try to avoid that period at least!

Structuring your talk

Now it's time to structure your talk in more detail:

Firstly identify headings and subheadings within your presentation by looking at the subject matter through the eyes of your audience, and asking yourself ‘Will this piece of information help me to achieve my favoured output?’ This is important as it helps to avoid waffle.

From there choose a logical introduction point, setting out the purpose and explaining what the presentation will consist of.

Next split the body of your presentation into logical sections, tailoring it to your particular audience. Lay the foundations first and build on them, then finish with a conclusion which draws together the main points that you have been making, and makes it obvious with the final slide that you’ve finished. Finally check that the presentation is readable and understandable through thorough practice. Simply by creating this detailed structure outline and then making yourself familiar with your presentation notes, you will have already given yourself a 75% chance of success.

With all presentations you should keep in mind the AIDA acronym: Attention, Interest, Desire and Action. Begin by grabbing the attention of your audience with a statement that is relevant to them. A common way of doing this is firstly to state the reason for your presentation, then talk to them about the advantage(s) the audience can gain from listening and finally give the audience an idea of how your presentation will progress.

Keep the interest levels of your audience high – via the use of some visual or verbal aids perhaps - and give them a desire to take action as a result of your presentation. If you have fully rehearsed your presentation and you are happy with environmental factors such as acoustics and visual aids, there is every reason for you to have total confidence. If you project the image of a well-briefed and authoritive figure, your audience will have greater confidence in you and your message will be more effective.

Visual aids

Although it is true that the majority of people use PowerPoint for presentations, there is no doubt that it can make for a very professional presentation. Be careful not to ‘overuse’ it though – too many pictures can take your audiences attention away from what you are trying to say.

Whatever visual aid you choose to use, you need to find some middle ground where your slides are visually appealing but don’t take the attention away from yourself. Use colour where appropriate but don’t bombard your audience with too much information – make them simple to read. Using a mixture of bullet points, diagrams and charts to talk around is a good idea, but don’t put in equations unless they are absolutely necessary, and don’t use a font size smaller than 16 point. Another point is to aim for a sans serif font like Arial, as it is much easier to read than fonts like Times New Roman.

As a rough guide to the length of your presentation, if you are using a visual aid, you should roughly calculate the length of your talk by using the expectation that you will talk on each slide for a minute, so if you have 15 slides, expect to talk for roughly 15 minutes.

Your actions and body language

When in front of your audience you need to come across as enjoying the experience, even if you have sweaty palms and butterflies in your stomach! How can you expect them to enjoy it if you aren’t?

With that in mind, your actions – conscious and subconscious - can affect the success of your talk. Did you know that the content of what you say; i.e. the actual words and their meaning only account for 20-25% of the impression you create? The style of speech – tone, inflection, clarity, pronunciation, speed, accent, loudness and pitch, takes up another 25-30%, whereas body language can account for up to 50% of that impression!

So you need to consider many things when it comes to getting on that stage. Take your voice for example. Remember to speak clearly and not too fast and rather than speak in a flat monotone, it’s good to vary the pitch of your voice and also to vary the pace slightly, leaving occasional pauses for effect. If you want to make a particularly important point, you can either raise your voice (the obvious way) or if you have their attention lower it. Lowering your voice will result in people listening more attentively, almost leaning forward to hear what you are saying.

Eye contact is another thing to get right. It is much better if you can speak directly at your audience, and engage some of them in eye contact rather than keeping your eyes down and reading from notes. This means then that you need to prepare well, and be confident enough that you don’t need to read from your notes. To be effective, eye contact needs to be regular, frequent and evenly distributed. One use technique is called the lighthouse. ‘Sweep’ the group with your eyes, look briefly at each person and smile (but only when appropriate) regularly.

Overall body language is very important to consider. Here’s a list of different forms of body language and their meanings from Drumchapel Opportunities. Some of these will come in as handy hints for your time on the stage – both for advice on how to act yourself, but also as a way of knowing how your audience is feeling…

Holding eye contact – Interest or concern with the other person. This is the single most important thing you can do to make communication work through body language
Smiling – Shows you are following what is being said and that you are willing to pay attention to the other person
Fidgeting – Shows some impatience; perhaps a concern with the time and a need to get away
Arms crossed – Often a defensive posture; protecting yourself; keeping the other person at a distance; disagreeing with the other person
Nodding your head – Signals agreement, or that you have understood what is being said
Covering your mouth – Shows possible anxiety or lack of confidence
Hand gestures – May show enthusiasm and an attempt to convey something which is strongly held, or to make a particular point
Arms on hips – Often a slightly aggressive attitude; sometimes interpreted as ’take it or leave it’
Foot tapping – Impatience, possible disinterest
Head scratching – May show uncertainty, or someone having difficulty in understanding what is being said
Head to one side – Shows interest and attentive listening.

Taking these pointers into consideration, here’s some further advice to help you improve your skills and techniques.

Posture:

Whether sitting or standing you need to find a comfortable posture that also projects confidence.
Stand with your feet apart, and your arms down by your side is a good starting point. This is known as your ‘home position’. Some people find it better to have their feet apart and one foot slightly ahead of the other but whatever stance you choose, make sure you can see the whole group.
If you sit down make sure you are alert and upright. Don’t slouch and don’t cross your legs.

Movement:

Once you have started your presentation you should avoid distracting movements such as pacing around the room or wild hand gestures.
Don’t feel however, that you have to stay in a rigid position and posture. Movement is an important ingredient in maintaining interest. You can move towards the group when you want to make an important point and away from them (walking backwards) when you want them to think about something.

Gestures:

Gestures can either be seen as distracting or they can add interest and impact to something you are saying depending on the extent of the movements.
Gestures are only effective when they complement what you are saying.
Gestures need to be synchronised with the pace of your voice and your words.

Explanations

When explaining points, particularly complex or important ones, remember the KISS rule...

Keep

Short and

Simple

If you are not using many visual aids then you can use ‘verbal visual aids’ that will help people understand what you are trying to get across. Try to keep them both relevant to the audience and similar to the content of your presentation.

‘A speech should be long enough to cover the important points and short enough to be interesting’.

Other methods of painting word pictures include:

Anecdotes – short story often with a funny ending. If you are talking about a very dry subject then anecdotes involving people can make them sit up and listen.
Humour – Using a joke can illustrate a point, but don’t use any humour that may be taken as offensive.
Analogies – relating an unfamiliar or dull subject to something familiar or interesting.

Participation

Good presentations often have an interactive element to them. Participation can be encouraged from the start of the presentation by inviting questions from them during the talk. Only do this if you feel comfortable though, however keep in mind that when replying to questions we are often more relaxed, natural and articulate than when delivering a prepared script.

Participation can also work the other way, as you can involve people by asking questions themselves. If your group doesn’t seem very interested for example, you can ask them questions from time to time to keep them on their toes.

Use the POSE, PAUSE, POUNCE technique…put your question to the whole group, pause a while for it to sink in and then pick on someone to answer it.

The Do’s and Don'ts

Finally, a few last do’s and don'ts to help you survive your presentation experience. Above all else though, remember to enjoy it!

Do:

Practice – it is only practice that can make you a good speaker
Take three deep breaths before going in front of the group
Practice out loud beforehand. The part of the brain that controls speech is different to the part of the brain that controls thought.
Think about how well it’s going to go. Prepare yourself to be a success. Don’t let your mind present you with pictures of what might go wrong
Start and finish with a Bang!
Use PAMPERS (Projection, Articulation, Modulation, Pronunciation, Enunciation, Repetition, Speed)

Don’t:

Fidget with pens or notes of jangle keys or change
Use repetitive words like Ok, Ok?
Speak too quickly in order to get it over with
Read anything except for quotations

Further IET Reading and Information:

IET Short Courses: Did you know there is a short course available on Effective Presentations?

Contact:

IET
Courses Unit
Michael Faraday House
Six Hills Way
Stevenage
Herts
SG1 2AY

Tel: +44 (0) 1438 767237
Email: courses@theiet.org

With thanks to:

Drumchapel Opportunities – Tim Pickles
Hugh Griffiths and Nina Thornhill. UCL

OTHER INTERNET RESOURCES:

From the IET