Organizing Presentations

1. Knowing Your Purpose, Audience, and Message

In many jobs, you will be expected to give a presentation: a speech or talk, often with visual aids, that will train, teach, or persuade the audience. Common examples are sales presentations or demonstrations where you might show potential customers what a product does, or internal training where you show your audience how something works. Another common presentation is an internal or external proposal, such as trying to convince your colleagues to adopt a new strategy or program.

Though primarily spoken, presentations usually involve nonverbal and visual components. They may have supporting documents handed out before the presentation, while some can even include written reports. While presentations are mostly planned, they also involve some spontaneous communication, as you make off-the-cuff remarks or respond to questions from the audience, so they are truly a synthesis of several different modes of communication you have already learned—and a few that you haven’t!

Before you build or deliver a presentation, you will need a broad sense of who you are talking to, what you want them to know, and why. Purpose, audience, and message are closely connected, like three sides of a triangle. For example, your purpose might be to update your team on the progress of your project, or to train volunteers on a new process. The audience is part of the purpose, and both purpose and audience will determine how you deliver the message.

Your purpose might be your own initiative or assigned to you; if the latter, be sure to know what management expects from you. Are you serving in an informational role, conducting research and presenting “just the facts?” Or are you expected to make a specific recommendation? If your purpose is informative, don’t overstep your role. If you do make a recommendation, be prepared to take a stand and defend your position with a sound rationale.

If your purpose is loosely defined, the audience can help refine it. For example, if you’re asked to “tell the group about your project,” you might ask yourself what is most important for your audience to know; is the purpose to allow your teammates an opportunity to give feedback and advice? Is it to loop them into upcoming changes? Is it about accountability for your own process? You might need to clarify this with management, but you might also use your best judgment.

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Remember the “you view,” putting your audience at the center of the presentation.

Your audience and purpose will help shape your message. What do they already know? What attitudes do they already have? If the purpose is persuasive, do they need a big push or a nudge in the right direction? If your purpose is informational, how much information should you give? You don’t want to leave any questions unanswered, but increasing the amount of content reduces the likelihood the audience will remember the most essential points.

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One of the classic pieces of advice—dating all the way back to Aristotle!—is that people will remember three key ideas from a speech or presentation. Knowing those three points and repeating them will help assure that you got your message across.

term to know

Presentation

A speech or talk, often with visual aids, that will train or teach the audience

2. Structuring Your Presentation

Staring at a blank side deck can be as daunting as staring at a blank page. You might know your purpose, audience, and have a general idea of the message, but don’t know where to begin. But the purpose can often give you a basic approach to a short presentation. The list below is by no means exhaustive, but has some suggestions for ways to structure your presentation:

Chronological or Sequential: One of the most common approaches to organizing presentation content is simply relating events in the order they happened, or the steps for completing a process in order they need to occur. This makes perfect sense for demonstrating a step-by-step process or procedure. It might also be useful in telling an organizational story.

EXAMPLE

You are asked to explain a transition process for a major reorganization. Because the process will happen in phases, it makes the most sense to describe each phase in turn.

However, sometimes the chronological approach is used when it is not the best way to convey information.

EXAMPLE

Peter is asked to summarize the results of a pilot project so the leadership team can decide to proceed with it. Peter recounts the project’s implementation and its many ups and downs before arriving at the conclusion that highlights the strengths and weaknesses of the project. Because the purpose is to help decide whether to proceed with the program, focusing on the strengths and weaknesses and the recommendation would have been a better approach. Peter forgot the “you view,” and what the audience needed to know, and instead resorted to the “I view,” and narrating his experience with the program.

Cause-Effect or Problem-Solution: Many presentations that propose a new product or policy can take a “before” and “after” (and perhaps “during”) approach, with emphasis on how the results follow naturally from an action. This is also another way to approach training. It is one thing to say, “I’m going to show you how to use our new cloud storage system,” but without a clear reason why anybody would want to do this—the problem that it solves—you will not be able to engage the audience.

EXAMPLE

In describing a new email encryption program, Lucia describes the impact an errant email could have on an organization, then showing how the same problems would be easily managed with the new software. Though the first part is (fortunately) hypothetical, this fits the cause-effect approach.

Compare-Contrast or Advantage-Disadvantage: Many presentations are to let staff or leaders know of their options. Sometimes these are presented as pros and cons, but they might also be simply outlining the options with no judgment on whether aspects are good or bad.

EXAMPLE

Kayleigh is asked to research three possible sites for a new store and make a presentation of her findings at the next leadership meeting. She presents it as a compare-contrast with each site described along a handful of important criteria like location, cost, space, amenities, and drawbacks. She does her best to simply give information and let staff decide which site is best.

There are other ways of organizing content, and, indeed, a presentation may have different sections that use different strategies. The important thing is that you choose a strategy that suits your purpose.

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For each of the following scenarios, which of the above structures would you use?

Showing a potential client a set of packages and costs.

Showing a potential client a set of packages and costs would be a good use of the compare-contrast strategy, to show the potential customer what they get (or don’t get) for each package.

Summarizing key ideas learned at a conference.

Summarizing the key ideas from a conference could be given as a series of cause-effect or problem-solution talking points, so the organization can apply your learning to their own work.

Discussing safety protocols in case of a known exposure to COVID-19.

Discussing the safety protocols following a known exposure to COVID-19 would be given in chronological or sequential order since the sequence and timing of events is crucial.

While the audience, purpose, and message can help you begin building your slide deck and write your script or bullet points, it’s important to remember that presentations are a mix of prepared and spontaneous communication.

3. Engaging Your Audience

While you might have a clear purpose and message in mind for your audience, keeping them listening and following along takes more than telling them it’s important. Even if they really want to learn how to use the new customer management software or learn the company’s finances, it can be hard to focus.

You will want to get the audience hooked from the beginning. This is often done with a very short anecdote, a quote (remember to cite it correctly!), or some other attention-getter. You may also choose to engage the audience more directly by asking one or two questions that align with the content of the presentation. Asking questions can give you another advantage of gauging your audience’s interest and knowledge in a topic.

EXAMPLE

In a presentation pitching new office furniture to another company, Jayson begins by asking the people in the meeting what they like best about the furniture they have currently, and then what their biggest annoyance is. In addition to engaging with his audience and forming a connection, he learns a couple of areas in his presentation he can emphasize, either favorable features also shared by their line of furniture, or ways their furniture improves upon the undesirable features.

While the purpose of this presentation is clear to you, make sure you also tell the audience what you hope they’ll learn or take away from the presentation. Remember the “you view,” and tell them how they will benefit from the presentation.

EXAMPLE

In his sales presentation about office furniture, Jayson wouldn’t want to say, “The goal is to sell you the top tier product line so I get a huge commission,” even though that is his hope. He’ll phrase it as a message that is meaningful to the potential customer: “I’d like to leave you with a good idea of what we offer and know what line best fits your needs, or even if it’s a good fit for your needs and your budget.”

As you go through the body of the presentation, continue to engage with the audience—look for nonverbal cues, and, if people seem to be losing interest, try to regain it by returning to the audience’s interests.

EXAMPLE

Jayson will have put together a slide presentation showcasing three or four possibilities for the organization, each showing the cost, flexibility, and other criteria he learned from initial interviews that are crucial to their decision. As he starts off, he notices that audience interest is already fading. He pauses and gives them a chance to give him feedback. Somebody says under their breath that the furniture is really pricey. He is able to pivot from that to the next slide, making a joke of it: “This is the most expensive stuff; even we don’t get to use it.” This gets a slight chuckle, and he skips straight to the more modestly priced furniture.

Ask for Questions: One of the most important parts of any presentation is an opportunity for questions. Be sure that about 20 percent of the time is set apart for questions. Depending on the depth and complexity of the content, you may want to pause for questions at a few key times during the presentation or wait until the end.

EXAMPLE

In Jayson’s sales pitch, he might wait until the end for questions. He knows from experience that most questions will be more general, such as how long it takes to fill an order and whether his company can take away the old furniture, and he has already added a slide with those answers.

Final Words: Remember the three key ideas of your message, be ready to summarize these as a final word before you say thank you and accept your well-earned applause.

EXAMPLE

Jayson might leave his audience with the three key ideas he wants them to remember: (a) the best options based on their needs, (b) a reminder that these are merely options and that any can be modified, and, finally, (c) his own contact information as a key takeaway, so he can field further questions or write up an estimate.

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Meet Manuel, an administrative coordinator for a research center, whose job is to coordinate counseling sessions for participants in the studies.