Presenting

Previous attendees have said…

• 5 previous attendees have left feedback
• 100% would recommend this session to a colleague
• 100% said that this session was pitched correctly

Three random comments from previous attendees

• Useful exercise was incorporated into the session but would have been helpful if someone fed back to the larger group. Overall I thought it was a good session with some helpful hints/tips.
• Clear advice to put into practice during the session (but maybe give advance warning about presenting in pairs, as I imagined it would be to the whole group and that was a terrifying thought!)
• Very Practical

Who is this session for?

Please note

• you will need to do a little bit of presenting during the session

• it’s a beginner’s session, so it’s aimed at people:
  • who don’t do much presenting, or who have never presented before
  • or who have had negative experiences of presenting
  • or would like to improve their presentation skills, but don’t know where to start
• it’s practical, so we’ll do a mixture of strategy and practice during the session

Session outline

• why think about presentation skills?
• a minimal set of advice
• an opportunity to practice
• additional advice, questions, and chatter

A note about trust

• most of us find presenting hard
• in this session, please be gentle:
  • don’t mock or undermine
  • don’t play devil’s advocate
  • give people time
• expressly, don’t record any of this session in any way

Why think about presentation skills?

• possibly the ultimate in transferable skills
• most people are terrible at presenting
  • presenting differs from listening in non-obvious ways
• but you can improve easily and cheaply

A minimal set of advice

1. Be simple
2. Be keen
3. Be human

Be simple

• if in doubt, take it out

Why be simple?

• the asymmetry of presentation:
  • you’ll know much more than your audience
  • so you’ll worry about details, not basics
  • but your audience will need the basics, not the details
• simple = clear

How to be simple?

• apply a hierarchy
• recursive planning
• use your constraints

The hiearchy

• you’ll need a single sentence that sums up your presentation
  • everything else comes from this
• ideally you’ll have it in mind before you start
  • but it often changes
• this is non-negotiable, and much harder than it looks

Task: make a sentence

• you’re going to present something you did this week at work
• can you sum it up in one sentence?
  • that’s your win of the week sentence too
• several example prompts
  • “What’s most important?”
  • “What’s most interesting?”
  • “what needs fixing?”
  • …

Recursive planning

• you now need 3-5 points that:
  • support/explain/make up your main point
  • each point should be a simple sentence
• then repeat: 3-5 points for each point, and so on
  • you should almost certainly stop one layer of detail before you think you’ve said enough

Task: support your sentence

• “I managed to fix my booking system”
  • “booking clinic slots was done manually”
  • “that was slow and error-prone”
  • “I used PowerAutomate + very strong language to automate it”
  • “I had to learn to use Apply to Each to get that to work”
  • “I am now thinking about automating my other clinic bookings”

Constraints

• take your plan, and chop it down to size by considering:
  • how long do you have to speak, exactly?
    • one point every two minutes is pretty good going
  • how long do you have to prepare?
    • see below…
  • who are your audience?
    • the less closely they’re related to your work, the less material you’re going to cover
  • how big is the audience?
    • bigger = messier = less detail

Tech

• it’s hard to give general advice, but think carefully about your specific tech
• tech often malfunctions during presentations, so you might have a backup (e.g. what to do if you can’t show your slides?)
• you’ll also be more likely to make mistakes with the tech when speaking

Be keen

• enthusiasm for your work, for your audience, and for what you’re presenting about is the easiest way to come off as knowledgeable and interesting
• plenty of preparation helps
• but for most of us this is scary
• fake it with socially-approved cheating!
  • excited vs scared
  • smile, eye contact, and a bit of hand gesturing
  • build yourself a few lines to say at the start. Introductions work well. Don’t be afraid of being blunt!
  • give yourself a sentence in and out of each slide/section
  • build yourself some go-tos if you get stuck or the tech explodes

Practice time!

• we’ll work in pairs
• you’ve got a sentence, and 3-5 supporting bits
• we’re going to get you to present for two minutes only, no visual aids - just chat
• we’ll pause here to let everyone put their sentences in order
• then into pairs:
  • one minute to find your feet
  • two minutes presenting
  • one minute of gentle, constructive, and positive feedback
  • then swap

Prep time

• if you’re new at this, or it’s important, I would budget a huge amount of time to prepare
  • one hour preparation per minute of speaking (seriously)
• this time isn’t for doing the work you’re presenting
  • it’s just for planning the presentation
• beware procrastination by optimization (especially making slides before you’ve decided what you’re going to say)

Slides

• recursive plan + pictures = slides
• fewer than 20 words per slide
• usual advice is 2 minutes per slide
• put your details at the start and end

Be human

• don’t try and cover everything
• absolutely leave time for Q+A (and ideally a bit of random chat) at the end
• don’t apologise, but do admit when things go wrong
  • there’s asymmetry here too: your clunker will look like a mini-hitch to the audience

Make it easy for yourself