INTRODUCTION

Your projects will invariably require you to give presentations: to your customer, to the project team, to your peers and to your superiors.

Some people are born presenters, one could almost call them actors. We have all seen them. They are totally authoritative on their subject. They come across as humorous , dramatic, somewhat informal, relaxed , honest, caring, believing intensely in what they are saying. They tell their story in a punchy, effective way that is never boring, but instead grabs and holds our interest. They use plenty of eye-contact, and often employ audiovisual aids and props.

Others are less convincing. Perhaps they are smug, patronizing, overaggressive, too verbose and run on too long, too rehearsed, boring, too casual, dishonest or just unsure of their subject matter. Others still find presentations the most terrifying ordeal imaginable; something which becomes apparent the minute they stand up and open their mouths.

It is not the intention of this chapter to teach presentation skills, i.e. how to present your material. There are enough media companies around today who can do that sort of thing, and who can give valuable advice on how to improve our effectiveness when speaking to an audience.

The aim here is to consider how best to structure your material (what we present) for a presentation. Anybody, no matter how good or bad a speaker, can do what we recommend here; and the approach described will compensate for many speakers ' shortcomings. Aside from this, it is up to the media companies to turn us all into Laurence Oliviers. Probably the best injunction ever on giving a presentation is:

• Tell 'em what you're gonna tell 'em

• Tell 'em

• Tell 'em what you told 'em

While it is hard to improve on this for the presentation itself, there is a lot you can do by way of preparation beforehand. Here are some guidelines I use.

• Identify the main messages you want to get across. There should be only a handful of these and they should be crystal clear. Also, you need to know whether you are merely trying to explain and describe something or to persuade your audience about something.

• The trouble with crystal-clear messages is that they are also blunt. You may want to soften the messages a little by putting what I call shading on them. By this I mean putting some color into the black and white messages so that they appear happy/sad, optimistic/pessimistic, the start of something big/the harbinger of doom, threatening / benevolent , light-hearted/serious, no problem/ big problem, or any one of a million other things. Blunt messages are just that. Shading means you anticipate the mood of your audience and deliver the blunt messages to maximum effect.

• If you are doing some kind of handout, structure it around these messages and their shadings .

• Rehearse your speech with a person or persons other than the intended audience. Explain the messages and shadings you are trying to put across and see if your presentation achieves those. Do this several times if necessary.

• Anticipate questions, both on your own and in rehearsal, and prepare answers which support your messages and shading.

• Questions can often take you down paths you hadn't intended to go, and this sidetracking can cause you inadvertently to deliver messages and shadings you hadn't intended. Try to spot these potential sidetracks in rehearsal and anticipate how you will use them to reinforce your messages and shading.

• Give the presentation by following the adage above:

  • describe the layout of your presentation

  • give the presentation, referring constantly to the layout, so that the audience can follow where you are; and deliver your messages with their shadings

  • recap on the messages and shadings you delivered