What’s wrong with 80 PowerPoints: Getting your message across¶

We’ve all been there ( if you haven’t: be warned) you sitting in a meeting and the presenter starts going through his “set of slides”. He/she starts their pitch “I have a few slides that I want to go through… I’ll try to fit it in the time”. .. Eyes roll for effect.

Now.. about 4 or 5 slides into it, you find yourself totally lost. “What is he trying to get across?” , “ I have no idea what he is trying to tell us”, “Wake me when it’s over”

This is one of the key challenges in the IT field today, in my humble opinion. Technical people can’t craft a message and delivery it succinctly. Yes, this is not a new issue. But what can we do about it?

In this post I’d like to share the following with you:

1. A story about my “journey” relative to this topic
2. My “do’s and don’ts” relative to communicating a message on a slide
3. Some ways to knit them together based on experience and training.

Everyone in IT should spend time in Consulting and or Sales:¶

About a third of my way through my career, I made a switch from development to consulting for a “big 6” firm. You know, Partners, egos, money, etc… Well that was a shocker. It was through that effort that I realized how important a presentation was and how important crafting a clear message was. More on what I learned from that below.

Then, as if that joy ride wasn’t enough, 10 years later I went from consulting to sales… and was introduced to the phrase “ducky, doggy, message” . Yes, sales teams really don’t want all the detail. Their idea of a solution architecture was a Powerpoint slide with a few boxes on it .. and don’t have too many lines. For god’s sake don’t show them the details :) .

As stressful as these transitions were, the lessons learned, and education I had, from those stuck with me forever. It’s these that I’ll share with you now.

Each slide should stand on itself:¶

First off, the one thing that just sends me for a loop is when someone has a slide… with a few words at the top ( that can be interpreted in many ways ) and a picture .. again that tells me nothing about what they are trying to say.

What do I think should be on a slide? Let me itemize so best practices that I use:

1. each slide should stand on it’s own. It should have enough information that you can reorganize the slides in your presentation by the content and message on the slide should still be valid.
2. The header for each slide should have a clear message that you are trying to get across. This means a sentence. Not a few words like “architecture overview”.
3. The body of the slide, i.e. the content below the header should provide the supporting content for the message you have in the header.
4. Be clear and concise in the text of the body. This isn’t an easy task, I know, but it is really key.
5. Use PICTURES…. A picture is worth a thousand words… BUT it must support the message
6. If you are trying to explain a picture, use a walkthrough approach. Put numbers in the picture and then add text in the slide to correspond to each number. I.e. walk the reader through what you are trying to say.
7. If you do need to “connect” multiple slides, consider using adding a “tickler” in a corner that is either a small graphic or navigation text like “building a house>foundation” , “building a house>floor”, “building a house>floor>add windows”. Obviously, this really depends on what you are trying to cover. BUT it does help the viewer/reader to know “where they are” in your message.

Tell a story and learn from the movies:¶

Related to this approach there is also a need to tie your story together. I’ve used 2 general approaches over the years, both of which I’ve learned through 2 excellent training courses.

1. An “Issue Based Consulting” approach In this approach, the idea is to organize the slides along the following structure:

   1. Define the objective:
   2. Identify the Issues that have been identified relative to achieving the objective
   3. Lay out your “Hypothesis” for how each issue can be addressed. i.e. what, how and why
   4. Present the user with your recommendation.

The key point here is that you are providing the reader with a clear understanding of What, Why, How WITH a convincing argument behind your recommendations AND proof you have thought this through.

1. How the movies do it: The other approach, that also works very well when trying to sell a concept, architecture, etc… is to think of yourself as a movie director. The general structure here is to do the following:
   1. Prelude: Set the context
   2. Provide a view of the story.. tell them what you are going to tell them…
   3. Walk them through a series of scenes… tell them the story…
   4. Recap… Tell them what you are going to tell them. I.e. drive the point home.

If you are looking for a good example of this, I’ve noticed that PBS shows such as Nova, or the American Experience, leverage this approach very well.

Bottom Line:¶

1. Be succinct
2. Be clear
3. The message you are trying to get across should be so clear, someone is is forwarded the presentation should be able to completely understand what you are trying to get across.