Helping you learn practical, straightforward methods to boost your soft skills and enhance your career as a software engineer.

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Weekly Newsletter

April 16th, 2024

Your Presentation Preparation Guide

Last week, I had the opportunity to speak at the Iowa Technology Summit. The event had over 700 attendees, which, I have to admit, made me nervous to get on the stage and talk about software delivery.

Stepping up to present can be daunting, but with the right preparation, anyone can deliver a memorable presentation.

Here are the 4 steps I used to ensure I nailed my presentation and showcased my skills as a technology leader.

1. Know Your Audience

The first step is the most critical. To give an impactful presentation, you need to understand your audience.

I contacted the event facilitators to understand the attendees’ demographics better. Knowing career levels, industries, and roles can significantly influence how you craft your presentation.

In my case, the event was primarily tailored to technology leaders, including managers, leads, and directors. I needed to focus on bigger-picture items like ROI and efficiency gains rather than the technical details of implementing a delivery strategy.

2. Craft Your Story

There is a reason stories have lasted for thousands of years. Stories connect with audiences and help them engage in ways that just regurgitating information can’t.

For my presentation, I took the audience on a journey over the past 3 years to showcase the difficulties we faced and our triumphant success at the end. The audience connected with my story because it felt real.

These are the most common types of stories that work well for presentations:

1. The Hero’s Journey: This classic narrative structure involves a hero who embarks on an adventure, faces a crisis, overcomes challenges, and eventually returns transformed.
2. The Mountain: This structure maps the story as a series of escalating challenges or conflicts, building up to a climax and concluding with a resolution.
3. In Medias Res: This approach starts in the middle of the action, hooks the audience with a critical moment, and then circles back to explain how we got there, maintaining engagement and curiosity.

3. Keep Your Slides Simple

Visual aids should support your presentation, not overshadow it. In preparing my summit slides, I focused on simplicity and visual impact, which helped maintain the audience's attention.

• Design for Clarity: Use minimal text and meaningful visuals to enhance critical points. Your slides should augment your talking points, not repeat them.
• Consistency is Key: Ensure all slides are stylistically consistent, with the same fonts, colors, and layout. This helps the viewer stay connected to the content.
• Understand the Format: Colors and text size may need adjustment based on whether you're using a TV or projector or presenting in a brightly lit room versus a dark room.

4. Practice, Practice, Practice

Nothing beats spending some time practicing your presentation. Practice is the best way to ensure you understand your topic and feel confident presenting to a crowd.

There are a few key points to remember when practicing to ensure that you are getting the most out of your time:

1. Record and Watch Yourself: Recording and watching yourself give your presentation helps you analyze and review the structure, timing, and content.
2. Practice Without Your Slides: Spend time driving to work or while running on the treadmill to quickly practice. This will prevent you from relying on the slides when presenting.

Ultimately, there is no replacement for doing the work to practice your presentation. I changed my structure multiple times to ensure I provided the most impact during my presentation. Practicing & rewatching myself provided critical feedback and helped me connect more with my audience.

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This week, we've explored crucial strategies, from understanding your audience's needs, to crafting compelling narratives, simplifying visuals, and the indispensable practice of rehearsing. Each element is designed to help you present confidently and leave a memorable impact.

Now, I'd love to hear from you: What's your biggest challenge when preparing a presentation, and how have you addressed it?

Reply to this email with your story or any questions about presentations—I'm also here to help and learn from your experiences!

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