We’ve all had the experience of sitting through a dull presentation. One that looks plain and boring to the point that it puts you to sleep. So, how do people fall into the trap of making presentations like these? and how can this be changed?
A Patchwork of Slides
Many presenters spend all their time trying to put together data and slides for the presentation. They try to collect slides that would help them make the presentation. And then, they try to make a presentation by putting them all together with as little effort as possible. Now, I’m not against doing things efficiently, but directly using slides from other presentations will make your presentation look a lot more like a patchwork and less like a painting.
Resistance to Change
Sometimes people do realize that the presentation is hard to follow. But, they still might resist changing it simply because of all the time spent into putting together all the slides and data for it. Especially when they would have to throw out a lot of that data to simplify the presentation.
How to Make a More Interesting Presentation?
When you’re planning your presentation, think about your goals. What do you want this particular presentation to achieve in the minds of the audience? After you’ve figured this out, think about the steps to take them from where they are now, to where they need to be. You can plan these steps through storyboarding. What are the major steps? Think about your strongest arguments and which step in the presentation they belong to. Storyboard these ideas on a white board or sticky notes to visualize where they belong.
Test the Presentation
Once you have the structure of the presentation, run it across a co-worker or a colleague and ask for their opinion. You can check with your boss or supervisor in case you’re not sure that all the important points were covered in the presentation.
Structure and Simplify the Presentation
A structured presentation is one that contains a flow of ideas. Everything in the presentation should revolve around the main idea of the presentation. This means that you will need to simplify it. Only include information that supports the main point. Don’t put everything you can find in the presentation.
Make Visuals for the Structured Presentation
After you’ve simplified the presentation, you’re ready to make some visuals for it to make it less boring. It may seem challenging, but it is a lot easier to make visuals when you have a good concept of the overall message. Just take the most persuasive data you have, and make suitable graphs to highlight important data.
How Efficient is This Method?
You might be thinking that this probably takes a lot of time when the contrary is true. You are more likely to spend less time making a presentation like this because there is a lot less revision to do. When you have a good structure acting as a foundation, everything you include works together.
The most important thing is to design a presentation that makes it easy for the audience to understand your message. If you’ve done that, then you’ve succeeded in making a great non-boring presentation
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