Making an Effective Power Point Presentation

A commonly held view on how to make an effective presentation is:
“Tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them and then tell them again.”

Get Ready

• Plan ahead
• There is always TOO much material
• Think about what you want the participants to learn or remember
• Clarity of ideas is critical to an effective presentation; you need to know exactly what it is you want to convey.
• Narrow your focus
• Determine major points (3-4 are usually sufficient for 1 hour presentation)
• Conceptualize your ideas in outline form
• Use your major points as a way to maintain focus and avoid presentation drift
• Prepare handout materials if appropriate
• Determine if participants should have the handouts during or after your presentation
• Effective handouts can serve multiple purposes:
• Provide additional information beyond what you have time to discuss in your presentation
• Facilitate participants following your presentation
• Help participants stay focused on the topic
• Provide information participants can take home with them

Present 

• Engage the Participants
• Some techniques for engaging your participants:
• Ask an opening question related to your topic
• Show photos or video clip if applicable
• Read significant quote
• Make eye contact with your participants
• Use humor as appropriate
• Refer to participants by name
• Encourage participant interaction
• Embed questions in your presentation
• Pause periodically and solicit comments
• Ask specific participants for their thoughts or reactions
• Be comfortable enough with your material so you do not need to read your notes
• Referring to your notes is understandable, but reading them can be deadly
• Give an overview of what you are going to present highlighting your major points
• Begin with first point, elaborate on this point and move on to next points in same manner
• Maintain focus on topic
• Use your outline and main points to regain focus if conversation has drifted
• Acknowledge peripheral comments as interesting topics/ideas for another discussion; return to main points
• Conclude your presentation
• Stop when you have presented and elaborated on your major points
• Summarize and refer back to the points you wanted participants to remember
• Solicit thoughts, questions, reactions, etc.

Things to Remember

1. LIR uses seminars as the primary format; this generally assumes active participation by those in attendance.
2. It is not solely your responsibility to make the presentation meaningful; your participants have a responsibility to be prepared to discuss, interact, and make it valuable for themselves.
3. If there is something you want your participants to think about or read ahead of time, you need to let them know (email, announce in previous session, etc.)
4. Simply reading primary documents or your own notes does not make for a very interesting or effective presentation.