The Art of Presenting

As a faculty with management institutes, if there is one thing I'm dead serious about, it is setting my expectations with fellow students on evaluation of their presentation performance. I come across many wanna-be management students who want to "paint the town red" with their jazzy slides, excessive usage of videos and images and pompous display of their PowerPoint skills.

While there are many resources available on the internet talking about Do's and Don't s - here is my own little list

The audience is spending their valuable time by attending your presentation - make it worth their while

Always Remember

• YOU are the presenter, your slides are not! Keep in mind that PowerPoint is merely a tool to help you present your ideas, your thoughts, your content, yourself
• If you are dressed properly, you are noticed. If you are dressed shabbily, your dress is noticed
• Use words to express, NOT to impress
• Be calm, composed and confident - body language matters!
• While it is advisable to stick to the business language, if you will, don't shy away from jumping into another language that you are comfortable with - of course assuming that your audience comprehends that language as well
• The audience is spending their valuable time by attending your presentation - make it worth their while

• Not everyone is skilled equally. Identify your strength and use it to open the presentation. It could be quoting a business leader, or reciting a poem or even a funny mimicry - whatever floats your boat. This will help break ice and give you that confidence boost to carry your presentation successfully
• A presentation is NOT a conversation. It is alright to have an interactive presentation engaging the audience, but not at the cost of derailing your subsequent thoughts or hijacking the discussion altogether
• Avoid excessive text on the slides, relevant images are awesome
• Anything in excess is bad for health
• Please, please PLEASE run spell checks before presenting
• Know your content - don't keep anything on the slides that you are not comfortable or confident about
• Consistency is key, content is king
• Do a dry-run before the presentation, especially if you are not going to use your own machine to present. This is to ensure that the host has all fonts, drivers, etc. installed properly to avoid unpleasant surprises
• If you are posed a question that you don't have an answer to, be honest about it and admit that you don't know. Please don't try to evade that question or guess an answer hoping it'd be acceptable. Or use the typical "Let's take this offline" method
• If there are multiple presenters, don't bulldoze your colleagues. Give them an opportunity to present. It is OK to barge in, if you think there is trouble ahead and you could salvage the situation
• Towards the beginning of your presentation, clearly articulate the objective and towards the end, confirm with the audience if that objective is met
• Extremely critical to identify actionable and get commitment from relevant stakeholders as a follow-thru of the presentation

I hope this small list is of some help to someone, somewhere.