What are the most important things to think about before creating presentations?

Watch this video or read the instructions below to learn how to develop the content of your presentation, and how to create effective visual aids.

1. Brainstorm ideas.
2. See where you need to fill in information and research your topic.
3. Gather all your info and then organize it. Prepare an outline of how you want to present the information. In the Structure tab, you can learn what to include and when to include it.
4. Transfer the information to cue cards or a single sheet of paper.  You can use these to support you during your presentation.
   Remember: You can’t read your presentation off of a script, so don’t write an essay. Instead, use bullet points to remind you of the next key point.
5. Be sure to know the expected length of time for the presentation and plan accordingly. Make sure you have enough to say.

• Visual aids can take many forms, which means you can be creative!  Other than Powerpoint you can use: Prezi, posters, charts, hands-on samples or demonstrations. Keep in mind that you should be comfortable using whatever you use to create your visual aid.  
• If you are using slides, make them simple and uncluttered. Too much text or pictures per slide makes it hard for audience to digest all the information. This means you shouldn’t copy your entire speech onto your slides.
• Have 1-2 slides for every 1-2 minutes you are speaking.
• Slides should be large enough to be seen from the back of a room. Use a font size of at least 32.
• Use colour and contrast (but in moderation!). Avoid yellow and orange because they are hard to see from a distance.

Learn more about how to create engaging presentations using tools like PowerPoint and Google Slides in the Presentations module in the Digital Skills hub.

Structuring your content is an important part of an effective presentation. It is important to know what to include in your presentation and when to include it.

Complete the activity to learn how to structure your presentation. You can also use the tip sheet below as a quick reference when you are creating future presentations.

Watch the video or read the tips to learn some ways to prepare for a presentation so that it will go smoothly.

You can also use the tip sheet below as a reference when you are preparing for future presentations.

• Make sure that you know you know your topic well. It’s much easier to explain something to other people if you have a good understanding of it yourself.
• Practice your presentation out loud! This will help you get a more accurate feel for how much time your presentation will take.
• Review the assignment rubric to determine what is expected so that you know how to budget your time.
• Try timing yourself. You will speak faster during the actual presentation, so expect your presentation to be a bit shorter than your practice run.
• If you are using PowerPoint slides, use the “Rehearsal Timing” feature to know exactly how long you have spent on each slide
  • If you are too long on one slide, consider dividing the information between two cards.
  • If you don’t spend any time on another slide, consider removing it.
• Practice in front of a mirror. This makes you aware of how often you are looking down at your notes or your visuals aids.
• Practice in front of a friend or family member and ask for critiques.
• If you are using cue cards, make sure you have them numbered in case you drop them. You can also attach them together with a metal ring, so that they stay together even if they fall.
• Make sure that you are comfortable using whatever you have chosen to use for your visual aids.
• Don’t use a network connection to access any part of your presentation. Have the material downloaded ahead of time and use it offline.
• Have a backup or a hard copy with you in case of a problem.

Giving a presentation can be stressful. It’s often to a group that doesn’t know you particularly well, and the presentation will define their first impression of you. Or, even if it is a group you know well, like your team, it’s a chance to show them what you’ve been working on.

Hence, you want to make your presentation both engaging and impactful. And yet, how many times have you sat through presentations that are anything but?

Entirely too often.

You can avoid that. In her LinkedIn Learning course Personal Effectiveness Tips, Instructor Dorie Clark posed six questions you should ask yourself before delivering any presentation. They apply to all types of presentations: sales presentations, keynote presentations or presentations to people within your company.

By ensuring the answer to all six questions is yes, your presentation will be engaging, relevant and – most importantly of all – get the action you want afterwards. The questions are:

1. What problem are you solving?

To get people engaged in your presentation, they need to know what problem you are solving.

For a sales presentation, maybe it’s your software automates some task that makes their employees more efficient. Or, for an internal presentation, talk about the point of the project you're presenting on: is it to increase sales? Improve brand affinity? Fix a bug that’s costing the company money?

“First, what's the problem you're solving?” Clark said. “It may be perfectly clear to you… but it may not be self-evident to your listeners. You need to be sure you're all operating from the same context and that means spelling out exactly what problem you're trying to address.”

2. Why now?

Building off the last point, you need to explain why you need to solve this problem now, when there are potentially dozens of other areas you could be spending your time on.

“You need to explain that things are not fine and that they will be even less fine if you continue waiting,” Clark said. “Inaction often seems like the safe choice, and you need to convey why it's not.”

3. How was this idea vetted?

Often, a presentation is a recommendation you want others to take (like a sales presentation, for example, or if you are pitching an executive an idea). At the very least, it's an FYI to others on what you are going forward with.

Either way, you need to explain how you came to his recommendation/conclusion. Because some people are going to assume you just came up with the idea yourself, unless you tell them otherwise.

“You have to make it extremely clear that this is the product of hard work, deep thought and research, and get into detail on specifics,” Clark said. “Did you survey 1,000 customers? Conduct 25 focus groups? Consult with 100 scientists? If so, let them know.”

4. Have you simplified your presentation?

In her course, Clark mentioned “the curse of knowledge.” When you are presenting, it’s almost always on a topic you’ve spent a lot of time on and know a lot about.

The problem? The people you are presenting to rarely have that same level of context. So, if you don’t guard against "the curse of knowledge," there’s a chance the presentation will go over people's heads.

“A good exercise is to give a practice presentation to a spouse or friend who doesn't work in your industry and make sure they can understand it enough to explain it back to you,” Clark said.

5. Did you include a story in your presentation?

It doesn’t matter what you are presenting on, you can almost always add a story to really hammer home the point. Even something as dry as fixing an IT bug – you can mention a real or fictitious story of the problem that bug is causing in people’s day-to-day lives, and how fixing this bug will make their lives better.

“An anecdote about how your product or service will impact or has impacted a real person will almost always help crystallize why it's important,” Clark said.

6. Is there a call to action?

Usually the most important, and one that is all-too-often forgot. For a sales presentation, the call-to-action is straightforward: buy this product. For others, it might be not as obvious, but still there: perhaps it’s to share a post or to test and provide feedback to engineering or to start incorporating the lesson into their day-to-day lives.

Regardless, there should always be a call-to-action in a presentation and it should be clear.

“You need to make it explicit, close the presentation by telling them exactly what you'd like them to do,” Clark said.

Final thought

Presentations can be stressful – but they don’t have to be. If you are fully prepared, presentations can be exciting; a way to share an idea or spread the word of the good work you’ve done.

Asking yourself these questions should help you present better, as they go beyond the oft-quoted don’ts of “don’t put too much text on a slide” or “don’t read off a script.” Instead, they ensure what you say is relevant to your audience and they know exactly what you’d like them to do next.

Want to learn more? Watch Dorie Clark’s course, Personal Effectiveness Tips, which is updated weekly.