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Recipes for a Good Presentation

A good presentation offers an opportunity to bring out yourself, your organization, or your cause. It is your chance to tell the story of why and how your content matters. During this course, we deal especially with creating PowerPoint slide shows to support and add value to your presentation. A good PowerPoint presentation supports your message: It does not repeat the speaker’s words but emphasizes the essentials.

Slides can clarify and add liveliness to a presentation in many ways, such as with pictures, diagrams, SmartArt graphics, and, for example, video clips.

However, a slide show is always only part of the presentation – the best slideshows always have a well-planned presentation behind them.

Planning a presentation

Think about the presentation situation and audience. Prepare for the presentation carefully by compressing the topic to the essentials and internalizing it. Then think about what you want to say: You can't go through everything, so choose three to five (3–5) main points and consider how to emphasize them.

The main idea of the presentation should be summarized and presented clearly. Think about the timing and the structure of your presentation. The rule of thumb is that the shorter the presentation, the more preparation it requires. The presentation must have a beginning, middle, and end. Also, think about how you tune into the atmosphere before the performance. If you are prone to get nervous, how do you calm yourself down and channel the excitement into energy for the performance?

Guide

### When Tina is nervous to present

Tina is an office manager by profession and regularly reports on the office results to her superiors. She also holds internal training and various presentations for her team, and from time to time, she presents her organization’s activities to external parties at multiple events. Tina is very nervous about performance situations; even though she has performed several times, the tension has hardly faded.

However, Tina has found ways to control her nervousness: She always prepares for her performances carefully. She is one of those who first write down their presentation word for word and then practice speaking openly, relaxed, and more nuancedly. Tina has noticed that her voice vibrates easily at the beginning of performances, so she has started to open her voice by humming right before her turn.

In addition, Tina tries to get to know her audience, as it is easier for her to perform for people she knows even a little. In addition to everything already mentioned, Tina has noticed that she feels tension, especially in her feet. Hence, she either wears very comfortable shoes or takes the shoes off entirely during the performance. This way, her thoughts do not revolve around her heating feet instead of the actual performance.

How could you lower the tension associated with performing? What is your strength in performing?

The structure of a presentation

The structure is one of the essential things in a presentation. The presentation should have a beginning, an end, and content in between.

A good structure makes it easier for listeners to follow the presentation, and it does not become confusing. At the beginning of the presentation, it is good to go over the general topic of the presentation, as well as a brief description of the issues that will be discussed in the presentation.

If the topic is broad, it is worth breaking it down into smaller bodies and only specifying the contents at the beginning. If the range of these specific topics is extensive too, it is advisable to add a summary of the issues at the end of each section.

Adding an overall topic summary at the end of a presentation is always good.

Remember that the attention span of a person is not infinite. If your presentation seems to become very long, consider leaving things out. Alternatively, you can plan breaks for your presentation if the time slot you are working with enables that.