5 Steps to delivering an effective presentation

There's a client presentation scheduled for next week and your PowerPoint deck feels a little loose. Additionally, there's a 150 page wireframe deck that has to be reviewed as part of the agenda. By the way, there is no formal agenda. Is this a problem waiting to happen? Most definitely. Here are 5 steps to course-correcting this situation:

1. Identify goals for the presentation - Goals and objectives should be the starting point for any presentation. Being able to identify the most beneficial outcome of any situation is vital to understanding the road to get there. Delivering an effective and persuasive presentation absolutely requires this important first step. A good presentation is born from an understanding of its purpose. Visualize the desired outcome of the presentation, document this vision, and proceed to step number 2.

2. Identify the barriers to achieving the stated objectives - Identification and documentation of the presentation objectives will force the presenter to think about the barriers in the path to achieving these objectives.

3. Develop a narrative outline with the construct of: "objectives > challenges > solutions > measurement of solutions" for the presentation - All effective presentations do exactly the same thing. They tell an organized story that illustrates the impact of recommendations to what matters most to the business. If you've completed steps 1 and 2, you already know what story it is that you are going to tell (and have the chapters documented as well). A good narrative could begin like this:

I. Introduction - Achieve measurable business objectives by improving the User Experience on platform X.

A. Opportunity 1 - Achieve Business Objective X
1. Summary of Current Challenges
2. Strategic and Tactical Recommendations
3. Analyze the Success of Recommendations

B. Opportunity 2 - Achieve Business Objective Y
1. Summary of Current Challenges
2. Strategic and Tactical Recommendations
3. Analyze the Success of Recommendations

C. Opportunity 3 - Achieve Business Objective Z
1. Summary of Current Challenges
2. Strategic and Tactical Recommendations
3. Analyze the Success of Recommendations

D. A Prioritized Road Map to Implement Recommendations

E. Next Steps

4. Complete the presentation by not veering off of the course of the outline - Now that the narrative outline has been constructed for the presentation, create the rest of the slides that support each chapter of the outline. Use stakeholder notes and data to define business objectives and current challenges. Use internal team and user research data to define strategic and tactical recommendations. Use business defined key performance indicators and a measurement framework to define how you will measure the success of proposed recommendations.

5. Show don't tell - Each slide of the presentation should be an illustration of a concept or recommendation. Objectives, barriers, and strategic recommendations can be summarized and visualized as information graphics. Tactical recommendations related to the user experience can be visualized through personas and interaction design. Visuals have more impact and emotional appeal than text.