Thoughts on Project Management

Best Practices to Keep the Audience Engaged
The last thing we want to see when we are making a presentation is individuals in the audience “tuned out” or falling asleep in their seats! It is essential to keep the audience engaged in the presentation so that they are listening and active in the presentation and you are able to accomplish your goals.

Here are a number of suggestions on how to keep the audience engaged and listening to you during the presentation:

• Use storytelling. For example, I might share a story during a presentation and then ask an audience member to share a story of their own.

• Ask for a show of hands. For example, I might ask how many of the audience members have managed through a particularly different change initiative in their organization.

• Maintain eye contact with the audience throughout the presentation.

• Regularly “check in” to see if anyone in the audience has a question. (I prefer to enable audience members to ask their questions as they think of them rather than feeling as if they have to hold them until the end of the presentation.)

• Use appropriate humor during the presentation.

• Utilize visuals that engage the audience.

• Engage the audience through asking a question and capturing responses on a flip chart.

What are some of your techniques to keep an audience engaged during your presentations?

Some presentations we make are short ones, meant to convey an idea or update someone on a particular topic. These presentations may only be 10 – 15 minutes in length; however we still need to prepare for them so that we can accomplish the goals of the presentation.

Follow these three key steps to preparing for a brief presentation in order to increase the chances of getting what you need/accomplishing your goals of the presentation:

1: Determine the objective/goal of your presentation. Is it to inform/update? To get a decision made? To get approval to move forward on a project? You need to understand what you are trying to accomplish in order to develop the appropriate presentation to accomplish your goals.
 

2: Pick 3 – 5 points to convey your message.  The shorter your presentation, the less points you should expect to present. The 3 – 5 key points selected should support you achieving your objective. For example, if my objective is to get approval to move forward with a project to change a process within a particular work area, the key points to support that goal might be as follows:

• Reduce time for completion of task

• Increase customer satisfaction

• Reduce need for outside resources

• Reduce non-value added activities

At the beginning of the presentation:

• Introduce the topic

• State the objective of the presentation

• State the 3 – 5 key points that will be covered

3: Select supporting materials. For each key point, select supporting materials that support the point you are trying to make, and achieve the overall objective of the presentation. Supporting materials include examples, analogies, stories, data, survey results, research, graphs or charts and other such materials. These supporting materials are used to clarify, describe and emphasize your key points – providing, effectively “back up” information to help drive others to seeing your point of view on the topic. Limit the number of supporting materials for each key point so that the audience is not overwhelmed with too much data.

Once you have pulled together all of this information, prepare your presentation keeping in mind the following process:

• Introduce your topic at the beginning

• State your objective and your 3 – 5 key points

• Transition to your first key point and then transition between each key point. (A transition from one key point to another might be: “Now that you know the overall benefits of changing the process, let’s discuss the first benefit in more detail.”)

• Summarize your presentation by stating the 3 – 5 key points again and conclude the presentation by asking for a decision, support to move to next steps or whatever it is you wanted to achieve when you started the presentation. (A closing statement might be: “Now that you have heard about the benefits to changing the process, I’d like approval to move forward with pulling together a process improvement team to explore the idea further.”)