How do you make your presentations?

This is a very important topic!

I've evolved -- through bitter experience, the following thoughts.

0) Watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbSPPFYxx3o

1) Some things must be expressed in numbers or words. You can't use a picture for everything. BUT TRY.

2) Use pictures that capture the concept, but aren't complex diagrams. The idea is that when the people review the pictures, the speaker's words come flowing back to them. Create your own (images - Visio or even a photograph). Try not to use "subscription" or canned images.

3) Don't have too many slides! I'm guilty of doing this. I've tried lots of metrics. 6 an hour, 10 an hour. But really it varies based on subject matter and the audience. There's no golden rule for this. Just don't cram too many slides in too short of a time

4) Humor. A few funny slides really help. Not ALL should be funny, just when the going gets deep, a funny image will help keep everyone alert.

5) Practice your timing. Its bad to to not have enough material, its MUCH WORSE to have too much.

6) Let the audience talk too!! Engage them, let them answer your questions, let them ask questions -- this gets back to the timing item (number 5).

7) I agree with James Sheilds; DON'T CRAM THE SLIDEs

8) Pay attention to the audience. If they are tuned out, wake them up, if they aren't interested ask pointed questions. If they ARE interested ask one of them what they think so far. YOU'RE NOT THE ONLY ONE IN THE ROOM

Developing effective presentations is somewhat of an art and there are some excellent suggestions above. As stated by others, the slides should support your discussion, not become a script. Your audience is fully capable of reading on their own.

A couple additions to the other advice:

- Know your audience, their expectations, and tailor both the slides and the discussion to them.

- VERY clearly understand the purpose of your presentation. What story are you trying to tell? Are you requesting something, providing awareness of some risk, explaining that you have everything fully under control? I'm amazed at how many times I see a presentation and ask myself what point they were trying to make.

- Managers like pretty colored things to stare at while they pretend to listen.

- Despite the previous point, don't ever put anything on the slide you don't want people asking detailed questions about. I often see people put some graphic on a slide to illustrate there is significant detailed work going on, but when someone asks about the details on that graphic (Why is item 4 late?), it's clear the presenter doesn't understand those details.

- When someone asks a question, rephrase it before answering. You get to redefine the question to something you can answer, it shows you understand it, and it buys you time to think of an answer.

Top management in my company likes perfect presentation: everything is important from the storyline to the color, font, commas etc) and they do like to have all the information on a slide.

As far as having slide fulfilled with a lot of information not very simple to read and understand, I usually use the principle "One idea-one slide" (with not a lot of information and very well structured). It helps a lot)
and I have several detailed slides in attach, so if I get more questions I can use those.

In my organization, we use PPT for just about every meeting that requires us to communicate to our top management. Much like Evgeniya, everything is important. However, the slides are minimal and we only share what they should know and why they should know it. Depending on the purpose of the meeting, details are generally put in an appendix or shared in the email.

For the project team and other meetings, we generally leverage the Agenda in the calendar invite, coupled with either project software or excel-based meeting planner as the vehicle to execute the meeting.

Mikel

Treat each word in a PowerPoint presentation as if you have to spend a dollar to use it. Keep your words concise and make sure each word is relevant to what you're doing. If you have multiple bullet points consider talking about one or two bullets that are most germane. Don't just read them. Also keep your eye on audience members for questions, and never say "Hold your questions to the end" in an exec presentation.

The PPT slides should support the presenter, not the other way around. Simple, meaningful, powerful....At a glance PPT. The verbal content comes from the presenter to support and add context and insight into the slides. Certainly, easier said than done. Having the verbiage right there on the slides is a crutch, but there is opportunity to use the Notes feature which the audience can not see when in presentation mode.