26 Presentation Skills

Dr. Mani Shreshtha

1.      Module 26: Presentation Skills

2.      Learning Outcomes:

·         create a professional presentation

·         deliver a professional presentation with confidence

3.      Introduction:

In our day to day life, we face many situations where we have to convey the information orally to a group of persons. To implement that presentation is considered as one of the most effective method. For creating and delivering good presentation, one has to acquire certain skills known as presentation skills. As per Collins Dictionary, presentation skills can be understood as the set of techniques and skills required successfully to present oral information to others. Presentation skills are being used in effective delivery of content to varied audiences. These skills generally focus on structuring of the matter, designing of slides, body language, and vocal aspects.

There are lot of discussions about the similarities and dissimilarities between an oral presentation and public speech. Although many of the experts feel that both are very similar, still we can carve out few of the differences.

·         Presentations use visuals.

·         Presentations are relatively informal than speeches.

·         A presentation is delivered for discussing technical and routine matters.

·         Presentations are delivered before a smaller group.

·         Discussions and query handling is an essential component of a presentation.

·         A presentation involves measuring the performance after its delivery.

·         It can be delivered while sitting.

·         Speaking is not necessary all the time, self explanatory visuals can be used.

·         A presentation can be delivered in group.

As far as delivery techniques and preparation by the presenter issues are concerned there exists a high level of similarity between oral presentation and public speech.

4.      Purpose of a Presentation:

Whenever a presentation is delivered, it must serve certain purposes or meet specific objectives. Broadly, a presentation serves following purposes:

• Provide information or giving instructions: Providing information or giving instructions to the audience is the most common purpose of a presentation. When a manager has to inform about the efforts made by their team and outcomes there of then presentation is a good option. Similarly, for passing on instructions to a group of people attending a training program, presentations are being used. The goal here is that everyone listening to presentation clearly understands and follows the instructions.
• Convince: Another situation when a presentation is adopted as a tool of communication is for persuasion. The convincing purpose of presentation states that after attending the presentation, listeners will agree to your proposal. A sales presentation falls under this category where a salesperson tries to convince the potential buyers to place an order after the completion of the presentation.
• Entertain: Entertainment purpose of a presentation is applicable in relatively more informal situations like celebrating success, promotion parties, during induction or retirement occasion. During these situations, humour is an essential part of the presentation.

A presentation can aim to fulfil all the three purposes and a good presenter can achieve all the goals simultaneously.

5. Key Components:

Following are the key components in a standard presentation scenario:

5.1. A topic serving the purpose of the presentation: It is one of the first steps for any presentation. Generally, the topic of presentation is assigned or known in advance to the presenter. Sometimes the presenter is asked to choose a topic. Whatever the case may be, presenter has to ensure that the chosen topic must serve the broader purpose of the presentation.

5.2. A presenter: A presenter is a person who is being assigned a responsibility to present on a pre-decided topic.

  5.3. An audience: Audience is a group of persons (relatively smaller) for whom the presentation is being organized.

5.4. A venue or location: It is the physical place where the presentation is delivered.

5.5. Audio- visual aids: These are the supporting aids that are being used by the presenter to increase the effectiveness of the presentation. These aids generally support the audio and visual requirements of the presentation.

5.6. Time limit: Every presentation has a time limit for its completion. It is essential on the part of the presenter to stick to the given time limit for improving the effectiveness of the presentation.

6. Pre- Presentation Preparations:

      Pre- presentation preparations points out towards the homework that a presenter has to do before the delivery of a presentation. Preparation done by presenters prior to the presentation, remarkably improve their confidence level and eventually their performance during the presentation. Pre- presentation preparations include the following constituents:

   6.1. Inspection of venue: Obtaining prior information about the venue is always helpful to the presenter. In order to have best idea about the venue, it is suggested to visit (if possible) the venue prior to the presentation. Otherwise also, you can request for the pictures of the venue where presentation is scheduled. With this effort, as a presenter you will know in advance about the size of the room, seating capacity and arrangement, acoustics, location of windows and doors, and other facilities available like projection, speakers, air-conditioning, lighting etc. It will also help you in deciding about usage of audio- visual aids.

6.2. Get an audience profile: It is the audience for whom the presentation is being organized. As a presenter you must get the information about the audience to whom you are presenting. The way you will organise your presentation is highly dependent on the profile of your audience. For a creating a good audience profile, you must ask following questions:

·         What is the demographic background of the audience in terms of age, sex, status and work experience?

·         Why they are interested in attending the presentation?

·         Will they cooperate or act otherwise?

·         What is their present level of understanding about the topic or subject?

Having a fair amount of information about the group of people attending your presentation not only reduces your anxiety but also helps you in preparing your presentation.

6.3. Prepare the presentation: After having some idea about the venue and the audience, the presenter is now ready to start preparing the presentation. For preparation following steps can further be adopted:

6.3.1. Gathering the relevant material: Once the purpose and objectives for the presentation is clear, the next step is to develop the content. For developing the content, it is important to identify the various ideas and sub ideas that would help the audience in understanding  the topic of presentation information. After having clarity on main idea and supporting sub ideas relevant material has to be collected from various sources. These sources can be printed material in the form of articles in journals, news papers or magazines, chapters in books, published interviews etc. Other sources can be through online mode using internet. Search engines can be used to search out the relevant information. For example, search engine ‘Google’ can be used and advanced search option can be exercised to get the specific search results. While gathering the information presenter has to ensure that collected information possess something of interest of the audience. The gathered information can be in the form of historical trends, statistical data, pictures or figures, results based on research, a case study etc. Such collection of information can be converted in the form of brief notes or outline. Preparing outline or notes further enables the presenter in structuring of material at a later stage. Collected material must be categorized into three parts, material which is utmost essential understand the concept, material which improves the clarity of the audience on the concept, and material which is available for presentation if time permits.

6.3.2. Structuring the material: Although we are having our brief outline of collected material still it requires realignment and restructuring to suit the requirements of the presentation. Overall, the contents of the presentation can be divided into three main parts namely, introduction, main body, conclusion.

Purpose of the introduction is to include all that information which is helpful in introducing the topic and provides the overview of the presentation. This part of the presentation is used to set the tone of presentation. In other words, it creates the first impression. The type of information that could be the part of introduction is objective of the presentation, context of the presentation, providing an overview of what to expect during the course of presentation, and the take away for the audience.

Main body of the presentation comprise central thought of the presentation and discusses the main idea at length. Discussion regarding main body also consumes maximum time of the presentation. Here main idea and sub ideas are presented with the help of supporting material. The type of information that could be the part of main body is definitions helping in development of concept, examples, comparisons, statistical information and latest trends.

Conclusion is the last part of a presentation. The purpose of the conclusion is to reinforce and reiterate that has been discussed in the introduction and the main body. A presenter has to summarise the detail earlier discussion in precise and interesting words. It is essential to thoroughly check various points that will become part of the conclusion. Any undesirable mention or discussion during this part can ruin the whole presentation. An interesting quote can be presented to end the presentation.

6.3.3. Preparing the Power Point Template (PPT): For a presentation, generally projection facility is available. It gives an added advantage to the presenter. Preparation for power point slides is crucial for the success of a presentation. Extra care has to be taken while preparing slides. Few guidelines for regarding the PPT are as follows:

·         PPT is a supportive tool not the main focus of presentation.

·         Presenting one key point per slide is ideal.

·         Try to use consistent theme throughout the presentation.

·         Do not use light text with light background and vice-versa. Contrast always works.

• Try to have total number of slides in the range of 10-15.
• Avoid too many graphics on a single slide. It confuses the audiences regarding where to focus.
• Try to avoid animation in text. It distracts the audience and many a times highly annoying.
• Use videos sparingly as the audience might feel that presenter is not capable of explaining the content.
• Make sure that your text readable. Use appropriate font size. A font size in the range of 32 -24 is acceptable for the main text of a slide.

•  Avoid overuse of different colours in a single slide. A feeling of rainbow like text generally irritates the audience.
•  All the slides should be properly numbered.
•  Always include any query and thanks slide at the end.
•   If a picture or any data is being used, it is important to mention its source.

6.4. Decide on audio- visual aids: While preparing for a presentation, a presenter has to decide about various audio and visual aids to be used during presentation. Audio and visual aids plays an important supportive role during a presentation. Some of the visual aids can be a video, chart, slide, flipchart, white or black board. Any audio file, microphone, speaker etc are the part of audio aids. It is not necessary that every presenter should use visual aids. In case you decide to use such aids, avoid its overuse. Try to integrate these aids with oral presentation and use it only at the relevant point of time. The quality of pictures, graphs, videos should be excellent for facilitating better understanding. Overall the decision is about whether to use a visual aid, which aid to use, and how much to use.

6.5. Deciding Presentation Method: After organizing the information and structuring your matter, it is time to decide on the method of presentation. Broadly, any of the following three methods can be adopted for presentation:

6.5.1. Presenting Extempore: This is one of the most accepted presenting of presenting. It requires division of total matter in parts followed by preparation of notes and cards to aid the presenter while presenting and clarity of thoughts in presenter’s mind. Although much effort is required for this kind of presentation but during presentation audience feels that the presenter is speaking naturally and without any preparation.

6.5.2. Memorizing: It is considered as the toughest method for presentation. In this method, presenter tries to memorise the complete matter that needs to be presented. It requires a special ability to memorize the matter to such a large extent. The drawback of this method is, in case you forget a word or two, you get confused initially and nervous eventually.

6.5.3. Reading: Reading the matter of a presentation is generally adopted in a highly formalized situation where error of a single word can prove to be disastrous. Most of the presenters make a mistake by reading in monotone resulting into boredom for listeners. Reading method can be adopted but not for the complete presentation. A presenter can read some of the matter during the whole presentation.

6.6. Rehearsal: Once all the above tasks are performed it is time to rehearse. For a rehearsal there is a golden rule, rehearse as much and as many times as you can. Focus areas for rehearsal is to check the time consumed per slide, checking the flow of presentation, establishing coordination between oral presentation and visual aids, practicing voice variation, and getting familiar with the matter to speak.

To conclude pre- presentation preparations: Rehearse! Rehearse! Rehearse!

7. Presentation Day:

   After practicing your presentation many times, you are almost ready to deliver an effective presentation. Rehearsal or practice provides you much needed confidence at the day of presentation. A presenter has to further take care of few issues to improve the performance of the presentation. These issues are:

On the Day of Presentation

7.1. Punctuality: The presenter must reach to the venue on or before time. This would help in getting familiar with actual setting of the venue and to overcome the nervousness. It also makes a good first impression on the audience. You can also check whether all the audio-visual aids are available and working properly.

7.2. Managing vocal components: While presenting, most of the time we are delivering the information orally to the audience. A presenter should focus on all the vocal aspects namely, pitch, rate, volume, quality, and pause.

7.2.1. A pitch is tone of sounds. A pitch brings variation in sound while speaking. It can be monotone, high or low. If the speaker brings no variation in the sound while speaking it becomes monotone. Audience are less interested in listening to monotone. A variation can be created by putting stress on important words while delivering the presentation. A variation of sound during speech keeps the audience alert and interested in your presentation.

7.2.2. Rate denotes the speed at which you are speaking the words. A presenter has to control the speed of the words spoken. Generally, 150 words spoken per minute are acceptable to audience. if you are too slow, you would be termed as a dull speaker. On the other hand, if you are too fast, audience would fail to understand the content.

7.2.3. Volume refers to the power of sound. It decides whether the presenter is audible or not. A presenters need to adjust their volume considering the size of audience, room size, noise level, availability of amplifiers, and venue.

7.2.4. Quality is considered as characteristic tone of voice of the presenter. Some people sound dusky, some sound shrill or creaky, and some others are quoted as pleasant. Overall it is very difficult to change the quality of voice. We can little bit improve it with some practice.

7.2.5. A pause is the gap between speaking two word or sentences. In writing, pauses are guided by punctuations. While speaking, a presenter must give pauses at appropriate time to convey the true meaning of the argument.

7.3. Managing non-verbal components: At the time of presentation, non-verbal cues play an important role. Audiences generally judge a presenter on the basis of posture, gesture, movement, personal appearance. Few suggestions in this regard are:

•  Always try to make an eye contact with your audience
• Do not move too much during the presentation. It can act as a distraction to the audience.
•  Give appropriate facial expression.
• Always stand straight but not stiff.
• Always look calm and compose during the presentation.
•  Be careful about your attire. You should dress up appropriately as per the audience and occasion.
•  You should look clean and well groomed.

7.4. Handling Queries: Question answer session is one of the most important part of any presentation. This is the time when there is more interaction between the presenter and the audience. This session is also known as query handling. In this session, audience raise their doubts about the content of the presentation and seek solution or clarification from the presenter. One strategy is to anticipate the questions in advance and search their solutions. Whenever a question is being asked, listen carefully. While answering the question always address the whole group. If you are unable to answer, admit your inability. You can request audience to answer it.

7.5. Evaluation: The task of a presenter is not over by the end of presentation. It is always advisable to get a feedback of your performance. A good feedback not only tells about loose areas in your presentation but also acts as a yardstick for the next presentation. For  conducting the evaluation of the presentation, an evaluation sheet can be created and used. A sample format of evaluation sheet is as follows:

8. Summary:

An oral presentation is a popular way to communicate in a professional environment. A presentation is different from public speaking on various grounds. For developing presentation skills, a presenter has to focus on areas like development of quality slides, deciding on mode of delivery, handling vocal components, handling non-verbal components, query handling techniques, and conducting evaluation. Overall, to be a good presenter, it requires a lot of practice.

Few important links to learn more about Presentation Skills:

• http://wiki.ubc.ca/Presentation_Skills
• https://www.grad.usf.edu/inc/linked-files/postdoc
• files/Talent%20Management%20Presentation%20Skills.pdf
• http://cengagesites.com/academic/assets/sites/Axzo/1418889121pv.pdf
• http://people.engr.ncsu.edu/txie/publications/oral_presentation_skills.pdf
• http://www.cardinalconsulting.net/documents/10StrategiestoImproveYourPresentation SkillsToday_CardinalConsulting_web.pdf

Points to Ponder:

• Delivering effective presentation is a skill that can be acquired.
• Practice, practice, and lot of practice is the success mantra for any presenter.
• Presentation is a combination of oral delivery, audio- visual aids, and body language.
• For a good presentation, one should get expertise in creating power point templates.
• Evaluation after the presentation is very important to avoid future errors.