A Few Tips On How To Structure A Presentation

The first presentation I did for my current job was probably the worst one I have ever done. I did not understand exactly what was required of me, at least not until the day before presenting. So, the day before the presentation, I had to rush to redo the entire thing. I ended up being quite proud of what I managed to accomplish in such a short time. The content was there, the problem was that the structure was not. Nobody really understood the real meaning of what I wanted to say. Since the presentation was not clear enough, the audience did what anyone would do: They asked questions… It, of course, did not go well either. Why? My presentation (and the preparation for it) was not structured.

I quickly learned that you don’t want people to ask questions when you are presenting. And what is the best way to avoid questions? Answer them before they are even asked. The first thing I now do when I build a presentation is to prepare a list of twenty questions that I need to answer during the course of the presentation (directly or indirectly). Not sixteen or nineteen, twenty. You don’t want a list of 50 questions (too hard to manage) but you also want to make sure that you are not forgetting any important ones. I found twenty to be a good balance.

You will probably start with easy questions, but the idea is also to find the tricky ones, or the ones you don’t want to answer. For example, let’s say you want to prepare a presentation that will show off one project / feature / app you recently worked on, for a job interview. You might want to answer the following questions:

1. Can you tell us what this project is about?
2. Who were the stakeholders?
3. What was the problem that this project / feature / app was trying to solve?
4. What was the situation before you started working on this project / feature / app?
5. Was it a large or a small project?
6. What were the risks of not doing it?
7. What was your involvement in designing the solution?
8. What was the final solution?
9. What were the main risks with the chosen solution?
10. How is this relevant for the role you are applying for?
11. What challenges did you face while working on this project / feature / app?
12. Were all these functionalities made available to end users?
13. What makes you proud of what you delivered?
14. Were this delivery a cross-teams project?
15. What was the feedback from customers?
16. How did you track feedback after launch i.e. data and analysis?
17. What would you change or do differently?
18. What did you learn?
19. Would you do it again?
20. Did you manage to use what you learned in other projects?

This is obviously not an exhaustive list. You might find different questions if you were to do it yourself, but it is a very useful exercise.

The next step is to group these twenty questions into three key questions that will form the three sections of your presentation. Again, why three?

First of all, we tend to do things in three. Three is the first number to which the meaning “all” was given as it contains beginning, middle and end / birth, life, death / past, present, future. It is also used in many religious and non religious symbolism (trinity, trident, tripod, trigrams, etc).

On a more personal note, I think two sections would not be enough. You might end up in a sort of “duality mode” where you will say, This is good and This is bad, which would not be very constructive. Four or more sections will simply be a bit messy and you want your presentation to be simple and clear. So, I go for three.

The last step is to merge these three questions into a single one which is the Principal Question: The one that you will answer at the end of your presentation.

Usually, at this point, I start to create a mind map to organise everything. The different main parts are:

• Introduction
• Key question 1
• Key question 2
• Key question 3
• Conclusion

Below is a very simple example. All 20 questions will need to be answered. Again, keep it simple: one or two words per answer. This mind map is usually my only support document when I present.

Last steps are the introduction and the conclusion. They should not be disregarded as they are the first and last impression you will make on your audience. This is particularly true for the introduction, as first impressions are hard to change, especially when they are negative. So, let’s start with the introduction.

In brief, don’t overdo it. A few months ago, I attended a UX design Meetup in London. I remember one of the speakers particularly well because of how he began his presentation. The first slide was a picture of himself, sitting on a leather sofa. He was not looking at the camera but slightly to one side, as if he was thinking intensively. He spent the first 3–4 minutes of his presentation, showing this picture and talking about himself, about what he had accomplished and all the great brands he had worked for. I clearly remember thinking: I don’t give a sh..t. People don’t need to know about all the companies you worked for and the millions of users you helped. They want to know what they are going to get out of your presentation, nothing more. And if you are good and accomplished, people will see it immediately in your presentation anyway. If you really feel that your audience needs to know who you are and what you have done, then the best way to do it is to have someone introduce you.

Your introduction needs to highlight what you are going to talk about, so basically, your principal question and your three key questions. This is the most important point of the introduction. You might also want to tell everyone that they are not going to stay here all day listening to you. You can even add something like “This will not take more than 15 minutes” for example. I also tend to ask people to leave any questions for the end. This will prevent them from interrupting you and give you the chance to answer their questions before they even asked them.

My conclusions tend to be quite short. I usually reiterate the main points of the presentation and answer the Principal Question.

Once you have reached this point, most of the work is done. You are ready to start working on your slides

All the above comments and tips are just personal tools that have proven to be very useful to me. This is why I am sharing them today. I hope that they will help you as well.

Please feel free to share any comments or additional presentation tips that you might have.