Monday, February 19, 2018

Tips For Padding A PowerPoint


Tips For Padding A PowerPoint 

When you're the one standing in front of the room, kicking off your PowerPoint can feel like hitting the open road.  You are finally at the wheel, ready to chauffeur your audience through the slides that you have prepared.  Such vistas filled with vibrant possibilities are ahead!  Such landscapes of lovingly-prepared content!  So you accelerate into your introductory remarks, merge your tour bus onto your highway of hope, and steer into what you intend to be a meaningful and memorable presentation.

The message you want to convey is like a journey, for which you are the guide.  You are prepared. Your talking points are lined up, like attractions on a well-studied map.  Your cursor arrow is poised to navigate through the next however-many minutes you have.  You're confident that  your audience is in for a great PowerPoint ride. What could go wrong?

Even when you are at the height of your PowerPoint powers, one unfortunate issue might derail your carefully-crafted presentation.  It might turn out to be too short!  

Ending your PowerPoint too soon can be like reaching the end of a scenic road trip too early, sort of like getting to the restaurant an hour before your dinner reservation.  You and your passengers are left with extra time on your hands, and no idea how to spend it.  Awkward.

If you have a certain time slot to fill with your PowerPoint talk, and you MUST fill it (perhaps because other speakers will not be ready to follow you until a certain time), it can feel as though you have to virtually hold your audience hostage for a specific interval.  And if the subject of your talk is too skimpy, then you must figure out a way to extend your show without losing the glow.  

Actually, this is a problem that seasoned PowerPoint deliverers learn to work around intuitively.  In fact, all the PowerPoints I design have “stretch points” built into them so that I can riff for any length of time, at any point, and keep my hearers blissfully unaware that I am now in Improv mode.  I construct my PowerPoints this way because I have learned that even with the tightest of schedules, things can happen beyond the speaker’s control which may cause the event organizers to stage whisper at any time: “Keep them in the room for 15 more minutes!”  It could be any number of reasons.  The next speaker is late.  The breakout rooms aren't set up yet.  The catering truck broke down.  The meeting next door broke too early, and now everyone is mobbing the elevators.  The buses to go to the offsite activity are held up in traffic.  You get the idea.

So the question is:

>>>  How do you build in natural stretch points that will enhance your PowerPoint message, not dilute it? 

Here's a process I follow which can keep your PowerPoint structure sturdy and engaging, yet make it stretchable if needed.  

1. Pre-plan your target delivery times.  First, have a good idea of the length that each section of your PowerPoint will probably take.  Time yourself as you rehearse your presentation in the days before you deliver it.  Write down the minutes required to get through each section at a normal pace.  Then, compare the actual time it takes to the time you would want it to fill.  In this way, you can identify at which points within your talk you might need to expand out your delivery a bit. You can target endpoints for each section and write time prompts in your notes.  For example, let’s say my talk had five sections:  Introduction, First Point, Second Point, Third Point, and Summary.  My talk starts at 9:00 AM.  On the notes for my last slide of my Introduction, I might write 9:07.  On the last slide for my First Point section, I might write 9:20.  Etc. Etc down through the notes.  

This way when you reach each transition slide, you can do a time check.  If you’re running over time, as is often the case, you can speed up delivery.  If you’re going too fast, you can give yourself a cue to slow down.  

Either way, the next tips can be useful to calibrate your times mid-presentation to hit your target for the expected duration of your program.

2.  Identify Key Points with their own slides.  As you rehearse , look for the core practical best ideas — things that really drive your key learning objectives.  A good question to ask is: "What do I want my audience to DO after they hear my talk?” Whenever you find such a point, create an extra slide for it, right there in the middle of the show.  You can sprinkle these slides throughout your talk.  It helps to give them a slightly different look, design-wise, and a unifying title, such as “Takeaway Tool” or “Putting It Into Practice”  or simply “Key Point.”  For instance, if you are relaying an anecdote about an employee having a conversation with a client, and you want to underscore a winning strategy that was used, you might insert a slide that says simply:

                                        Takeaway Tool #1:  Listen patiently and do not interrupt. 

Imagine how a few of these call-out slides can help your audience retain the useful elements of your talk.  Try to sprinkle at least 3, and no more than 7, such slides into your presentation.  Place them at semi-regular intervals so that they will function as natural paragraph breaks in your talk.  When you get to one, alter your voice and rhythm noticeably.  You might even have a member of the audience read that slide, just for a change of pace.  The point is, make them stand out. (If you're planning to distribute a hardcopy handout or an email meeting summary, make sure these key ideas show up there as well, worded the same way and placed in the same sequence.) 

3.  Create stretch points around your Key Point slides.  Beyond being useful to drive home your message, these call-out slides also offer some breathing space.  If you need to pad your presentation, these spots are natural expansion points.  Lets say you reach one and take a look at the clock and realize you need to fill in an extra five minutes of time in order to stay on track with your target time intervals.  If so, you can dip into your Universal Stall-For-Time Question Bank.  What, you don’t have one?  Well, let me share some of mine with you:

Beth’s Universal Stall-For-Time Question Bank

After you present the Key Point slide, ask one or two of these zingers to open up some interaction and discussion:

- Who’s heard this tip before? 
                  (Or use this counter-intuitive variation:  Who’s NEVER heard this tip before?) 
- Sell me on this idea.  Why should I do it?
- Who already uses this idea?
- What good things have you seen happen when you do this?
- What can happen when we DON'T do this?
- How can we remind ourselves to do this?
- Who has a story about a time when they did this?
- Who has a horror story about a time when they DIDN’T do this?
- What might happen if we ALWAYS made it a habit to do this?
- Who’s got a situation where you think there might be an exception - this is might be a BAD idea?
- Who’s got a question about this? 

You can see where this is going.  You can insert a few of these questions, in different order, any time you need to run out the clock.  A few reminders about these impromptu discussions:
  • Don’t be too quick to fill in the answers yourself.  If you let the pauses become uncomfortable, most of the time -- sooner or later -- someone will say something.  
  • When they do speak up, respond with encouragement.  
  • If they don’t answer, even after a long silence, just say a short answer of your own, and quickly try another question.  Or say something like, “Hmm, I guess this is a really bad idea then?”  That might get the natural arguers going, just to defend your point for you.  
  • Pause after asking each question.  Watch for any reactions, and use them.  If someone laughs, rolls their eyes or shakes his head, smile at him and say, “Tom, you’ve got a thought on this — tell us.”  Then keep the improv-style moment going.  
  • The key thing is to always react positively to anything anyone says.  Respond with something like: “Good thought.  Who else?”  or "Wow, that's a different take.  Thanks for sharing it.  Want to explain?" Keep fishing.  It takes time for people to organize their thoughts.  When you have reached the target time (where you want to be on the clock), wrap it up simply by saying, “Great, well let’s see what’s next.” Then advance your slide and you are ready to go.

The beauty of this approach is that it not only helps you put your timing on track, it reinforces the points you want to make in a way that keeps people from tuning out.  It also lets you get off the lecture soapbox, which is really important if you want your audience to love you. Trust me.  Use this tool. 

Of course, the opposite is true too.  For presentations that are already taking too long, your Key Point slides can just whiz by with the briefest mention. So if you're doing well with your pace, or even running over your time, remember that you can just get to each Key Point, read it quickly, and move on.  

4.  Paste your Key Point Slides in again after your closing slide, just for insurance.  Let's say you've done well up to the last part of your talk.  A setback might still arise.  For instance, your colleague might inform you that the data in some of your closing summary slides is actually wrong, and you need to skip those slides altogether.  Or maybe a 7-minute video that you planned to use doesn't load properly, and you have to ditch it and keep going.  Whatever.  True PowerPointers know that you will ALWAYS be blind-sided by something or other during your talk. The point is, you never know if you might get to the end and still be in danger of ending too soon.

If this happens,  no need to panic!  Just give yourself more runway for your landing. Here's how.  Stick an extra set of these Key Point slides into the tail end of your PowerPoint, after all the planned presentation slides end.  That way, you can always say, “So let’s review…” and go through the important takeaways one more time with your hearers.

if you have only an extra minute or two to absorb, You can just read them over again in succession, as if you planned all along to refer to them again, then dismiss the group (to thundering applause).

If time needs to be stretched even more, try these ideas for making the most of your extra "encore" set of Key Point slides:

  • The Personalization Challenge - Read them through more slowly.  Ask more questions about each one, especially as they may relate to thoughts that you brought up toward the end of your talk.  Tie in some thoughts that came from the audience.  Challenge your hearers to pick the one they want to work on in the days and weeks ahead.
  • The Top Tip Award - Read your tips through once, then call for a hand-raising vote on which one is the most important.  Back up and go through the slides again, this time asking for hands to be raised.  Keep score on the whiteboard.  (This is a good review tactic if you have multiple sessions of your talk, because you can compare what this crowd says with what the prior audiences said, and everyone can feel either validated - - if they agreed with the people in the session before them -- or superior -- if they didn't.)
  • Group Discussion - What if you truly have lots of unexpected time left?  Then you can always stage some extra discussion time.  Split the crowd into groups and assign each group one Key Point.  Give them another question from your Universal Stall-For-Time Question Bank to discuss among themselves, and a set time limit for their discussion.  Roam around the room to help the groups get rolling and invigorate the wilting conversations.  Then call "time's up" and ask each group to present their ideas to the full assembly. 

    However you use them, this extra bonus set of Key Point slides can become your trusty  expandable back-up plan if you ever need to go into overtime. Sneaky you.  Stage it smoothly enough, and your hearers will think that you intended to do it that way all along.  

    5.  Finally - Always - My Cardinal Rule - Talk Slower Than You Think You Should.  Most PowerPoint presenters tend to speed-click through their slides and speak as if they were in a race.  They do so without realizing how bad that makes them sound.  If you think you may be prone to do this, first of all, forgive yourself. It’s a normal part of feeling self-conscious.  Our natural urge, when speaking in public, is to get it over with and be apologetic all the way through.  Please do NOT give in to that urge.  Remember: You are on the stage because you have an important message to deliver.  Out of respect for that message, and your hearers, give your talk at a leisurely pace.  Relax.  Make eye contact. Enunciate.  Breathe.  Let there be periods, whole seconds, of silence.  Far from making your audience uncomfortable, you will be doing them a favor, giving them time to digest one idea before diving into another.  Speak at a slightly slower pace than you would use in a conversation with friends. 

    (Unless of course, the clock is running out — then, feel free to become a motormouth!)

    Seriously, this approach to pad a PowerPoint will give you the flexibility you often need to frame your content with suitable discussion, thoughtfulness, and “white space” so that people can get the most benefit from all your hard work. And hard work it is!  But it is rewarding too.  

    Just as a good road trip can expand peoples' horizons and leave them with rewarding memories, your PowerPoint may change peoples’ awareness, attitudes, habits, performance, and even ultimately their destinies. It may reward them with information they can use, or with tools to confront and conquer their most challenging problems. 

    So watch that clock — and design every PowerPoint to drive home your points with power, no matter now much (or how little) time you have to deliver it!