Planning a no-sweat presentation: with careful planning, even the most squeamish presenters can learn how to deliver effective presentations.(Management & Careers)

Studies consistently rank public speaking among the greatest human fears. As such, it should not come as a surprise that for many professionals, the six most dreaded words in the workplace are "you need to give a presentation." Even so, effective public speaking is an important skill to develop. Communicating information and persuading others is fundamental to effective management--to reaching decisions and then implementing them.

We have all sat through our share of bad presentations, ones that were boring or unhelpful, or both. Does it have to be this way? The short answer is no, it does not. While nobody will ever say it is easy to give an effective presentation, with careful planning anybody can do it. This article describes the essentials of the planning process and offers tips for enhancing content and delivery.

PLAN, PLAN, PLAN

Failure to plan is the most basic presentation problem--one that causes people stress and can spoil their presentations. Presentations are often defined in terms of content ("I have to give a speech on X"). So you look at your content, organize it a bit, and hope for the best. This does not work well; you need to find a fit among your goal(s), the audience, and the content of the presentation. Leaving the audience and purpose out of the planning process is what causes smart people to give tedious or irrelevant presentations.

Start out by asking yourself what you want from the audience. Do you want your audience to know more or understand more? If so, that is an informative purpose. Do you want them to change their minds about something or change their actions? If so, that is a persuasive purpose. In each case, make some very specific notes about exactly what you want from your audience. If you design the presentation with no particular goal in mind, you will probably get no particular result.

Once you have decided what you want from the audience, look at the presentation from the audience's perspective. What do they want from you? If you want people to change their minds, you need to give them reasons. If you want people to better understand a new accounting standard, they will want clear explanations.

When you know what you want from your audience and what they want from you, you need to measure the distance between the two and figure out what it will take to bridge that distance. Suppose, for example, that the GASB has just announced a new accounting standard and you are making a presentation to help the people in your department (a) understand the new guidance and (b) realize how important it is that they comply with the standard. This combines informative and persuasive purposes, a common situation. What does this audience want from you? They will want to know why they must go to all the trouble of complying with the new standard, and they will want clear instructions on how to make the leap from current practice. Zipping through the theory behind the changes will not be as effective as figuring out what your people need to know in order make the changes. Of course, a different audience would require an entirely different approach, since it would be starting from a completely different position.