This document provides tips for delivering effective presentations to stakeholders. It recommends knowing your subject matter, audience, and yourself. The presenter should develop a clear theme and script. Visual aids should support the content, not distract, using plain fonts, bullet points, and consistent backgrounds. Rehearsing is key to timing, comfort with the materials, and soliciting feedback. The overall goals are to communicate the essential information simply, clearly, and engagingly.

1. Delivering Presentations for
Stakeholders
Syed Nazir Razik
Nov 22, 2011 09:00 – 12.30pm
syed@railsfactory.org
© 2006-11 Rails Factory | www.railsfactory.com

2. Syed Nazir Razik

3. Introduction
• As a Team Member, you WILL be giving
presentations
• It would be good, if you were good
• This presentation will help you be better
– Point out pitfalls
– Set some rules
– Give some examples of do’s

4. Background
• To communicate effectively, you must state
your facts in a simple, concise and
interesting manner.
• The central purpose of any presentation,
written, oral or visual, is communication.
• You can entertain, inform, excite and even
shock an audience in virtually any exchange
of information.

5. Ask Yourself
• What do you want to accomplish with your
presentation?
• Are you giving the presentation to inspire people
to volunteer for your cause?
• Do you need a short, simple presentation that
leaves the viewer wanting to know more or an
involved longer presentation that teaches
audience members how to do a specific task?

6. Someone’s Rules
• KNOW YOUR SUBJECT MATTER .
• KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE .
• KNOW YOURSELF (and your limits)
• DEVELOP A THEME
• PREPARE YOUR SCRIPT
– The opening
– The Body
– The Summary

7. In Advance
• Think through the practical issues—where and
how you'll be delivering the presentation.
• Know the room in which you'll be presenting, how
big your audience might be, what kind of
handouts you'll need, and so on.
• Thinking your presentation through before you
begin will help you make the right choices as you
pull everything together.

8. Use walkthroughs !
• Select the appropriate Visual Aids
• Make sure that everything you need will be on site:
– PC
– Screen
– Mike
– Handouts
• Rehearse, rehearse, and rehearse
– For timing
– For your comfort with the materials
– Solicit criticism

9. Introduction to Slides
• The purpose is communication
• Use text to support the communication
• Use pictures only to simplify the complex
• Use animations for complex relationships
• Visuals should support not distract
• Sound only when absolutely necessary

10. Fonts and Colors !
• Choose a plain font and stick to it
• Try to maintain a maximum of four to six lines of
text per slide
• Use font sizes large enough to view from
anywhere in the room
• Try NOT to use fonts smaller than 28

11. Backgrounds
• Choose a consistent background and keep it
throughout the presentation
• IF you want a different background it should be
used to bring attention to ONE slide
• Choose one type of transition (this is not a
movie)
• Use complementary colors (colors that are
opposite on the color wheel)

12. Slide Organization
• Use bullets to separate ideas
• Title slides (helps establish a
reference point)
• Print outline if you wish
audience to take notes
• Keep the title in a general
location (don’t jump all over
the page)
• Clip art should add to the
content (not just to have clip
art)

13. Final Points !
• Include only necessary information
• Slide content should be self evident
• Avoid busy or data intensive slides
• Seven words to a line, seven lines to a slide
(guideline, not a rule)

14. Miscellaneous !
• Handouts can be distractions
• Try to avoid showing off how complicated you can make a
slide
• Engineers and scientists like diagrams, hardly anyone else
does
• Dress for success
• REHEARSE--REHEARSE--REHEARSE
• Speak comfortably and clearly
• Talk TO or WITH your audience
• Enjoy yourself

15. Summary
• Make it BIG
• Make it simple
• Make it clear
• Make it interesting
• Make it consistent Email: info@railsfactory.com
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