1. Use real visual aids: If you need to communicate complex information, use a well-constructed diagram. Diagrams can make almost anything intelligible and memorable. In many presentations, authors break up the text by using bullet points but this is insufficient because structure in itself conveys nothing. You need more than mere illustrations; you need to create meaning.
2. Don’t rely on assumptions: If you base your presentation on certain assumptions without fully understanding the needs of your audience, you might run into trouble if it turns out these assumptions are wrong. In conversation, you can simply make a few necessary adjustments but once something is on paper or on the screen, it is likely to cause difficulties. When you move to the next slide only to see it continues along the path of an assumption that your audience has just declared to be inaccurate, you can easily lose your bearings since this entire section of the presentation is no longer relevant.
3. Return to the beginning: Presentations should form a perfect circle. You start by laying out the issues, followed by the reasons why your proposal is the best. Next, you convince the audience that what you are proposing is a sensible path, backed up by examples, references and case studies. Finally, you should return to what you were talking about at the beginning in order to show how all the evidence indicates that your proposal is the right one.
4. End with what will happen next: At the end of your presentation, you should state quite clearly what will follow. It needs to be something specific that maintains the momentum gained in your presentation and takes you one step closer to the final approval. The precise nature of further action depends entirely on you but it should demonstrate your enthusiasm and ensure that you alone will keep the whole process moving.
-jk-