What do they really want to know? - Guidelines for a trustworthy presentation

I recommend the following guidelines when you are constructing or delivering a technical presentation.

Start at the beginning. Before proceeding to the unknown, take time to describe what is already understood. This immediately establishes your credibility with the audience - in their eyes, you are demonstrating that you know what you are talking about.

Keep focussed. Eliminate any unnecessary details that do not have a direct impact on the information being presented. Don't run the risk of "glazed eye" syndrome, especially if you are presenting to a group. At the end of the presentation, there will probably be a discussion.Peer-group pressure makes it likely that everyone will feel the need to participate in this discussion and if anyone lost their way during the presentation, that person's contribution is likely to be negative.

Be precise. Ensure that the conclusions can be logically derived from the supporting material. Phrases like "tend to imply" or "may have a bearing on" might be suitable in a government-sponsored report on public transport, but have no place in a technical presentation.

And what if you’re presenting contentious or unpleasant results?

The nature of a surprise is that people react unpredictably when confronted with one and what happens next depends on whether the surprise is pleasant or unpleasant.You may find yourself in the fortunate position of being the bearer of good tidings. For example:

"Our website has taken far more hits than expected and the server is performing really well".

"Last week's memory upgrade solved all our performance problems and the users are very happy".

"IBM has halved the price of their disk drives and we're going to be able to install twice as many as we budgeted for".

But how often is the converse true?

"Our web server is overloaded and our customers are deserting us in droves".

 "The memory upgrade made no difference. Our clients are threatening to sue".

"The lead time on hardware delivery has slipped to six months and we're already nearly out of disk space".

No one wants to hear any kind of bad news for the first time during a formal presentation, especially if other people are present and if the news is bad enough, the well-known psychological phenomenon of Denial comes into play.

"Denial" involves saying to oneself "This is so bad that I don't want to believe it, so I will make up evidence to convince myself that it can't be true". The worse the pain, the more compelling the imaginary counter-evidence becomes.

If your information comes as no surprise, the "denial" reaction is unlikely to occur and provided all other attributes of a trustworthy presentation are in place your report will be, however reluctantly, accepted.

Recall that a good and trustworthy presentation starts from what is known, and proceeds towards its conclusion in logical steps. So, if possible, you should ensure that the bad situation you are reporting on is already part of the common fund of accepted knowledge before you start discussing it.

There is no pre-ordained way of doing this but you may be able to take advantage of the informal hierarchy that exists in any medium to large organisation. This informal hierarchy exists alongside, and largely independently of, the formal reporting structure.

By planting a word in the right ear, you can ensure that everyone from the managing director to the car park attendant will soon know what you want them to know.

Not all presentations are face-to-face. The act of e-mailing a report to your boss is still a "presentation", even though you are not there in person when they read it .
I’ll be looking at how to approach this next.

Rich Fronheiser
Chief Marketing Officer