From Data to Delivery: Elevating Your Presentation Game

Read Time ~ 4 Minutes

When I was a technical instructor at a coding bootcamp, the number one thing that I stressed to the students was effectively presenting their findings.

I would always say, “You can have the best data analysis, model, or system architecture, but if you can’t tell anyone about it in an effective, meaningful, and impactful way, then it was all for nothing”.

That might seems a little extreme but there is a kernel of truth behind it.

I have seen a lot of hard work go unnoticed because the person behind it just didn’t explain it in an effective way.

To solve that here are 4 things you can do to insure your hard work gets noticed when you present.

Know your audience

Before you even begin to create a presentation you need to ask yourself the following question:

Who is this presentation for?

This will help guide you on how you present your information.

For instance, if the presentation is for a board of directors, maybe skipping the details and creating an executive summary would be the way to go. If it is for a customer, explain how your findings or product can solve their problem without getting too technical. If it’s for your fellow colleagues, don’t be afraid to show off some of the finer and extensive details as they would benefit from knowing more about them.

Knowing your audience also lets you tailor your delivery of the information. At the end of the day, a presentation is only as good as the person who is giving it. There are many ways to deliver the information and knowing your audience will help you decide on what would resonate with them the most. Are they looking to be “sold” something? Do they just want information? Are they trying to decide what way to pivot and want to be swayed?

Knowing your audience can mean the difference between an engaged crowd or one that tunes out immediately.

Tell a story

While the whole point of a presentation is the deliver information, how it gets delivered is often times more important than the information itself.

This is where the art of storytelling comes into play. No, you shouldn’t make your presentation a cheesy tale of how the data went off on an adventure and slayed the dragon but you should lead your audience through a similar discovery you went through.

Your presentation should have a similar framework to a story.

An introduction, problem that you or the company faced, analysis or models that helped solve that problem, and a conclusion.

It should make sense to your audience why you did what you did and how you drew your conclusions.

I could spend a whole article just on this section alone (and I might!) but bottom line is, don’t just deliver information, tell a story!

Less is more

If there is one thing that can kill a presentation quickly and make your audience tune out everything you are saying it’s information overload. This has just as much to do with what you are saying as it does the information you are sharing via your visual aids.

When you get a chance to showcase a project that you have worked on for an extended period of time there is a tendency to try to cram as many details into the presentation as possible. After all, you worked your ass off on this project and everyone should know every little detail. Right? Wrong!

Sad to say but the people you are presenting to might often not care about all the little details and care much more about bottom line.

Try to give only the most important details of the project but be prepared to answer any of the finer details that you held back.

This the same for your visual aids as well.

A screen full of text or complex visuals will most likely get ignored, or worse, detract from what you are trying to say while everyone tries to read the paragraphs or cryptic graphs on the screen. A good alternative to paragraphs of text is to use bullet points and leave all the detail telling to you. This does two things: 1. It gives you a framework to move forward in the presentation. 2. It forces people to listen to you as there is not much to read on the screen. This is a win win.

With the visuals, keep it simple. Show one thing at a time so people can look, digest, then get back to what you are saying.

Practice, practice, practice!

Lastly, presenting is a skill like any other and the only way to get better at a skill is to practice!

This doesn’t have to be on the job either. A good way to get better is to ask your significant other or friend to listen to your presentation and critique it.

Don’t have anyone around? Use your phone to record yourself and play it back. Sounds pointless but you would be amazed at what you find out by seeing yourself present from a different perspective.

Practicing also allows you to work on presentation soft skills such as volume, pitch, tone, mannerisms, movement, eye contact. These are all things that, when practiced, can really elevate your ability to present.

Wrapping it up

I hope you enjoyed this edition of AI insights as I believe presenting is a often overlooked skill and really needs some more attention.

Until next time.

Andrew-

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