5 Step Approach to Mapping Your Presentation Content

By Jim Endicott, Owner/Manager of Distinction

I hate waiting in long lines. It doesn’t really matter where they are or what I’m waiting for. Maybe my aversion to lines is rooted in the fact that it gives me way too much time to think. I guess I shouldn’t complain, some of my best writing ideas have come out of a six car line up for my morning double twenty ounce mocha (light on the chocolate). I always find it interesting that even though the ingredients in my morning beverage don’t change, they tend to taste slightly different depending on who’s making it. The final “deliverable” becomes more a by-product of the subtleties that go into the process than the actual ingredients themselves.

The art of presenting is a unique mix of ingredients and even though many presenters are often working from similar materials (product data sheets, P&L info, company background materials…), the final outcome can be dramatically different. Maybe it’s those elements of uniqueness that provide us with the greatest opportunity to break out of the mundane appearance of many presentations and “flavor” the content with our own distinctiveness.

Many presenters, however, are still looking for the “formula” for putting together good presentation content. I’ll offer one up that will help you get your thoughts down more effectively as you map out the flow of your next presentation. It all starts with a timeline.

[60 minutes total]

Step#1     Define the length of time your presentation is to last. For illustration sake, let’s assume this is a 60-minute presentation.  Your timeline can’t be stretched to 70 minutes or fudged to 64. Time commitments to our audience are a trust that can’t be broken without consequences. Ask yourself; does the Q&A opportunity come out of this time budget? Have you allowed time for interaction during the presentation? Unless you’re riveting, someone will be watching their watch and for good reason.  It’s not that they’re not interested in what you have to say but more often it’s simply a matter of them having other commitments that they’ve made.

Step #2     Add closing and ending segments and assign a time to those. (Typically, 5 minutes for each) The opening few minutes establishes a critical context for setting audience expectations and establishing interest and credibility. The closing few minutes (often rushed and unprepared by many presenters) is where all the pieces come together and you drive home your points from the previous 60 minutes. You will help them understand why they were relevant and important to them and how they can apply the information or take action.  No matter what happens during the presentation, don’t cheat your audience out of a well-rehearsed closing element.

Step #3     Add in your three to four major presentation messages and allocate your time accordingly. The visual roadmap for your presentation is now starting to take shape. We are a visually oriented people and a physical timeline is more practical for most people in visualizing presentation flow. You’ve now created tangible constraints on how long you will allow yourself to elaborate on a specific point. Your message content will begin to flow out of this basic framework.

Step #4     Begin to fill out the sub-detail for each point and allocate your time. Often times we practice an entire presentation and after discovering that it’s running10 minutes too long, we’re clueless where to begin the pruning process. By defining time constraints for each topic area, you can now rehearse the sub topic and see if you’re coming in within your time budget. Perhaps you discover that topic 2 simply takes more time than you’ve provided. You can change it but now the need for some real time discipline kicks in. Where are you willing to cut some time? Think you’ll just go a little faster or somehow squeeze it all in? It hasn’t worked for business presenters over the last hundred years or so and it probably won’t work for you either.

Step #5     With the outline now in place, these primary headers and sub-topics become the initial title slide map for your presentation. Bulleted information is added and meaningful graphical elements are sourced to support each topic addressed. You can now begin adding personal notes under each title that refer to what types of supporting imagery would be appropriate. For example, under “Examples: failure-success”, you may make notes under Billings Technologies that might look like this; “Need their company logo, picture of site, quote from company president.” 

I would suggest that if your process isn’t broke, don’t try to fix it but for most presenters, just trying to define the ingredients of a good presentation becomes a big challenge. If that’s you, print out this timeline presentation planner and try it out on your next important presentation. Why does it work? It works because it blends the left-brain (analytical) approach we normally take with a more right brain graphical one (creative) and helps us “see it” before we actually create it. For many, this is the start of a much-improved process. In the meantime, I’m going to try not to get frustrated with the taste of my morning mochas. After all, if the latte is really good, is doesn’t much matter how they put it together.

Learn more about Jim Endicott and Distinction in our Contributor’s section.