It’s time to get it off your chest: what annoys you when attending someone else’s technical presentation?
Seeing as I’m launching into advice focused on technical presentations, I thought I’d best check out my assumptions as to where people need help.
The LinkedIn community have started the ball rolling (see the full question and replies here – thanks to the hordes of smart people who replied). I asked them what they thought were the worst crimes in technical presentations.
Here are the main points they raised (only the bits in bold/italic are me, the rest is quotes from other clever people).
First, people hate it when you don’t pitch things for who’s present…
Not speaking the right language, or highlighting the right points, will ruin the entire presentation. [I presume this means right vocab, but I did meet someone who delivered a presentation that was very quietly received and only found out later that no one spoke the language he had just used for the last 45 minutes!]
It doesn’t hurt to state your assumptions about what level the presentation is geared for at the beginning
I hate it when people use the presentation they put together for their colleagues for a presentation to non experts and say out loud “You won’t understand most of this because it was put together for (insert technical expertise) professionals” – why present it to us then? Duh!!
In a similar vein – jargon ‘is a turn-off’…
Many technical guys go overboard with too much jargon. Probably, it is to impress people. But many may not understand the jargon and so the entire presentation does not make sense.
Humour comes up…
Presentation is an art. You may need to add some humor sometimes to make it livelier.
If I don’t see a funny or unexpected slide before the 10th slide, I get bored. Keeping people with the story demands a bit of humor from time to time!
but beware…
Using humor in place of knowledge/personality/understanding of subject matter doesn’t work.
Bad time control is seen as pretty serious…
People hated:
- allowing the presentation to needlessly drag on
- rushing presentation due to nervousness
- no time allowed for questions
And advised:
- keep the presentation short, sweet, to the point
- allow adequate time at end for follow up and questions and answers
Look after your energy level…
The worst thing is when the presenter isn’t even enthusiastic about their own presentation.
and interact with us…
I hate it when presenters don’t engage the audience and involve them.
Finally, the PowerPoint crimes…
When using slides, don’t:
- show the presentation and read every word of it without offering any explanation
- just use text, text and text without case studies/ screen shots
- read the slide out – instead talk about what the slide is showing and fill in the gaps – i.e. talk about what idea you are trying to convey with that slide.
- stop to read the screen when you change slides
- use endless bullet lists
- look at the screen all the time
- click to slide of excel spreadsheet/technical diagram and say “I know you can’t see much here because it’s so detailed…. but this is the bit I’m referring to” – points to small corner of slide ….. grrrr ??! [thank you Chris - don't hide your feelings, now]
- ignore the slide either
- print a 100 page slide list as a hand out with no notes
And the prizes for worst design crimes go to slides that:
- have unreadable text (dropshadow, odd colors applied, really bad font)
- use every single wipe and transition
- have images inserted poorly (low res, poorly clipped, visible off color background)
As one person summarised…
I really don’t like to be read to.
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Some of the most interesting points came on the topic of experts…
It is always interesting to see an expert make a presentation to other experts. The percentage of jargon as against lay English rises sharply and, because there is no need for the expert to explain basic propositions, presentations can be next to incomprehensible to the non-expert. Such presentations tend to be short, to the point and leave plenty of time for peer discussion.
But experts tend to be very bad in making presentations to non-experts because they have no idea to take their own knowledge and translate it into accessible bites.
The best people to make presentations to non-experts are those who have struggled to achieve some competence. They know where all the hard-to-understand bits are buried and how to present them in simple ways.
If in doubt, never ask an expert to make a presentation to non-expert people and always hide the slide show, powerpoint presentations and other technological gizmos. A simple series of spoken points, followed by question and answer sessions does the job.
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The worst crime is to have a technician who has not been trained in presentation skills do the presentation.
If the presentation is of a technical nature and it is important to have a technician do the presentation because he needs to communicate technical concepts to laymen and answer their technical questions in a way that they will understand then it is important enough to ensure your technician is trained in delivering presentations properly.
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One thing I still remember as if it were yesterday (so it must be a worst still after all these years) is a developer presenting new electrical drawings software to an audience, and stopping the presentation for a whole minute, to write down the error code generated on the screen at that time, in full view of the audience.
He was surprised we mentioned this behaviour to him, he never got a chance to present again.
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What strikes a chord with you? What drives you crazy? Get it all out of your system once and for all in the comments section.
As of next week, I’m going to start giving some solid advice as to how to get all of this to change (Hint: it involves you developing superpowers…)
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Comments on last week’s post on getting better questions after your presentation yielded some very interesting discussion.
M.J. Plebon said:
One rule I have is to never leave the Q&A to the very end. I always say the following: “Before I finish up with my final remarks, I would like to open it up for questions from you.” The reason for this is because you always have the last word and the closing remarks can remedy a difficult situation. There is nothing worse than delivering a great presentation only to have a sticky question that you may not handle well as a final closing.
Saving your final remarks for the end gives you an opportunity to end on the right note and frame of mind.
Abhishek mentioned the cultural side of questions – ie not so easy to get in Sunny Singapore…
When my audience talks to each other first, they get a chance to make sure their voices still work and practice asking their questions, and they also have an opportunity to meet each other. This in turn helps interaction, networking and community-building — all really important outcomes of professional meetings for me.
Chris we-concur-so-much-it’s-spooky Witt spoke with the wisdom of experience:
I judge my effectiveness by the quantity and quality of the questions I get. I want lots of questions, but not dumb ones. (Dumb questions are more a reflection of my presentation than of the audience’s intelligence.)
Dave Ferguson challenged the whole questions-at-the-end model:
If instead you’re inviting questions (and even comments) so people can test the ideas, fit them into their own contexts, relate opportunities and barriers–why not build in a few minutes for that at key points during the session?
I like the idea of having people interact with their neighbors, and that could apply here. I guess I’m urging not to have every presentation proceed on so predictable a path.
to which MJ agreed and then asked:
What tips can people offer to keep the timing on track when you open up the floor to questions and suggestions several times during your presentation?
See, commenting is fun…
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Related posts
~ 9 easy things you can do to stand out in technical presentations
~ PowerPoint: We’ve been fooled…
~ 13 reasons why slideshow presentations are stupid and evil
~ Filtering a technical topic for a non-technical audience – Presentation Analysis: Benjamin Zander on Ted.com
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In other news…
I’ve been spending some time looking at charts, graphs, data visualization, and information design putting together some seed content for the wiki on visual aids for technical presentations.
Barcampsg3 was a LOT of fun. It works on an unconference model and is in-TENSE. The amount of learning – wow. And I rejigged the session I ran in 120 seconds based on the session I had attended just before by the rather brilliant Carl Coryell-Martin on creating passionate users. There is some video still sitting on my flip mino which will find its way here when I get a second to work out how I want to edit it (and how to edit it, full-stop.)
Heading to Blogout Singapore tomorrow and IDC’s Cloud Computing conference on Monday. I’ll be tweeting…
Oh and I’m polishing (more like drilling out of the rockface) my American accent for a student movie I’ve been cast in. Yikes – it’s like Texas speech therapy all over again. Gotta get my r’s in check. Repeat after me: ‘The Hurly-Burly Mirror Store at Vermont and Beverly featured hundreds of mirrors. There were several mirrors on the chest of drawers…’
Online stuff
Check out Chris-of-the-comments’ blog Life After Powerpoint – very interesting. And not just because he mentions me.
Movies
Let the Right One In was the sweetest Swedish vampire kid love story I’ve ever seen. 4.5/5 (half a point for the cats).
White Palm was ok – Hungarian gymnast’s life. Nicely shot, but a bit episodic, which makes me think it was quite autobiographical. And oh my god I felt unfit.
Books
Enjoying Visual Intelligence: How We Create What We See since last night, at least.
Edward Tufte is a God. Click that link to find out what I’ve been doing in the library the past 2 days…
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Links to books are often to Amazon for convenience and aren’t affiliate links (i.e. I don’t make any money from them). I’d much rather you ordered from an independent bookseller. If you’re in the UK, phone Kirsty the friendly bookseller at Westbourne Books on +44 1202 768626 – nine times out of ten she’ll get the book in the post to you within 24 hours. Tell her I referred you – it’ll make her laugh. (again – not on commission – she’s just my best book enabler…)
