Making Technical Presentations? 9 Ways to Nail Them Like a Boss!

Summary:

To be effective, making technical presentations require more than the speakers showing up and downloading their knowledge on an audience.

You have to know your purpose for speaking, connect with your audience, make sure the atmosphere is right for your presentation and of course, have some basic public speaking skills.

This post breaks it all down for you and gives you even more tips for nailing technical presentations like a boss. It is a “must have” for those who are already regularly making technical presentations as well as those who are now starting out.

So grab it, make it your speaking resource and also share it with your colleagues.

#1 – Know Your Audience

Knowing your audience is critical to any speech, but especially when you’re making technical presentations. I mean, how else can you structure your talk so that the audience understands what you want them to?

Furthermore, would you make a technical presentation in the same way to: (1) Key decision-makers and influencers who are very familiar with the subject and (2) a group of PTA members of the local high school?

Don’t make assumptions about what your audience might know, collect the information. In this way, you will be able to design a presentation that exactly matches their needs with your purpose.

Here is a sample of relevant information you should find out about your audience:

Why is this audience here?
What are their concerns surrounding the topic I will be presenting?
Will they be able to act on any recommendations I am planning to make?
What is their level of knowledge on the topic?
Are they representative from organizations looking for projects to fund?
Any other information that will help you to help your audience…

# 2 – Get clear on your purpose for speaking

Most times, technical people are invited (or required) to speak because it is believed that they “have some good information to share.” And most technical people just say “yes” without even wondering “what is expected of me?”

In reality, the fact that you have some good information to share does not automatically transform into your purpose for speaking.

Since this is the case, you can and should decide your purpose for making every technical presentation. Doing so will help you to structure your speech in a meaningful and relevant manner.

For Example, you can decide if you want to:

just share information
persuade the audience to change behaviour
garner support/funding for your important project
shock your audience with facts

When you know your purpose and you have analysed your audience, you can them prepare and deliver a technical presentation that will be remembered for the right reasons.

# 3 – Plan and prepare to present professionally

Regardless of how well you know your topic, or the composition of the audience, you owe it to your listeners and yourself, to plan, write, and deliver your speech in a professional, convincing manner.

Here is what I mean.

In addition to speaking on your own behalf, you might be representing an organization. If this is the case, you also owe it to them to represent them professionally thus building goodwill between the organization and the audience.

As part of your preparation, decide how you will arrange your information, what charts, slides, etc you will use to enhance your words. And how you will create the right atmosphere for the audience to take in the information.

Importantly, make sure you have acquired at least the fundamentals of public speaking. Come on, you’re going to be doing this again and again.

How you dress also matters. Do not run the risk of allowing how you dress to undermine the overall quality of your speech.

As a professional, your approach to sharing your information must be equally professional.

# 4 – Capture the Audience’s Attention

This is critical to your success at making technical presentations to non-technical audiences.

You see, your audience come into the room with the memory of all the bad technical presentations they had attended. Now, they hope that this one will be better.

This means, you now have your work cut out for you, if you’re going to deserve their gratitude at the end. Regardless of the type of audience, you have to find a way to connect with them quickly, clearly and simply.

Therefore, your opening should be short and designed to capture their immediate attention and/or interest. At the same time, it should alert them to the theme of your speech.

Unfortunately, the following common weak openings will not do it for you:

An apologetic opening statement
A story or joke that does not relate to the topic
A long, slow-moving “pre-ramble”

Instead, you can try:

Stating a startling or little-known fact – “AI will not take your job in the future. Your job will change to match the needs of AI!” (I hope!)
Asking a related, rhetorical question – “What if I were to tell you that AI is not after your job, now or in the future?”
Telling a joke or humorous story – Either one must be related to the speech you’re making, though. Human interest stories work well here. If you’re going to tell a joke, make sure that you’re comfortable doing so. Also, it wouldn’t hurt to learn how to tell stories.

#5 – Aid your audience’s understanding

One of the chief purposes of presenting technical information is to help your audience understand some complex but important topic. Yet, time and time again, presenters fail to meet this basic standard.

Recently I attended a presentation entitled “Understanding Financial Statements – All Myths Debunked.” Given my experience in financial accounting, I was looking for some more tips to help my clients who remain intimidated by all things financial.

At the end of that presentation, I was more confused than when I entered the room and I was even doubting my knowledge of the topic.

Here are some tips to prevent you from falling into this trap:

Don’t just do a data dump on your audience – They also want the benefit of your insight, your analysis, what you recommend… in other words, your unique perspective.
Resist the impulse to want to share too much in a short time – It is much better for you to take an aspect of the topic and address it in detail in the available time.
Organise your material following some logical pattern – problem – cause – solution. This will allow your information to flow smoothly and your audience to follow.
Customise the same presentation for different audience – If you have to give the same presentation to a dozen groups, customise it for each one. That’s why audience analysis matters.
Use sharp, crisp, clear sentences with active verbs – Use examples, comparisons and analogies to make technical points simple. And reduce the jargon, please. If you must use a few technical terms to remind us that you went to university and that you are the expert, that’s alright. Just explain them simply.

# 6 – Check Out the environment before you speak

Too, too many persons who make presentations believe that their chief role is to turn up and make the speech. This is not exactly true.

The atmosphere and the environment in which you speak are so very important to you as the speaker, and to your audience, that you should take responsibility for checking it out…before the actual date of your speech.

Here’s how you can do that:

Check out the environment and influence it if you can – Understand what type of environment will be best for you and your audience and request it in writing.
Make sure the environment match the purpose of your presentation – If you are conducting a whole day training session, the seating arrangement should be different from that of a 45-minute project update, a panel discussion or the findings of your latest research.
What if the room is so small that some people will have to stand? – This is only advantageous if the press will be there. Then they might write a story with a headline which could read: Scientist Bright-Girl Presented her Paper to a Packed Audience.
If the room is too large? – It will make both you and your audience uncomfortable, and reduce your enthusiasm and their willingness to listen attentively.

This is also part of how you plan to present professionally. (See # 3 above)

# 7 – Handle the Questions Professionally

You delivered your presentation to thunderous applause. You smiled in acknowledgement and with that smile still in place, you invite questions.

Up shoots a hand accompanied by a booming voice, which asks: As wind turbines go, er, aah, can you tell me how a stator-rotor turbine cascade design can be used to more effectively extract energy from the flow?

Your smile freezes in place and you ask yourself who is this (you choose the word)? That was the whole crux of my presentation!

Many a great presentation has been undone by the speaker’s poor handling of the “question and answer” session.

Because effectively answering questions after your technical presentation is so important, I have written an entire post on the topic. You can check it out here.

# 8 – Use PowerPoint effectively

Sigh…Big Sigh…

Even as I write, a speaker somewhere is making a technical presentation and apologizing for the SUPPORTING PowerPoint presentation.

So here are some very basic tips that will help you through this aspect of your presentation.

You don’t have to use PowerPoint – I often don’t. If you want to use it regularly though, learn how to use it and practice first. And calling it a multi-media presentation does not fool anybody. Anyhow, there are other effective ways to present your information. Learn some of them.
Don’t use PowerPoint to create your presentation – Always prepare your presentation, practice it and be ready to engage the audience regardless. Then you can make a PowerPoint to enhance its delivery. Furthermore, What if the technology does not work at the venue and you can’t present your slides?
Keep Your slides simple – especially, diagrams, tables, graphs and charts. What are you thinking when you display loads of 12-point typewritten lists, spreadsheets, computer printouts or pages from a book on a PowerPoint slide?
Don’t use slides as speaker’s notes – Or to simply project an outline of your presentation. If you think you have to, just send the file to the venue with complimentary popcorn and drinks. The audience will not miss you.
Avoid using all UPPER CASE letters – This makes the text difficult to read. You see, the shape of the letters helps one to read faster and quickly grasp the meaning of what is written. THE UNIFORMITY OF UPPER CASE LETTERS REDUCES THIS.
Size does matter! – 12-point fonts are meant to be viewed from 8 – 12 inches away not several feet! In your slides, aim for a minimum of 40-point. And don’t read (out loud) what is written on the slides. The audience can read. Better still…how about a single image to represent a thought, then your audience must listen to you speaking to it instead of reading all your words?

# 9 – Make your handouts worth waiting for

In other areas of people’s lives, giving a handout might not be the best thing to do. But for a speaker, it’s not a bad thing to do. But it’s how you do it that counts.

Here’s how you can do it:

Don’t give a copy of your PowerPoint a handout – I hate when I pay large portions of my hard-earned money for a seminar/workshop and I receive this fancy bag with copies of the PowerPoint presentation inside.
Don’t give handouts before your presentation – Unless you plan to sing it and expect the audience to join in. Part of an effective presentation depends on creating a little suspense to engage the audience. If the audience can read everything you’re going to say, that element is lost.
A better way to provide a handout – is to (1) prepare a summary of the main points of your speech, (2) include some relevant information that you did not cover as well as (3) the contact information for your organization and yourself. In this way your handout becomes a “must have” item, and a valuable one at that.