In the previous blog post we have seen how a project is handed off to the client and how an end product is delivered. In this post let us focus on the ways of presenting a project to the multi-level audience.
Here are some of the key points that might be helpful while presenting to a multi-level audience:
Know your audience. This is the first and foremost thing a presenter must take into consideration, while thinking of presenting something. Given the set of audience, we must take into account their backgrounds and who they are. There might be stakeholders, technology enthusiasts or beginners among the audience. Based on all such attributes, we need to prepare a presentation format, that appeals to all the sections of audience. This is an ideal case and as this might not happen all the time, we should try to be as close as possible to this benchmark. For example, a functionality can be explained using graphs for technical audience and the same functionality can be explained to naives using animations.
Know your equipment and capabilities. We should be aware of the audio and visual equipment, that will be provided for presentation. We must determine if we need a chalkboard, whiteboard, laser pointer or whatever that is comfortable for us to elaborate the concepts. We must also make sure if we can get some assistance in the case of equipment failure.
Review before presentation. We must take opinion from both technical and non-technical persons before planning to present something. As we have discussed earlier that there might be audience with different backgrounds, we must make sure that they understand it. While reviewing, if a technical person understands the presentation and non-technical person doesn’t understand it, we must make some changes in a way that also appeals non-technical person. Doing these things in advance, might increase the confidence levels of a presenter.
Prepare critical questions. We must prepare some critical questions in advance and make sure that the presentation answers them. For example, if the challenges for a project are missed in the presentation slides, and if anyone from the audience is interested in knowing about them, it might take some time for the presenter to recollect the challenges and present them to the audience. But, if there is already a slide for challenges in the presentation, that will be very easy for the presenter to answer them. Preparing critical questions in advance, might not only help in being clear about the concepts, but also helps us in answering any critical questions posed by audience.
References:
[1] (2014, November 29). Retrieved December 1, 2014, from http://web.cse.ohio-state.edu/~bmathis/2501/Technical-Presentations-Book-1-Strategy-Preparation-and-Planning.pdf