Panic-free presentations: A tactical tip sheet
Introduction
Over the years, our team has supported many organizations in developing and rehearsing presentations, whether for Board meetings, conference sessions, webinars, or other projects. This tactical tip sheet includes our most helpful advice for ensuring a panic-free presentation.
While these tips will be useful in preparing well for a presentation, they’re not intended as a guide for slideshow development, design, or delivery. For an in-depth guide and research-backed best practices, check out Andy Goodman’s Why Bad Presentations Happen to Good Causes.
Table of Contents
Rehearsal
When it comes to presentations, practice makes close to perfect. You never know what might happen in the room, but with enough rehearsal, you can feel confident about managing the unexpected.
Focus your run-throughs on the following elements to best prepare for a panic-free presentation.
Timing
- Get a clear understanding of how much time is allocated for your presentation, and how much might be reserved for other needs. For example, if you’re presenting at a conference where people will be transitioning from previous sessions or lunch breaks, build in time at the top of your presentation for your audience to get settled.
- Estimate the time you’ll need for the different components of your presentation. Then, practice delivering your presentation, and watch the clock. How accurate were your estimates? Adjust them as necessary to give yourself more or less time where needed.
- Use a timer. We recommend the SpeakerClock app, which won’t get disrupted by notifications and doesn’t require you to remember a separate device. Set the timer for the duration of your presentation, and as it counts down, note on your slides the time you expect to see on the timer when you begin or end a section.
Note: It’s common for presenters to slow down in the room. If this is true for you, consider adding a buffer to allow yourself more time than you used during your rehearsal.
Cadence
- Format your talking points as a bulleted list of short phrases, as opposed to paragraphs or complete sentences, which will encourage you to speak naturally versus reading the text verbatim.
- Aim to practice enough that you sound conversational, and use your bulleted list to keep you on track.
- Decide how you’ll view your notes on presentation day. Will you use “Presenter Mode” in PowerPoint to view your notes on the screen while sharing your presentation? Will you print them on a letter-size piece of paper to glance at from a podium while on stage? Will you use a combination of digital and printed notes, just in case there are any technical issues and you need to pivot from presenting on your own device?
Cues
- Add a word or symbol to your notes to cue various aspects of your presentation, such as:
- Advancing the slide
- Pausing to allow the audience time to think or to process
- Introducing a new speaker
- Inviting questions
- For questions, decide whether to allocate a slide titled “Questions” that cues a Q&A, or to embed a question or two specific to certain content within another slide.
Speakers
- Determine who on your team is delivering which part(s) of the presentation, and label your notes accordingly.
- Agree on when and how to transition from one speaker to another. Will you rely on a visual or auditory cue, or will one speaker introduce the next?
- If you’re doing introductions, agree on how you’ll introduce speakers.
- Clarify whether or not each speaker will prepare their own materials, and if so, whether you will switch access from one device/slideshow to another or combine content into one presentation. If one person or organization will be preparing all materials, check with co-presenters about their preference for reviewing content in advance.
- If your presentation includes guest speakers, share the portion of the presentation with them that they’ll be responsible for, and invite them to participate in practice sessions.
- If guests are participating virtually, should they plan to be there for the entire presentation, or should they join the room 5-10 minutes before their section begins?
- If guests are participating in person, should they remain seated until it’s their turn to speak? Will you cue them as to when they should join you on stage, or will you have an agreed-upon time that they should make their way to the front of the room?
Space
- If presenting in person, check:
- The arrangement of the room to ensure your materials are viewable from the audience’s perspective.
- Where the speaker will sit or stand. For example, will the speaker be seated at the head of a boardroom table that seats 20 people? Or will the speaker be standing behind a podium on an elevated stage in an auditorium? If on stage, will the speaker require a stool or other seating option?
- Technology access, such as laptop or speaker connections. Are they wired or bluetooth? Will you need to bring a specific adaptor to accommodate your device?
- How participants can ask questions. Will they line up at a microphone, or will someone with a microphone walk around the room to those interested in asking a question?
- If presenting virtually, check:
- Which platform will host the presentation. Is it one you’re familiar with, or one that is new to you? If new, consider conducting a trial run before presentation day if possible, or logging on to the platform 15-20 minutes early to get yourself situated and comfortable with how it functions.
- Whether more than one person can control the presenter functions.
- How participants can ask questions. Will they be encouraged to use a chat box or to “raise their hands” virtually and wait to be called upon?
Technical considerations
Even the best-rehearsed presentations can fall flat if you encounter unexpected technical difficulties. The safest way to pre-empt a malfunction is to anticipate speaker and audience needs, and plan for common contingencies.
Consider the following technical needs to avoid presentation-day panic mode.
Captions, interpretations, and translations
- Will your presentation need to be translated into specific languages? Identify which languages you’ll need to translate the content of your slides into.
- Will you require a live interpreter? As a presenter, you won’t be reading your slides verbatim, so even if your slides are translated, you may also require an interpreter to ensure what you’re saying is accessible to audience members who speak a different language than you.
- Captions are generally useful for any audience, but it’s helpful to know whether your presentation platform can auto-generate captions. If presenting virtually, some programs allow participants to control their own captions, so it may be worth explaining how to do this at the top of the presentation.
Online vs. downloaded
- Will you deliver your presentation from an online source, such as Sharepoint or Google Slides, or will you download the file to your personal device as a PPT presentation? If presenting from an online source, ensure a steady and reliable internet connection. Also consider:
- Image resolution can sometimes be fuzzy when streaming online, so be sure to use high-quality images and include alternative text in case an image doesn’t load.
Audio and video
- Test the speaker’s microphone – whether in person or remote – in advance and adjust the sound if necessary. If others in the room will use a microphone to ask questions, consider providing instructions on speaking clearly and loudly.
- Test any audio or video clips embedded in your presentation to make sure they play accurately.
- Consider what’s displayed on screen, and when. Will slides be visible at all times, or will there be portions of the presentation where slides disappear and are replaced by other content?
- If presenting from your personal laptop, hide and mute notifications from chat programs like Slack or Teams to avoid untimely (or embarrassing!) pop-ups.
- Assign a team member to monitor the chat function of a virtual presentation.
Devices
- Charge or pack cables for whatever you’ll need, including your laptop, speakers, video camera, wireless mouse or keyboard, and laser pointer.
- Be prepared with extra batteries that fit the devices you’ll be using.
- Whenever possible, have a back-up nearby. If the speaker’s laptop blue-screens, whose laptop can they use in a pinch? Make these decisions in advance so that whoever is positioned to provide support can do so immediately.
Be prepared for the unexpected
A panic-free presentation relies on thinking through and planning in advance for possible inconveniences or disruptions. In addition to the technical considerations above, create a plan for the following scenarios.
Speakers can't join, are running late or experience technical issues
- Have a copy of the speaker’s notes available in the event someone else needs to present their section.
- Assign a back-up presenter (whether the main speaker or someone else) to cover their section.
- Re-arrange the order of the presentation to give a speaker more time to join or address internet issues. For example, if there are three guests lined up to present and the first guest is late, agree in advance to start with the second guest and return to the first when/if they join.
Audience members ask tough questions
- Come up with a list of tough-to-answer questions you may be asked, and draft responses to those questions in advance. Rehearse those responses, or include those responses in your speaker notes for quick reference when needed.
- Assign specific questions to specific team members if needed.
You hear crickets
- Direct 1-2 audience members that you’re familiar with to prepare a question in advance and ask that question in case your Q&A gets off to a quiet start.
Need help?
Is your organization gearing up for a presentation? We’d love to support you! In addition to helping you avoid panic on presentation day, we can assist with slideshow development, Q&A prep, and facilitation, among other things. Reach out to us at hello@springboard.partners.
