A few simple truths about business PowerPoint presentations, part 2

Reader Becky, responding to my first post in this series, wrote “I understand what you’re saying, but at times I have to include spreadsheets or pretty dense looking graphs in my monthly updates. Have any suggestions?”

The first thing that comes to mind is “No, you don’t.”  But of course it’s easy for me to say that, not knowing Becky’s exact situation. Whether she – or you – can boldly strike all the busy crap from your presentations is partly up to you, and partly up to your company’s culture – and often, the desires of the gal or guy in the corner office.

In my experience, however, most of us put too many words and too much garbage in our PP slides, are reluctant to take a fresh look at how to improve our presentations, and are making our audiences suffer as a result.

The truth? It’s not hard at all to simplify most messages conveyed by PowerPoint.  In order to make it happen you need to get fanatical about cutting out all the fluff, visual overload, and excessive verbiage.

Consider this simple slide about changes in the nation’s non farm employment in September. After the title slide we first see a typical, wordy slide which likely would be read aloud to the audience. Consider the alternative which follows; it presents the change in employment graphically, and concludes with a cryptic reference to the changes which are spelled out word by word in the first version. Presented in this manner – and timed right in terms of the appearance of those numbers – your audience will wonder, “What the hell are those numbers?” Having them respond in this fashion is not a bad idea – they’re engaged! (You’ll have to click on the right button several times to advance through the animation.)

[slideboom id=22324&w=425&h=370]

But what about Becky’s dilemma? Perhaps her boss demands that she include a busy graph. Before advancing, take a look at the first slide below. This was presented in a meeting I attended on Monday (I’ve cleaned it up a bit to hide any proprietary data.)  In a word, this slide is a travesty.

The first slide (visible below) is what was presented. The first variation takes the key data – an overview of fill rate (delivery performance,) a legend for the graph which appears, and the graph itself – and uses “Custom Animation” to bring them to the viewers’ eyes. The second alternative simplifies things further – and answers the questions someone might have – “What’s the year to date fill rate?” and, “Are any of the trends by category troubling?” (Again, hit the right button to advance through the slides.)

Which of the three would you rather view?

[slideboom id=22326&w=425&h=370]

One other thing – the first slide above is virtually unreadable from 35 feet away. If your audience can’t even read the slide, you really have issues!

The only slides in our monthly operating review which are of necessity dense are those detailing our financial results. Every other slide in the deck is a candidate for being improved so that they do a better job of communicating key data and engaging the viewer.

Here’s a final example – using drawing objects and transparency to hide the non-essential data, and to draw your viewers’ attention to the important information you wish to emphasize:

[slideboom id=22320&w=425&h=370]

Next time you’re working on a PowerPoint presentation, imagine that you went to a conference somewhere and were sitting in the 35th row – and someone then presented your slides. How would you feel?

If the answer is anything other than “entertained, engaged, provoked….” and so on, you need to take a hard look at – and probably a blunt cutting object to – your slides.

Good luck – feel free to share your challenges and successes with PowerPoint.