So far this series has discussed the organization of your slide presentation. While preparation of your materials is crucial, you still have to deliver them orally to your audience effectively. There are numerous texts and classes on public speaking that cover this part of a presentation in great detail, but there are a few items worth pointing out.

First, know your audience. Understand why each person is present and make sure you give most of them a reason to be there. You may not be able to serve every single person, but if you are not over 50% your meeting probably does not need to take place at all.

Second, be memorable. For example, a technique used throughout this book is to present anecdotes throughout to help the audience remember the important points. Analogies work well in this regard too (for example, the infamous, “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit”).

Third, know your time. Nothing will annoy others more than if you routinely go over your allotted time to talk or present slides. The trick here is in dealing with questions that come up, as they can add time that you may not have taken into account. Even if you request that all questions come at the end, some will inevitably be posed in the middle of your presentation. When that happens, you have to judge the situation for yourself to see if it is worth risking going over on time to answer the question immediately or not. You do not want to leave concerns unaddressed, but you also want to avoid a tangential conversation that distracts from your main point. If the question gets answered in a later slide, do not be afraid to say, “Can you hold that question for a moment? I think it will be answered in a few slides.” Be courteous enough to double check with the person who asked the question if it was indeed answered to their satisfaction by the later slide once you show it. If you are pushed to the end of your time, cut material towards the end (which, in turn, makes an argument for having your most important content at the beginning) and set up additional time with the individuals who might still have questions. Getting a reputation for taking longer than you said to for presentations has the same effect as taking longer than you said you would for anything else, as covered in Making yourself easy to be scheduled. It generally makes you look bad.

Finally, be enthusiastic. If you show little interest in your subject matter then your audience will follow suit. That’s not to say you have to incite “the wave” during your meeting, but be appropriately passionate about what you have to say.

• Part 1 - A tree in the woods is like an engineer with PowerPoint
• Part 2 - Apple anecdote
• Part 3 - Slide organization
• Part 4 - Text based slides
• Part 5 - Graphical slides
• Part 6 - Synchronizing to your agenda and using backup slides
• Part 7 - Oral delivery tips
• Part 8 - Final Thoughts

In presenting lengthy material is unavoidable, another common problem is keeping your audience in sync with your original agenda. One technique for reminding listeners where you are relative to the the original high level outline of your spiel is to reshow the agenda slide as you reach organizational boundaries in your presentation, but with the topic you are about to start highlighted in a different color.

Figure 11: A highlighted agenda slide shown just prior to the section of the presentation about Flight 815 (click to enlarge)

Figure 11 shows an agenda, with a portion of it highlighted in orange as a progress indicator. This reminds the audience of the original schedule of ideas and visually shows them where you currently are relative to the plan you showed them at the start. It also gives them an indication of how much longer they have to pay attention before going on with the rest of their day.

Alternatively, a scheme like the one shown in Figure 12 can be effective:

Figure 12: A “show as you go” agenda technique (click to enlarge)

Here, a miniature version of the agenda slide is shown in the upper right hand corner of the slide and is highlighted to indicate the portion currently being covered. This “show as you go” technique makes it clear to your audience where you are in your presentation, but potentially makes for a more complex slide.

A final thought on slide set organization concerns details. Even if you utilize the speaker notes section effectively, there may be more ideas that you either want to have at your disposal. Perhaps you want to have additional data to support your arguments as a precaution or maybe some audiences you present your pitch to will be more interested in details than others. A common solution to this situation is to have a backup slide section. You literally need to have a slide that says nothing but “Backup slides” on it, denoting in your speaker notes that the slides that follow are not part of your standard spiel. If you put more detailed information here, you can safely assume that most people will not view them on their own.

• Part 1 - A tree in the woods is like an engineer with PowerPoint
• Part 2 - Apple anecdote
• Part 3 - Slide organization
• Part 4 - Text based slides
• Part 5 - Graphical slides
• Part 6 - Synchronizing to your agenda and using backup slides
• Part 7 - Oral delivery tips
• Part 8 - Final Thoughts

Now consider a similar dilemma for a more graphically oriented slide. Engineering problems tend to lend themselves to being described with diagrams, some of which can become quite complicated.

Figure 7: An example of a bad diagram slide (click to enlarge)

Figure 7 depicts a very detailed diagram that, like the first text example shown, is visually distracting and fails to convey information concisely. The first tip for graphical slides is obvious: keep them as simple as possible. There will be occasions, however, when a complicated situation requires a complex diagram. Then what do you do?A good approach for problems like these is to “layer” your graphic. Instead of presenting the audience with all the information in the diagram at one time and allowing them to decide the order in which they view and attempt to decipher the data, divide the information into layers and add one at a time. Then explain the details that each adds slide to the overall picture as you progress. For example, take Figure 8:

Figure 8: The first layer of a complex diagram slide, with notes (click to enlarge)

It presents a digestible subset of the data shown in the very complicated Figure 7, namely landmarks found on the island. Explain this layer fully, perhaps with details of each landmark and its suspected use. Now, however, this first set of facts is isolated from the other pieces of information allowing the listener to focus on a subset of the ideas you are trying to convey. Like in the text example, note the use of speaker notes again to provide detail.

After the audience is clear on this subset of the information, the next layer is shown, as in Figure 9:

Figure 9: The first and second layers, with notes (click to enlarge)

Here, the communication connections between the landmarks are shown and can be explained separate from the landmarks themselves shown in the previous slide. The audience has had a chance to understand the landmarks and will focus their attention on the items that have been added to the picture, as intended.

Finally, a third layer is added to form Figure 10:

Figure 10: The full diagram, now with notes

Graphically, it is identical to Figure 7, but now the layers of information have been isolated and presented separately instead of all at once, achieving clarity that was absent when because the audience controlled the order in which information was consumed. Now when they are shown the final picture, listeners have more context around what they are seeing and have had intermediary steps explained to them in detail. This vastly improves the chance that the complicated graphical slide will deliver the intended ideas.

One aspect of PowerPoint you might consider when layering a complex diagram is the animated graphical elements feature. When shown in “slide show” mode, boxes, text, circles, and whatever else might be present on your slide can be made to appear in a certain order and using different appearance techniques, most of which are familiar to anyone who has done any video editing (fades, fly-in, etc.). Be careful when considering such an approach. Although it is tempting to use this feature, the elements and their appearance animations can be difficult to maintain. Also, utilizing animation in this manner requires use of “slide show” mode, which might work fine when you are presenting the materials live, but might not be used by audience members later with their local copies. Although maintenance still can be difficult, a better approach is to have separate slides that have progressively more elements on them until the entire detail of the final graphic is created.

• Part 1 - A tree in the woods is like an engineer with PowerPoint
• Part 2 - Apple anecdote
• Part 3 - Slide organization
• Part 4 - Text based slides
• Part 5 - Graphical slides
• Part 6 - Synchronizing to your agenda and using backup slides
• Part 7 - Oral delivery tips
• Part 8 - Final Thoughts

With the basic format of a slide presentation covered, there are some rules of thumb for the middle sections that cover your key points. There is a constant struggle in this middle area - where you make your main arguments - between putting enough information on a slide to prove what you are trying to communicate without showing the audience so much information that they cannot process any of it. Slides tend to be either all text or contain a heavy graphical element to them. Balancing between information overload and being informative can be a challenge in either case.For the text-based slide, consider Figure 3:

Figure 3: An example of a bad text slide
Here, information is being presented via three sub-points. While the descriptions are complete and accurate, visually they are a disaster. A text-based slide is not a substitute for documentation you might create with Microsoft Word. The context in which it is used to present information is fundamentally different than text in prose. In a presentation, text shown in this format is difficult for the audience to read and leaves little for the presenter to add any value with. All the information the listener could ever want is already on the slide, albeit in a difficult to read manner.Because of these issues, the presentation context is far more conducive to an outline like the one shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4: An example of an improved text slide, with notes (click to enlarge)

Here, the same information is presented, but much more generally. The key points are listed in a way that gets them across, yet leaves room for the speaker to fill in more information. This is an important difference from the earlier version of the slide. The absolute last thing you want to do in a presentation is read your slides. It is a safe assumption that your audience is literate. Simply reading the slides tends to annoy your audience, who could have read a document on their own instead of being present for your presentation, since your oral delivery is failing to add any value to the arguments you are trying to convey. By presenting the information at a higher level and in outline form, you not only make it more visually appealing but you set yourself up to supplement what your listeners can read for themselves with more details, improving the flow of the presentation in the process.There is, however, one more problem. Consider again the common practice of sending your audience a copy of your slides after your presentation. Now, your ideas are being distributed without you there to reinforce them by adding detail with your oral delivery. What do you do now? The answer is speaker notes. PowerPoint allows each slide to have annotations added to it in a bottom pane that is not part of the visible slide when it is shown in “slide show” mode. In this area, you can type out key details that you would ordinarily talk through so that this additional text supplements the actual slides the same way your voice would. In Figure 2-4, you can see more information about the bullet points featured in the text of the slide that guides a reader through the detailed information when a speaker is not present. In taking advantage of this feature, be sure to draw people’s attention to it when your slides are distributed by email. However, please note that, the speaker notes will not be viewable for a PowerPoint presentation when viewed through Internet Explorer off of a website. Be sure to tell people to download your slides and view them locally so that they can see your additional detail.

Finally, another important aspect of text-based slides is the use of color to draw attention to certain terms. Consider Figure 5:

Figure 5: Poor use of color (click to enlarge)

Too many items are highlighted and the effect is that attention is brought to none of them. More than 2 or 3 words or phrases on a single slide gives the audience too much to process at one time. A better use of color is shown in Figure 6:

Figure 6: Better use of color (click to enlarge)

• Part 1 - A tree in the woods is like an engineer with PowerPoint
• Part 2 - Apple anecdote
• Part 3 - Slide organization
• Part 4 - Text based slides
• Part 5 - Graphical slides
• Part 6 - Synchronizing to your agenda and using backup slides
• Part 7 - Oral delivery tips
• Part 8 - Final Thoughts

There will be many occasions in your career when you will have to convey information utilizing presentation graphics software such as Microsoft PowerPoint to a roomful of people. There are numerous psychological studies that show that there are more people who claim a fear of public speaking than there are who admit a fear of death. Put another way, some people would prefer dying to making a presentation. It does not have to be like that. How should your presentation be structured so as to increase the odds of your important points sticking in the minds of your audience? What other aspects of an oral delivery should you keep in mind?

The first step to alleviating any fears of making presentations you might have and increasing the chances of getting your ideas heard is organizing your material properly. Your presentation is essentially a story. Tell that story in a random manner without structure and you will confuse your listeners. Tell it with a clearly outlined logical flow will and your audience will understand it.

Among the first things to consider is the number of slides your presentation should have. Nobody wants to hear you say, “I only have 43 slides, so this shouldn’t take long.” Any good public speaking course will tell you that, in most cases, you will be unable to make more than three key points in an oral presentation. That does not mean that you should only have three slides (you will need slides to support each of your key points) but it does mean you should carefully think about what it is you want your audience to learn and retain from your presentation. What are the top three things they should know? What things are not as important to them even though they may be important to you? You may need to make some tough choices, but if you present too much information at once you run the risk of nobody remembering anything you said.

Every slide set should begin with a title slide:

Figure 1: A PowerPoint title slide

As shown in Figure 2-1, it should have a title for your presentation, an author line, and a date indicator. Think twice before listing just yourself as the author. Is the information contained within the presentation solely constructed or obtained by you? If not, putting your name exclusively as the author can potentially alienate your teammates, who may have contributed to the points being presented even if you are the one orally delivering the findings. This is an easy way to inadvertently make enemies. You will get recognition for your efforts by virtue of being the one making the presentation, so be sure to be as inclusive as possible when writing out an authoring credit.

Also, by putting your name as the only author, you set yourself up to answer all questions generated from the presentation after the fact. Almost every time you present a set of slides, you will be asked to send an electronic copy to everyone who attended the meeting so that they can view them later. This fact becomes important in a few places when constructing your presentation. Recipients will likely take that electronic copy and save a copy of it on their personal computer. Some time later, they will look at the slides, come up with a question, and go looking for an answer. This can potentially be good thing for you as you can look like the person with all the answers. It can also be a bad thing if you are distracted from your regular tasks answering questions that other people on your team can handle. For these reasons, it is best to put a team name as the author of the presentation even if you are going to be the one talking through the information.

The date listed is important too. Ideas often evolve and you cannot always count on the time/date stamp on the electronic file to help identify which version of a presentation two people may be referring to when questions arise later. Version number schemes vary widely in format and can be useful, but the most universal method for identifying change status is simply to state the last date the information was updated.

Next, clearly outline your agenda similar to the example given in Figure 2 below:

Figure 2: A sample agenda slide


Much like some of the topics covered in Making yourself easy to be scheduled, this is about setting expectations. The agenda slide serves as a table of contents for your presentation and gives your audience a view of the information you plan to present them that they can mentally (or explicitly, as will be demonstrated later) follow along as you go. Like the chapters of this book, it is a good idea to have a “What is this and why it is important” section of your presentation telling your listeners why they are spending their valuable time with you. Much like the opening paragraph of the classic five paragraph essay commonly taught in grade school, this section should present the context for your presentation and outline the important points you are about to detail. Similarly, the “Conclusions and Next Steps” section is analogous to the closing paragraph of that five part essay and should present the anticipated evolution and/or list out deductions of the topic in question.

• Part 1 - A tree in the woods is like an engineer with PowerPoint
• Part 2 - Apple anecdote
• Part 3 - Slide organization
• Part 4 - Text based slides
• Part 5 - Graphical slides
• Part 6 - Synchronizing to your agenda and using backup slides
• Part 7 - Oral delivery tips
• Part 8 - Final Thoughts

The tale of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak is an integral part of Silicon Valley legend. Wozniak’s knack for reducing the number of chips needed for a computing task was second to none in the early 1970’s. Jobs’ ability to project the usefulness of technologies and extend their use into our homes has changed the way that people process information in a many different of ways. Despite their brilliance, even “the two Steves” had trouble pitching their idea for personal computers to the executives at the Hewlett-Packard Company.

Most of this story is very well known to anyone who has read about the genesis of Apple Computer. In the early 1970s, Wozniak was an electrical engineer in HP’s extremely popular calculator division. In his spare time, Wozniak created a prototype of what would eventually become the Apple I computer, which he showed to his fellow computing hobbyists at the Home Brew Computer Club. Convinced that he was on to something special, Jobs got involved with his friend to sell the idea to Wozniak’s current employer.

You probably know what the end result of the presentation was since the ultimate manifestation of the idea was the Apple I computer. Jobs and Woz were unable to convince HP executives to develop the personal computer and had to go elsewhere to develop their collective dream. Here were two guys who, as history would bear the out, had the right idea at the right time but they were still unable to convince a group of powerful people of its merits. So much so that one of the men on the executive panel rather famously said, “What would I ever use a computer for?” -– a notion that seems ridiculous today but was a little more reasonable in an age where many cities did not have a computer in them, let alone one on every desk as we are used to now. You could argue that it was not the presenters who were at fault here, but that the people receiving the message were not open-minded enough to see its merits. The fact remains, though, that Jobs and Wozniak did not get the funding they sought from HP and had to sell their beloved car and calculator, respectively, to create the nest egg for Apple Computer.

The point is that two of the most intelligent guys on the planet had an idea that ended up literally revolutionizing the way people conduct business and behave in their personal lives, yet they failed to convince the folks who controlled the money at a major corporation to give them some in order to make it all a reality. No matter how smart you are and no matter how good your idea is, it still might not matter if you cannot present it it effectively. This series of posts will give you some basic tactics that will increase your odds of getting your point across with PowerPoint presentations.

• Part 1 - A tree in the woods is like an engineer with PowerPoint
• Part 2 - Apple anecdote
• Part 3 - Slide organization
• Part 4 - Text based slides
• Part 5 - Graphical slides
• Part 6 - Synchronizing to your agenda and using backup slides
• Part 7 - Oral delivery tips
• Part 8 - Final Thoughts

There is an age old question that asks, “If a tree falls in the woods and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” It is a philosophical question that essentially asks whether or not an event can be proven if no one witnesses it. For ideas that engineers come up with, the same is true. If you are unable to communicate an idea, typically via a presentation that involves speaking in front of others and using Microsoft PowerPoint, it might as well not exist.

For many of us in the engineering field, conveying ideas can be a difficult task. As opposed to interacting with people socially, we tend to be introverted people who choose to spend time on creative pursuits in isolation. While this can heighten our problem solving ability, it can hamper our ability to communicate and relate to others. Our ideas are obvious to us, so naturally we think they will be obvious to everybody else, but this is rarely the case. In this chapter, commonly used communication tactics are covered for the three most common forms of business communication: presentations, documentation, and email. Using the tips discussed here will make it easier for your ideas to be heard by the non-technically inclined who usually hold the power over budgets and rewards.

• Part 1 - A tree in the woods is like an engineer with PowerPoint
• Part 2 - Apple anecdote
• Part 3 - Slide organization
• Part 4 - Text based slides
• Part 5 - Graphical slides
• Part 6 - Synchronizing to your agenda and using backup slides
• Part 7 - Oral delivery tips
• Part 8 - Final Thoughts

Being dependable on task estimates makes you look good to those in power, who have a tendency to remember who lets them down and who comes through when it counts. If you consistently deliver when you say you will you become eligible for more responsibility later on. Because of this, accuracy in task duration estimates is a crucial building block to a blossoming career. If you cannot be counted on to complete work when you say you will, more complex responsibilities and the even greater rewards that come with them will never be challenges you are faced with. When you demonstrate the ability to deliver on time, you will next be given the opportunity to prove yourself with more complex problems across a wider scope. Other chapters in this book can help you with the details of more responsibility, but without mastery of the most basic element presented here, you will never get the chance.

Establishing that foundation of predictability goes hand in hand with preparation for your performance evaluation through the task logging daily exercise. When you force yourself to record how you spent your day, you have a historical record you can refer to when a similar task comes up at a later date. Just about every kind of problem has been solved before. It is up to you to notice the patterns specific to you and the kind of work you do so that you can achieve more consistent delivery on new projects. As a bonus, you will give yourself a wealth of information from which to make your performance evaluation argument.

• Part 1, Introduction
• Part 2, The Lego Exercise
• Part 3, Teaching yourself better estimation
• Part 4, Understanding your scheduler
• Part 5, Padding leads to the dark path
• Part 6, Be good to yourself and your teammates
• Part 7, Final Thoughts

While in the throes of a schedule, there will come a time when you are interrupted by a teammate for a piece of information or an unscheduled mini-task that will distract you from completing your current task. Do you help you coworker and risk being late yourself? Or is it better to stay on task and help them when you are done? Picture yourself at a meeting where you and members of your team are communicating status to your scheduler. Which statement is a worse reflection on you:

Coworker: “I was late on my Menagerie design task because failed to get back to me on a piece of information, I am deadlocked, and cannot make any further progress until he/she gets back to me.”

or

You: “I was late on my Kobayashi Maru documentation task because I had to help with his Menagerie design task.”

Either statement will make you look bad, but the first one makes you look worse. If a situation like this comes up, it is really a failure to recognize a functional dependency earlier in the scheduling process. It is much better to make your teammate look good at the cost of making yourself look bad than it is to have a colleague make you look bad in front of the scheduler. In cases where the scheduler is also your boss and the one who fills out your performance evaluation this is especially true. When faced with the choice between making a teammate look bad or yourself look bad, choose you. There will be time to make up for the mistake later and pointing fingers at someone else makes the situation worse.

Not only do you have to be good to your coworkers, you have to be good to yourself too. One of the down sides of being “that guy” are statements like, “I haven’t taken a vacation in 3 years and I’m beginning to lose days because my vacation bank is full.” Everybody appreciates hard work, but if you are not taking the vacation days that the company gives you to the extent that you are beginning to lose them, you are cheating yourself. When you do this, you are essentially giving your company money. Companies of a certain size have to keep cash on hand to reimburse you in the event that you leave for another job and you still have vacation days left. When this happens, you are monetarily compensated for the days off you never took. This is why most employers cap vacation time accumulated. If you exceed the cap on the number of days that your company allows you to accrue, you lose that money should you choose to leave.

Even if you never leave your great company, they give you a certain number of days off per year and they give them to you for a reason. There are times where 60-80 hour work weeks are needed to meet critical schedules. Just as important, though, is taking time off to recharge yourself both mentally and physically. Even the President of the United States heads off to Camp David every few months. Is your job more important than his?

If you go take that week in Hawaii every once in awhile, you might be surprised that the building did not burn down and your company did not declare bankruptcy in your absence. A tired, cranky, overworked employee does no one any good. Do not become one.

At the same time, you need to be sensitive to schedules to a certain degree when planning your time off. Again, notice to your scheduler is the key. There are certain events that cannot be predicted, but most time off is planned at least a few weeks (if not a few months) in advance. As soon as you know about your vacation time, make sure your scheduler is informed or if you are starting a new schedule after you have already planned something, let the right people know as soon as possible (a good scheduler will ask about planned time off at the beginning of a new schedule, but do not count on that). You have a right to that time off and almost no boss will ask you to change your plans if you give enough notice. If your boss does, that may be a sign that you need to find a different boss.

• Part 1, Introduction
• Part 2, The Lego Exercise
• Part 3, Teaching yourself better estimation
• Part 4, Understanding your scheduler
• Part 5, Padding leads to the dark path
• Part 6, Be good to yourself and your teammates
• Part 7, Final Thoughts

During the earlier section on the daily logging exercise, you probably thought to yourself, “Why should I go through that hassle when what I really need to do is pad my estimates so I will have extra time to get tasks done?” That is a very fair question. Think about what you are doing when you pad your estimates, though.

In absence of teaching yourself how to make good predictions through the daily exercise described in the earlier section (or some other method), any other estimate is going to be a guess based on your memory of your experiences. The padding you add to that is essentially another guess, designed to cover the inconsistencies of the first guess. The synthesis of two uneducated guesses does not give you a more accurate estimate. Instead, it leaves you with the expectation that you have no idea what you are talking about to begin with, and your promise to your scheduler/boss is based on little more than whim. Do you really want your next raise determined by the correctness of multiple guesses added together?

Admittedly, an estimate is a fancy word for a guess that implies greater accuracy. The daily logging exercise is meant to make your uneducated guesses educated, thereby turning them into estimates. Padding is essentially an excuse to make up some arbitrary number of scheduling wiggle room to account for the inaccuracies in your estimation process. If you know enough about yourself and your own experience with similar tasks to begin with, your original estimate will be good enough to not need the extra padding in case you are wrong.

Instead of padding, the better approach is to isolate the sub-parts of your tasks for which there are unknowns, such as those dealing with technologies that you have not used before, into their own tasks. Estimate them as best you can, but be honest with your scheduler that there are things about these particular items you simply cannot predict with an acceptable amount of accuracy. These tasks are ill-defined and needs to be watched carefully. This signifies to the people in power that these pieces of work may be risky and lets them make more informed decisions accordingly. When you make this discovery while the schedule is under way, it is important to follow this same set of steps and clearly communicate the situation (and any alternative approaches) to your scheduler as soon as possible.

Usually when a task is unpredictable, it is because not everything surrounding it is a known quantity. When possible, try to learn more about the unpredictable task before starting it so that there are fewer unknowns to deal with before you spend too much more time on it. Sometimes that may not be feasible for scheduling reasons, but when it is it can help you increase the accuracy as much as possible without relying upon padding to somehow save the day.

• Part 1, Introduction
• Part 2, The Lego Exercise
• Part 3, Teaching yourself better estimation
• Part 4, Understanding your scheduler
• Part 5, Padding leads to the dark path
• Part 6, Be good to yourself and your teammates
• Part 7, Final Thoughts