management presentation structure

Data & Finance for Work & Life

Management Presentation: 8 Tips, Examples & a Template

In a corporate context, presenting works wonders for a career. Most professionals get exposure to presenting to informed colleagues and department managers. It’s an ideal way to get visibility and show value. But a management presentation to senior executives who aren’t familiar department nuances is a different ballgame.

A management presentation is a high-level summary to senior executive that optimizes reports to include only the details relevant to directorial decisions . They are notoriously difficult to navigate for two reasons: 1. most executives do not have working knowledge of the nuances in each department , 2. presenters rarely have time to understand executives’ preferences .

More than anything else, good management presenters learn how to strike a balance in the degree of detail: they provide enough detail so executives make informed decisions, but not so much detail that they cause confusion.

This article explores how to make a good management presentations in PowerPoint using 4 management presenting best practices , 4 management presenting techniques , providing examples for each, and finishing with a management presentation template you can apply in real life. You can use it as a jumping off point for deeper communication curriculum .

5 management presenting best practices are:

• Ask what managers prefer ahead of time.
• Have 1 message, and 1 message Only.
• The only words should be “Thought Starters.”
• Keep it short.
• Practice 7 times in advance.

4 management presenting techniques are:

• Use a CSP model – Challenge, Solution, Progress.
• Begin with a summary of exactly 3 points.
• Use only these 3 chart types: bar, line, scatter.
• Design slides with the company logo.

I will use a financial analyst perspective in this article, but everything here applies to data and business analysts as well.

Ask Executives Their Preference Ahead of Time

If you’ve ever taken a class on presentation techniques, you’ve heard the old adage “know your audience.” It’s true, the best way to deliver a great presentation is to align your message with what your audience already understands. The same applies to a management presentation.

The challenge is that, more often than not, executives are too busy for you to get to know them well. This means you hardly get the chance to understand how they like presentations. So what can you do? Well, ask them! There’s no harm in sending an email to understand better. And what’s more, once you know, you can always defer to their preferences in the future.

For a financial management presentation, common questions to ask include the following:

• Do you prefer to see raw data, or only visualizations?
• Do you prefer charts or table summaries?
• Would you like a written explanation on paper for each slide?
• Do you like averages alone, or do you prefer means, or standard deviation?
• What interests you most in a presentation?

If you gather some helpful insights, then your presentation will be that much better. That said, you may not get a response, or it may be quick and not insightful. But most senior executives will appreciate you asking .

The best part is you will be able to surprise them. Using the best practices and techniques below, in additional to any insights gathered form your email, will work wonders for you.

Have 1 Message, and 1 Message Only

The easiest mistake to make on a management presentation is trying to deliver multiple messages. Senior executives go through loads of meetings every day, and each meeting they have includes a wave of information. Your mission should be to deliver 1 essential message so they can easily understand and compartmentalize it.

This is no easy task. When I try to narrow down the focus of my management presentation message, it seems like I leave out critical information along the way. The key is to tell a story to incorporate critical information as part of a story towards the essential message.

For example, imagine you work for a wholesale watch company called Batch Watch . You want to explain a financing operation in which the company has the option of two loans to fund the initial costs of 10,000 watches. These loans have different interest rates and maturity dates. Loan A is better if the company expects to sell the watches within 3 months, while Loan B is better if the company expects to sell over more than 3 months. Each has cancellation fees and cash flow impacts.

Instead of showing the cancellation fees and cash flow impact of the each loan, all you need to say is “ we expect the company to sell them within 3 months, and we recommend loan A for that reason.” If the executives disagree on the sale timeline, they will ask for more information.

This is how you keep senior executives engaged, by integrating them in the story you tell. Ultimately, the essential message of your presentation should be how much profit the company will make from the watch funding operation. Senior executives should leave feeling like the project is in good hands with you, and they only feel that way when you tell a story around the essential message .

Whatever the Message, Use Data

Whatever message you want to send, it needs to be backed up by data. In the example above the data was financial, but it’s not always that simple. Context may require you to provide KPIs and perform extensive data analysis that culminates in a small output that your viewers can easily digest.

You need to be strong with data to deliver a good management presentation. To get started or refresh your memory, you can read AnalystAnswers’ free Intro to Data Analysis eBook .

The Only Words Should be “Thought Starters”

As a general presentation principle, you should not write many thoughts down on presentation slides. Words have two negative impacts on the audience: they demand energy from the reader, and they make the reader feel compelled to read, lest they misunderstand.

If you can avoid putting text blocks altogether, do. If you don’t need any writing at all, don’t. However, if you need guidance as you speak or want to provide reminders for a later data, use “Thought Starters.”

Thought starters are phrases of 3 words maximum that contain ideas leading to the essential message. People often call them “bullet points,” which is common for list-style thought starters. Personally, I prefer to place thought starters at different places on a slide. When I use a chart, for example, I put thought starters at relevant places on the slide.

Keep it Short

Your presentation should never consume more than 80% of the allotted timeframe. This means that if you plan a 5 minutes meeting, deliver the presentation in 4 minutes. If you’re given 30 minutes, do it in 25 minutes. If you have 1 hour, do it in 45 minutes.

By keeping the presentation short, you relieve the audience and you allow for some question buffer. Have you ever sat in a meeting planned for 1 hour, and at 45m it ends early? It’s a pleasure for everyone. Most of us feel like we’re running behind — when you put us ahead of schedule, we love you!

At the same time, senior executives may bombard you with questions throughout the presentation. If you planned to fill the whole timeframe, you won’t finish. But if you planned to finish early, you still have a chance.

And if you use the rest of these best practices and techniques, those senior executives shouldn’t need to ask too many questions!

Practice 7 Times in Advance

There’s a mix of opinions on the number of times you should rehearse a presentation before doing it live, but most people agree that it’s somewhere between 5 and 10 times. If you take nothing else from this article, take this. To deliver a good presentation, prepare excellent slides; to deliver a great presentation, practice presenting them 7 times.

To deliver a good presentation, prepare excellent slides; to deliver a great presentation, practice presenting them 7 times. AnalystAnswers.com

But just practicing isn’t enough, there are a few criteria you must meet:

• Practice in the room you will present in. There’s something about envisioning yourself live that really makes a difference. When you practice in a space other that where you’ll present, it’s good. But when you practice in the “live” room, you’re able to sensitize yourself to the environment, which calms nerves so you can focus on the message.
• Have an audience. We all behave differently when there’s stimulus of other people around. Whenever possible, get one or two people to whom you can present. In addition to getting used to having an audience, you’ll also get some feedback.
• Use the same volume of voice. When we’re not “live,” we have a tendency to hold back on our voice. This is detrimental to the presentation because you feel taken off guard by your own voice. Make sure to envision yourself in front of the senior execs when you practice.

Best Practices Recap

We’ve addressed 5 best practices — now let’s turn our attention to 4 specific techniques you can easily implement. And when you do, that work wonders for management presenting.

Use a CSP Model (Challenge, Solution, Progress)

Every presentation needs structure, but it’s easy to forget that we need to guide our audience. A great way to structure management reports is using the CSP model. CSP stands for Challenge, Solution, Progress, and it’s exactly what it sounds like.

You need to explain the challenge or goal, explain what the solution to the challenge is (or how to achieve the goal), and show where you are in the steps to completing that goal.

For example, let’s look at our Batch Watch case. Imagine you need to find funding for a new product launch — $100,000 to be exact. A sample CSP model for this would be a slide that shows:

By using the CSP model, you guide the audience. However, it’s important to note that the CSP model is not a summary . It’s an overview of the process, but a summary should always come before. Let’s talk about it now.

Begin with a Summary of Exactly 3 Points

Any good presentation begins with a summary. And a good summary communicates the essential message simply in 3 points. However, the summary is not the same thing as the CSP model. Instead, it provides an alternative view on the challenge and and solution.

For example, using our Batch Watch case of funding a new product, you could address a summary in the following way:

• Challenge, Solution, Progress
• Funding acquisition
• Project Timeline

This provides additional details that are most relevant to the project and carry added value to the CSP model.

Use only Bar Charts (aka Column Charts), Line Graphs, and Scatter Plots

Whether it’s for data, financial, and business analyst topics , management presentations should only ever have bar charts, line graphs, and scatter plots. They are common, rich in information, and well understood. Any other kind of graph is distracting more than anything else.

A bar graph is useful when you want to compare like variables. For example, if you want to show the average size of Canadian trout versus American trout. A common mistake, though, is to use bar graphs to show change over time. While it’s not incorrect to do so, line graphs are better for this purpose.

A line graph is useful when you want to show change in one variable over time (we call this time series data). For example, if you want to show the progression of revenues over time, line graphs are the perfect way to do so.

A scatter plot is best when you want to compare a set of observations of one variable to a set of observations of another. It’s the ideal way to quickly visualize the relationship between two variables. For example, if you want to see how company revenues compare to GDP, you could use a scatter plot like this:

For example, let’s look at our Batch Watch case. If we want to see how our company is performing compared to the economy as a whole, we could use this scatter plot. As you can see, we have a positive (bottom left to top right) relationship, but a weak one (points not clustered closely).

Design Slides Using the Company Logo

When you’re presenting to senior executives, you want your slides to look professional. The best way to do that is by putting your company logo on them, including any corporate design standards (colors, fonts, etc). Show through your presentation that you belong to the same company, and that you’re in it in spirit. For example, let’s add the AnalystAnswers.com logo to our CSP slide:

Techniques Recap

Here’s a sample management presentation template below. I hope you understand after reading this article that management presentation is more about your delivery than it is about the slides you prepare.

Download Management Presentation Template for Free

While the techniques we’ve discussed will help you build a good presentation, your success really depends on how well you deliver the ideas needed to help senior executives make decisions. At the end of the day, it’s all about balance.

If you only remember two things from this article, remember that great management presenters give enough detail to inform senior executive but not too much that they cause confusion, and great management presenters make sure they do so by practicing 7 times in advance. You’ll have to practice, practice, practice.

About the Author

Noah is the founder & Editor-in-Chief at AnalystAnswers. He is a transatlantic professional and entrepreneur with 5+ years of corporate finance and data analytics experience, as well as 3+ years in consumer financial products and business software. He started AnalystAnswers to provide aspiring professionals with accessible explanations of otherwise dense finance and data concepts. Noah believes everyone can benefit from an analytical mindset in growing digital world. When he's not busy at work, Noah likes to explore new European cities, exercise, and spend time with friends and family.

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How to Structure your Presentation, with Examples

August 3, 2018 - Dom Barnard

For many people the thought of delivering a presentation is a daunting task and brings about a  great deal of nerves . However, if you take some time to understand how effective presentations are structured and then apply this structure to your own presentation, you’ll appear much more confident and relaxed.

Here is our complete guide for structuring your presentation, with examples at the end of the article to demonstrate these points.

Why is structuring a presentation so important?

If you’ve ever sat through a great presentation, you’ll have left feeling either inspired or informed on a given topic. This isn’t because the speaker was the most knowledgeable or motivating person in the world. Instead, it’s because they know how to structure presentations – they have crafted their message in a logical and simple way that has allowed the audience can keep up with them and take away key messages.

Research has supported this, with studies showing that audiences retain structured information  40% more accurately  than unstructured information.

In fact, not only is structuring a presentation important for the benefit of the audience’s understanding, it’s also important for you as the speaker. A good structure helps you remain calm, stay on topic, and avoid any awkward silences.

What will affect your presentation structure?

Generally speaking, there is a natural flow that any decent presentation will follow which we will go into shortly. However, you should be aware that all presentation structures will be different in their own unique way and this will be due to a number of factors, including:

• Whether you need to deliver any demonstrations
• How  knowledgeable the audience  already is on the given subject
• How much interaction you want from the audience
• Any time constraints there are for your talk
• What setting you are in
• Your ability to use any kinds of visual assistance

Before choosing the presentation’s structure answer these questions first:

• What is your presentation’s aim?
• Who are the audience?
• What are the main points your audience should remember afterwards?

When reading the points below, think critically about what things may cause your presentation structure to be slightly different. You can add in certain elements and add more focus to certain moments if that works better for your speech.

What is the typical presentation structure?

This is the usual flow of a presentation, which covers all the vital sections and is a good starting point for yours. It allows your audience to easily follow along and sets out a solid structure you can add your content to.

1. Greet the audience and introduce yourself

Before you start delivering your talk, introduce yourself to the audience and clarify who you are and your relevant expertise. This does not need to be long or incredibly detailed, but will help build an immediate relationship between you and the audience. It gives you the chance to briefly clarify your expertise and why you are worth listening to. This will help establish your ethos so the audience will trust you more and think you’re credible.

Read our tips on  How to Start a Presentation Effectively

2. Introduction

In the introduction you need to explain the subject and purpose of your presentation whilst gaining the audience’s interest and confidence. It’s sometimes helpful to think of your introduction as funnel-shaped to help filter down your topic:

• Introduce your general topic
• Explain your topic area
• State the issues/challenges in this area you will be exploring
• State your presentation’s purpose – this is the basis of your presentation so ensure that you provide a statement explaining how the topic will be treated, for example, “I will argue that…” or maybe you will “compare”, “analyse”, “evaluate”, “describe” etc.
• Provide a statement of what you’re hoping the outcome of the presentation will be, for example, “I’m hoping this will be provide you with…”
• Show a preview of the organisation of your presentation

In this section also explain:

• The length of the talk.
• Signal whether you want audience interaction – some presenters prefer the audience to ask questions throughout whereas others allocate a specific section for this.
• If it applies, inform the audience whether to take notes or whether you will be providing handouts.

The way you structure your introduction can depend on the amount of time you have been given to present: a  sales pitch  may consist of a quick presentation so you may begin with your conclusion and then provide the evidence. Conversely, a speaker presenting their idea for change in the world would be better suited to start with the evidence and then conclude what this means for the audience.

Keep in mind that the main aim of the introduction is to grab the audience’s attention and connect with them.

3. The main body of your talk

The main body of your talk needs to meet the promises you made in the introduction. Depending on the nature of your presentation, clearly segment the different topics you will be discussing, and then work your way through them one at a time – it’s important for everything to be organised logically for the audience to fully understand. There are many different ways to organise your main points, such as, by priority, theme, chronologically etc.

• Main points should be addressed one by one with supporting evidence and examples.
• Before moving on to the next point you should provide a mini-summary.
• Links should be clearly stated between ideas and you must make it clear when you’re moving onto the next point.
• Allow time for people to take relevant notes and stick to the topics you have prepared beforehand rather than straying too far off topic.

When planning your presentation write a list of main points you want to make and ask yourself “What I am telling the audience? What should they understand from this?” refining your answers this way will help you produce clear messages.

4. Conclusion

In presentations the conclusion is frequently underdeveloped and lacks purpose which is a shame as it’s the best place to reinforce your messages. Typically, your presentation has a specific goal – that could be to convert a number of the audience members into customers, lead to a certain number of enquiries to make people knowledgeable on specific key points, or to motivate them towards a shared goal.

Regardless of what that goal is, be sure to summarise your main points and their implications. This clarifies the overall purpose of your talk and reinforces your reason for being there.

Follow these steps:

• Signal that it’s nearly the end of your presentation, for example, “As we wrap up/as we wind down the talk…”
• Restate the topic and purpose of your presentation – “In this speech I wanted to compare…”
• Summarise the main points, including their implications and conclusions
• Indicate what is next/a call to action/a thought-provoking takeaway
• Move on to the last section

5. Thank the audience and invite questions

Conclude your talk by thanking the audience for their time and invite them to  ask any questions  they may have. As mentioned earlier, personal circumstances will affect the structure of your presentation.

Many presenters prefer to make the Q&A session the key part of their talk and try to speed through the main body of the presentation. This is totally fine, but it is still best to focus on delivering some sort of initial presentation to set the tone and topics for discussion in the Q&A.

Other common presentation structures

The above was a description of a basic presentation, here are some more specific presentation layouts:

Demonstration

Use the demonstration structure when you have something useful to show. This is usually used when you want to show how a product works. Steve Jobs frequently used this technique in his presentations.

• Explain why the product is valuable.
• Describe why the product is necessary.
• Explain what problems it can solve for the audience.
• Demonstrate the product  to support what you’ve been saying.
• Make suggestions of other things it can do to make the audience curious.

Problem-solution

This structure is particularly useful in persuading the audience.

• Briefly frame the issue.
• Go into the issue in detail showing why it ‘s such a problem. Use logos and pathos for this – the logical and emotional appeals.
• Provide the solution and explain why this would also help the audience.
• Call to action – something you want the audience to do which is straightforward and pertinent to the solution.

Storytelling

As well as incorporating  stories in your presentation , you can organise your whole presentation as a story. There are lots of different type of story structures you can use – a popular choice is the monomyth – the hero’s journey. In a monomyth, a hero goes on a difficult journey or takes on a challenge – they move from the familiar into the unknown. After facing obstacles and ultimately succeeding the hero returns home, transformed and with newfound wisdom.

Storytelling for Business Success  webinar , where well-know storyteller Javier Bernad shares strategies for crafting compelling narratives.

Another popular choice for using a story to structure your presentation is in media ras (in the middle of thing). In this type of story you launch right into the action by providing a snippet/teaser of what’s happening and then you start explaining the events that led to that event. This is engaging because you’re starting your story at the most exciting part which will make the audience curious – they’ll want to know how you got there.

• Great storytelling: Examples from Alibaba Founder, Jack Ma

Remaining method

The remaining method structure is good for situations where you’re presenting your perspective on a controversial topic which has split people’s opinions.

• Go into the issue in detail showing why it’s such a problem – use logos and pathos.
• Rebut your opponents’ solutions  – explain why their solutions could be useful because the audience will see this as fair and will therefore think you’re trustworthy, and then explain why you think these solutions are not valid.
• After you’ve presented all the alternatives provide your solution, the remaining solution. This is very persuasive because it looks like the winning idea, especially with the audience believing that you’re fair and trustworthy.

Transitions

When delivering presentations it’s important for your words and ideas to flow so your audience can understand how everything links together and why it’s all relevant. This can be done  using speech transitions  which are words and phrases that allow you to smoothly move from one point to another so that your speech flows and your presentation is unified.

Transitions can be one word, a phrase or a full sentence – there are many different forms, here are some examples:

Moving from the introduction to the first point

Signify to the audience that you will now begin discussing the first main point:

• Now that you’re aware of the overview, let’s begin with…
• First, let’s begin with…
• I will first cover…
• My first point covers…
• To get started, let’s look at…

Shifting between similar points

Move from one point to a similar one:

• In the same way…
• Likewise…
• Equally…
• This is similar to…
• Similarly…

Internal summaries

Internal summarising consists of summarising before moving on to the next point. You must inform the audience:

• What part of the presentation you covered – “In the first part of this speech we’ve covered…”
• What the key points were – “Precisely how…”
• How this links in with the overall presentation – “So that’s the context…”
• What you’re moving on to – “Now I’d like to move on to the second part of presentation which looks at…”

Physical movement

You can move your body and your standing location when you transition to another point. The audience find it easier to follow your presentation and movement will increase their interest.

A common technique for incorporating movement into your presentation is to:

• Start your introduction by standing in the centre of the stage.
• For your first point you stand on the left side of the stage.
• You discuss your second point from the centre again.
• You stand on the right side of the stage for your third point.
• The conclusion occurs in the centre.

Key slides for your presentation

Slides are a useful tool for most presentations: they can greatly assist in the delivery of your message and help the audience follow along with what you are saying. Key slides include:

• An intro slide outlining your ideas
• A  summary slide  with core points to remember
• High quality image slides to supplement what you are saying

There are some presenters who choose not to use slides at all, though this is more of a rarity. Slides can be a powerful tool if used properly, but the problem is that many fail to do just that. Here are some golden rules to follow when using slides in a presentation:

• Don’t over fill them  – your slides are there to assist your speech, rather than be the focal point. They should have as little information as possible, to avoid distracting people from your talk.
• A picture says a thousand words  – instead of filling a slide with text, instead, focus on one or two images or diagrams to help support and explain the point you are discussing at that time.
• Make them readable  – depending on the size of your audience, some may not be able to see small text or images, so make everything large enough to fill the space.
• Don’t rush through slides  – give the audience enough time to digest each slide.

Guy Kawasaki, an entrepreneur and author, suggests that slideshows should follow a  10-20-30 rule :

• There should be a maximum of 10 slides – people rarely remember more than one concept afterwards so there’s no point overwhelming them with unnecessary information.
• The presentation should last no longer than 20 minutes as this will leave time for questions and discussion.
• The font size should be a minimum of 30pt because the audience reads faster than you talk so less information on the slides means that there is less chance of the audience being distracted.

Here are some additional resources for slide design:

• 7 design tips for effective, beautiful PowerPoint presentations
• 11 design tips for beautiful presentations
• 10 tips on how to make slides that communicate your idea

Group Presentations

Group presentations are structured in the same way as presentations with one speaker but usually require more rehearsal and practices.  Clean transitioning between speakers  is very important in producing a presentation that flows well. One way of doing this consists of:

• Briefly recap on what you covered in your section: “So that was a brief introduction on what health anxiety is and how it can affect somebody”
• Introduce the next speaker in the team and explain what they will discuss: “Now Elnaz will talk about the prevalence of health anxiety.”
• Then end by looking at the next speaker, gesturing towards them and saying their name: “Elnaz”.
• The next speaker should acknowledge this with a quick: “Thank you Joe.”

From this example you can see how the different sections of the presentations link which makes it easier for the audience to follow and remain engaged.

Example of great presentation structure and delivery

Having examples of great presentations will help inspire your own structures, here are a few such examples, each unique and inspiring in their own way.

How Google Works – by Eric Schmidt

This presentation by ex-Google CEO  Eric Schmidt  demonstrates some of the most important lessons he and his team have learnt with regards to working with some of the most talented individuals they hired. The simplistic yet cohesive style of all of the slides is something to be appreciated. They are relatively straightforward, yet add power and clarity to the narrative of the presentation.

Start with why – by Simon Sinek

Since being released in 2009, this presentation has been viewed almost four million times all around the world. The message itself is very powerful, however, it’s not an idea that hasn’t been heard before. What makes this presentation so powerful is the simple message he is getting across, and the straightforward and understandable manner in which he delivers it. Also note that he doesn’t use any slides, just a whiteboard where he creates a simple diagram of his opinion.

The Wisdom of a Third Grade Dropout – by Rick Rigsby

Here’s an example of a presentation given by a relatively unknown individual looking to inspire the next generation of graduates. Rick’s presentation is unique in many ways compared to the two above. Notably, he uses no visual prompts and includes a great deal of humour.

However, what is similar is the structure he uses. He first introduces his message that the wisest man he knew was a third-grade dropout. He then proceeds to deliver his main body of argument, and in the end, concludes with his message. This powerful speech keeps the viewer engaged throughout, through a mixture of heart-warming sentiment, powerful life advice and engaging humour.

As you can see from the examples above, and as it has been expressed throughout, a great presentation structure means analysing the core message of your presentation. Decide on a key message you want to impart the audience with, and then craft an engaging way of delivering it.

By preparing a solid structure, and  practising your talk  beforehand, you can walk into the presentation with confidence and deliver a meaningful message to an interested audience.

It’s important for a presentation to be well-structured so it can have the most impact on your audience. An unstructured presentation can be difficult to follow and even frustrating to listen to. The heart of your speech are your main points supported by evidence and your transitions should assist the movement between points and clarify how everything is linked.

Research suggests that the audience remember the first and last things you say so your introduction and conclusion are vital for reinforcing your points. Essentially, ensure you spend the time structuring your presentation and addressing all of the sections.

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8.5: Making a Presentation for a Meeting

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What you’ll learn to do: Create a presentation intended for a business meeting

Tools, no matter how sophisticated, are simply tools. Moving from the right tools to a good presentation involves perspective and planning. For perspective, we’ll approach the concept of a good presentation from two standpoints: identifying the key features of a good presentation and common mistakes that contribute to presentation failure. We’ll also discuss what’s involved in the planning process, including the three essential questions that need to be answered prior to developing content. Finally, we’ll explore the classic story structure and apply that structure to a business presentation scenario.

Learning Outcomess

• Identify key features of a good presentation
• Identify the purpose, audience, and message of your presentation
• Discuss common mistakes in presentations
• Create a presentation intended for a business meeting

Parts of a Good Presentation

Like reverse engineering a product, we can distill the key features of a good presentation by looking at presentation evaluation scorecards. Refer to Table 1 for a sample class presentation grading rubric.

At the macro level, the key elements of a good presentation are content, organization, and delivery. There are both substance and style aspects of content. Substance elements include the originality and significance of your idea, the quality of your research and analysis, clarity and potential impact of your recommendations. Style aspects of content include confidence and credibility, both of which have a significant impact on how you—and your message—are received.

Good organization starts with a strong opening and continues in a logical and well-supported manner throughout the presentation, leading to a close that serves as a resolution of the problem or a summary of the situation you’ve presented. The audience experiences good organization as a sense of flow—an inevitable forward movement to a satisfying close. This forward momentum also requires audiences to have a certain level of technical and information-management competency. To the latter point, good presentation requires a presenter to put thought into information design, from the structure and content of slides to the transitions between individual points, slides and topics.

Delivery entails a range of factors from body language and word choice to vocal variety. In this category, your audience is responding to your personality and professionalism. For perspective, one of the three evaluation categories on the official Toastmasters speaker evaluation form is “As I Saw You;” in parentheses: “approach, position, personal appearance, facial expression, gestures and detracting mannerisms.” A good presenter has a passion for the subject and an ability to convey and perhaps elicit that emotion in the audience. Audience engagement—through eye contact, facial expression, perhaps the use of gestures or movement—also contributes to an effective presentation. However, to the point in the Toastmasters evaluation, gestures, movement other mannerisms can be distracting (see Module 7: Public Speaking for more on this). What works: natural (not staged) movement that reinforces communication of your idea.

Figure 1. The WIIFM Principle.

With those key features and presentation-evaluation criteria in mind, let’s add a disclaimer. The reality is that your features won’t matter if you don’t deliver one essential benefit: relevance.

Whether you think in Toastmasters terminology—”What’s in it for me? (WIIFM)” from the audience perspective—or put yourself in the audience’s position and ask “So what?,” it’s a question that you need to answer early. We’ll get into this more in the next section as we discuss presentation planning.

Practice Question

The key elements of a good presentation are:

• Strong opening and strong close
• Confidence and credibility

Content, organization and delivery

What’s My Presentation About?

It may be helpful to think of your presentation as having three key moving parts or interlocking gears: purpose, audience and message. Let’s walk through the presentation-development process at this planning level.

Generally the first step in developing a presentation is identifying your purpose. Purpose is a multi-layered term, but in this context, it simply means objective or intended outcome. And why is this? To riff on the classic Yogi Berra quote, if you don’t know where you’re going, you might as well be somewhere else. That is, don’t waste your audience’s (or your own) time.

Your purpose will determine both your content and approach and suggest supplemental tools, audience materials and room layout. Perhaps your purpose is already defined for you: perhaps your manager has asked you to research three possible sites for a new store. In this case, it’s likely there’s an established evaluation criteria and format for presenting that information. Voila! your content and approach is defined. If you don’t have a defined purpose, consider whether your objective is to inform, to educate, or to inspire a course of action. State that objective in a general sense, including what action you want your audience to take based on your presentation. Once you have that sketched in, consider your audience.

The second step in the presentation development process is audience research. Who are the members of your audience? Why are they attending this conference, meeting, or presentation? This step is similar to the demographic and psychographic research marketers conduct prior to crafting a product or service pitch—and is just as critical. Key factors to consider include your audience’s age range, educational level, industry/role, subject matter knowledge, etc. These factors matter for two reasons: you need to know what they know and what they need to know.

Understanding your audience will allow you to articulate what may be the most critical aspect of your presentation: “WIIFM,” or what’s in it for them. Profiling your audience also allows you adapt your message so it’s effective for this particular audience. That is, to present your idea (proposal, subject matter, recommendations) at a depth and in a manner (language, terminology, tools) that’s appropriate. Don’t expect your audience to meet you where you are; meet them where they are and then take them where you want to go together.

Returning to the site analysis example mentioned earlier, knowing your audience also means getting clear on what management expects from you. Are you serving in an analyst role—conducting research and presenting “just the facts”—to support a management decision? Or are you expected to make a specific recommendation? Be careful of power dynamics and don’t overstep your role. Either way, be prepared to take a stand and defend your position. You never know when a routine stand-and-deliver could become a career-defining opportunity.

The third step is honing your message. In “TED’s Secret to Great Public Speaking,” TED Conference curator Chris Anderson notes that there’s “no single formula” for a compelling talk, but there is one common denominator: great speakers build an idea inside the minds of their audience. Take, for instance, Chimamanda Adichie’s idea, which Anderson summarizes as “people are more than a single identity.” [1] As Adichie expresses it: “The problem with stereotypes [of a single story or identity] is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete.” [2] Or Sir Ken Robinson’s idea that creativity is a essential building block for learning. As he expresses the idea: “My contention is that creativity now is as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status.” [3] Ideas matter because they’re capable of changing our perceptions, our actions and our world. As Anderson puts it: “Ideas are the most powerful force shaping human culture.” [4]

So if ideas are that powerful, more is better, right? Perhaps a handful or a baker’s dozen? Wrong. As any seasoned sales person knows, you don’t walk into a meeting with a prospective client and launch into an overview of every item in your company’s product or service line. That’s what’s known as “throwing spaghetti on the wall to see what sticks.” And that’s an approach that will have you wearing your spaghetti—and perhaps the dust from one of your client’s shoes on your backside, as well. What audience members expect is that you’ve done your homework, that you know them and their pain, and that you have something to offer: a fresh perspective, an innovative approach or a key insight that will change things for the better. As Chris Anderson puts it: “pick one idea, and make it the through-line running through your entire talk.” [5] One message, brought vividly and relevantly to life.

So now that you have a macro view of the presentation development process, let’s review what can what can—and often does—go wrong so we can avoid the common mistakes.

The first step in developing a presentation is to identify:

• Your presentation subject and title

The intended outcome of your presentation

• Who should be invited to the presentation

Bad Presentations

For many, the prospect of developing and delivering a business presentation rates right up there with death and taxes. Interestingly, that same mixture of fear and loathing is often felt by audience members as well. But it doesn’t have to be that way. The ability to craft a compelling story is a skill as old as the human race, and the need to communicate is as primal and potentially powerful.

Figure 1. Akhenaten as a sphinx, and was originally found in the city of Amarna.

For millions of years before the invention of modern technology, humans used the tools available to perpetuate traditions and culture and to document—and often rewrite—history. Do a few internet searches and immerse yourself in the Egyptian tombs; the caves of Chauvet; or El Castillo, the Temple of Kukulcan. What you’re experiencing is a feat of both artistry and communication. Although we don’t know the full significance of these early carvings and structures, there’s no doubt that these early humans captured their world view in a way that is still deeply resonant. While the tools have changed, the communication challenges—and opportunity—remain the same: to communicate an engaging and inspiring point of view.

Regardless of whether you want to change the world, build your brand, or build a billion-dollar business, effective presentation skills are essential. To quote legendary investor, philanthropist and Berkshire Hathaway chairman and CEO Warren Buffet, “If you can’t communicate and talk to other people and get across your ideas, you’re giving up your potential.” [6] As would be expected of a numbers person, Buffet has quantified his point in talks on student campuses and professional organizations. Speaking at his alma mater in 2009, Warren Buffett told Columbia Business School students that he believed learning effective communication skills could translate into 50 percent higher lifetime earnings.

Given our vibrant storytelling tradition and with so much at stake, why are there still so many bad presentations? Wouldn’t you think that modern communication technology—considering the advances in graphics and communications software alone!—would lead to more compelling presentations? Interestingly, the problem is, to some extent, the technology. It’s estimated that 30 million PowerPoint presentations are created every day, with (seemingly) a majority of presenters opting for default layouts and templates. The problem is, we’re wired for story, not bullet points. A related failure is our use of available technology.

Seth Godin has a wonderful—and instructive—rant on these points: Really Bad PowerPoint (and how to avoid it) , blaming Microsoft wizards, templates, built-in clip art and lazy presenters for ineffective presentations. In response to a question regarding “death by PowerPoint” on the TechTarget Network, Margaret Rouse provided this definition: “a phenomenon cause by the poor use of presentation software,” identifying the primary contributors of this condition as “confusing graphics, slides with too much text and presenters whose idea of a good presentation is to read 40 slides out loud.” [7]

So how do we avoid causing “death by PowerPoint”—or by whatever presentation software we use? The common denominator of presentation mistakes is that they represent a failure of communication. This failure can be attributed to two errors: too much or too little. The error of too much is generally the result of trying to use slides as a teleprompter or a substitute to a report, or, it would seem, to bludgeon the audience into submission. Of course, this tends to have an alternate effect, namely, prompting audience members to walk out or tune out, turning their attention instead to doodling or their device of choice.

What bad presentations have too little of is emotion. Presentation expert and author of the classic Presentation Zen (and 4 related books) Gar Reynolds captures the crux of the problem: “a good presentation is a mix of logic, data, emotion, and inspiration. We are usually OK with the logic and data part, but fail on the emotional and inspirational end.” [8] There’s also a hybrid too little-too much mistake, where too little substance and/or no design sensibility is — in the mind of the presenter — offset by transitions and special effects. Heed Seth Godin’s advice: “No dissolves, spins or other transitions. None.” [9]

The 10/20/30 rule, generally attributed to venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki, is a good guideline to help you achieve a “just right” balance in your presentations. Geared for entrepreneurs pitching their business, his advice is a discipline that would improve the quality—and, effectiveness—of most presentations. In brief, 10/20/30 translates to a maximum of 10 slides, a maximum of 20 minutes and a minimum of 30 point font. [10]

Figure 2. Your presentation should have no more than 10 slides, take no more than 20 minutes, and use type no smaller than 30 point font.

While this rule is a good starting point, it doesn’t overrule your audience analysis or understanding of your purpose. Sometimes, you may need more slides or have a more involved purpose—like training people in new software or presenting the results of a research study—that takes more than 30 minutes to address. In that case, go with what your audience needs and what will make your presentation most effective. The concept behind the 10/20/30 rule—to make new learning easy for your audience to take in, process and remember—should still be your guide even if you don’t follow the rule exactly.

how to avoid death by powerpoint

For more on how to avoid causing death by PowerPoint, watch Swedish presentation expert and How to Avoid Death By PowerPoint author David Phillips TED Talk on the topic:

https://youtu.be/Iwpi1Lm6dFo

To balance readability and information processing, the 10/20/30 formatting rule recommends a:

• 10 point font size
• 20 point font size

30 point font size

Making a Presentation for a Meeting

With perspective on the technical tools, communications planning and information design, let’s take this learning for a test drive.

What’s considered an effective (that is, persuasive) presentation structure hasn’t changed fundamentally over the centuries. In his analysis of dramatic structure in the Poetics , Aristotle identified a play as having three parts: a beginning, middle and end. The story begins with a “complication” (problem), ends with an “unraveling” (resolution), and follows a logical sequence of events from beginning to end. Hollywood screenwriters use the same structure and dynamics. Screenwriter, producer and author Syd Field, whom CNN called “the guru of all screen writers,” translated this simple three-step structure into numerous books and workbooks, including the bestsellers Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting and The Screenwriter’s Workbook .

In a business context, a good presentation is an effective presentation. That is, a good presentation achieves its intended outcome. Clearly, in order to achieve a specific outcome or objective, you need to know what it is. So, prior to crafting the drama (in word or slide), you need to hone in on three things:

• The purpose of your presentation
• Your audience
• Your (one) message

For a review of these elements, refer to What’s my Presentation About .

Once you’re clear on those points, let’s proceed.

To build our presentation, we’ll use presentation expert Nancy Duarte’s interpretation of the classic 3-part story structure illustrated in Figure 1. For additional perspective on this structure, watch her TED Talk, “ The Secret Structure of Great Talks, ” or read her Harvard Business Review article, “ Structure Your Presentation Like a Story .”

Figure 1. Persuasive story structure (Duarte, “Structure Your Presentation Like a Story,” 2012).

The Beginning

The story starts with “What is”—the current state. Describe this baseline state in a way that is recognizable to the audience. This allows you and the audience to get in sync. And with this base level of agreement, your audience will be more receptive to your proposed change.

The second step is to introduce “What could be.” The gap between what is and what could be adds tension and drama to your story and largely determines the significance of your presentation. If there’s no conflict, no proposed change, what’s the point of the presentation?

Let’s say you’re an analyst on the new product development team of a retailer known for exclusive, trend-forward “house” branded products. Your company’s reputation and revenue depends on consistent introduction of new consumer-product goods. Marketing and distribution are key strengths, but new-product performance is off, revenue is below expectations and the company’s stock price recently fell 30 percent. Within your company, R&D (research & development) is strictly an insider’s game; any ideas or innovations that weren’t developed in-house are blocked. The problem is, you can’t innovate fast enough—or with enough market demand accuracy—to meet financial and stock market expectations. You and the other analysts on your team have been tracking innovation trends and successes and you think the answer is opening the R&D works to outside ideas and innovations. Here’s how you might lay out your presentation:

• What Is: We missed our quarterly earnings numbers, largely due to a failure to meet our innovation success targets over the last six months.
• What Could Be: Initial data suggests we could get back on track by modifying our R&D model to incorporate external innovations.

The bulk of your the presentation is developing the contrast between what is and what could be in order to set up your proposed resolution of the conflict or challenge. The objective is also to establish the validity of your arguments, so your proposed call to action is perceived as a logical, ideally inevitable, conclusion of the conflict.

• What Is: We currently bear the full cost and risk of developing new products and our innovation success rate—the percentage of new products that meet financial objectives—is running 25 percent below target.
• What Could Be: Sourcing promising innovations from outside the company could reduce R&D costs and risk while also increasing our innovation success rate.
• What Is: Our R&D process is taking so long that we’re missing trends and losing our market-leading brand reputation.
• What Could Be: We could license or buy promising innovations for a fraction of the cost it would take to develop them from scratch and leverage our marketing and distribution strengths to claim shelf and market share.
• What Is: Our below-plan performance and new product pipeline is costing us political capital with executive management, and we’re at risk of losing budget and/or layoffs.
• What Could Be: Adopting an open innovation culture would allow us to create partnerships that leverage our strengths and drive revenue, regaining a position of value within the company.

To craft a powerful close, heed Duarte’s advice and avoid a list of bullet point to-dos. Your objective here is to achieve resolution of the conflict introduced at the beginning, to issue a call to action that inspires your audience to support your vision of what could be, a state Duarte refers to as the “new bliss.”

Call to Action

To recover our position of a source of revenue and brand value, we need to start working to build a culture and networks that support open innovation and accelerate the development of new products, regardless of the source of the idea.

Our ability to drive value secures our position and reputations in the company, and in the marketplace, and pays off in employee stock value and profit sharing.

The new bliss articulates the proposed—and a desired future state—incorporating the WIIFM, what’s in it for me, that motivates your audience to buy into and work to support the required change.

Which of the following is the best lead-in for your presentation?

• A bullet point list of action items.

A chart illustrating the new product development performance relative to plan.

• An image illustrating open innovation.
• Anderson, Chris. “ TED’s Secret to Great Public Speaking .” TED , March 2016. ↵
• Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. “ The danger of a single story .” TED , July 2009. ↵
• Robinson, Ken. “ Do schools kill creativity? ” TED , Feb 2006. ↵
• Anderson, TED ↵
• Gallo, Carmine. " How Warren Buffet and Joel Osteen Conquered Their Terrifying Fear of Public Speaking ," Forbes . May 16, 2013. ↵
• Rouse, Margaret. " What is death by PowerPoint? " TechTarget Network . ↵
• Reynolds, Garr. “ 10 tips for Improving Your Presentations Today ,” Presentation Zen. Nov 2014. ↵
• Godin, Seth. Fix Your Really Bad PowerPoint . Ebook, sethgodin.com, 2001. ↵
• Kawasaki, Guy. The 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint . December 2005. ↵

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How to Make a “Good” Presentation “Great”

• Guy Kawasaki

Remember: Less is more.

A strong presentation is so much more than information pasted onto a series of slides with fancy backgrounds. Whether you’re pitching an idea, reporting market research, or sharing something else, a great presentation can give you a competitive advantage, and be a powerful tool when aiming to persuade, educate, or inspire others. Here are some unique elements that make a presentation stand out.

• Fonts: Sans Serif fonts such as Helvetica or Arial are preferred for their clean lines, which make them easy to digest at various sizes and distances. Limit the number of font styles to two: one for headings and another for body text, to avoid visual confusion or distractions.
• Colors: Colors can evoke emotions and highlight critical points, but their overuse can lead to a cluttered and confusing presentation. A limited palette of two to three main colors, complemented by a simple background, can help you draw attention to key elements without overwhelming the audience.
• Pictures: Pictures can communicate complex ideas quickly and memorably but choosing the right images is key. Images or pictures should be big (perhaps 20-25% of the page), bold, and have a clear purpose that complements the slide’s text.
• Layout: Don’t overcrowd your slides with too much information. When in doubt, adhere to the principle of simplicity, and aim for a clean and uncluttered layout with plenty of white space around text and images. Think phrases and bullets, not sentences.

As an intern or early career professional, chances are that you’ll be tasked with making or giving a presentation in the near future. Whether you’re pitching an idea, reporting market research, or sharing something else, a great presentation can give you a competitive advantage, and be a powerful tool when aiming to persuade, educate, or inspire others.

• Guy Kawasaki is the chief evangelist at Canva and was the former chief evangelist at Apple. Guy is the author of 16 books including Think Remarkable : 9 Paths to Transform Your Life and Make a Difference.

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Blog > How to structure a good PowerPoint Presentation

How to structure a good PowerPoint Presentation

08.09.21   •  #powerpoint #tips.

When creating presentations, it is particularly important that they are well organized and have a consistent structure.

A logical structure helps the audience to follow you and to remember the core information as best as possible. It is also important for the presenter, as a good presentation structure helps to keep calm, to stay on the topic and to avoid awkward pauses.

But what does such a structure actually look like? Here we show you how to best organize your presentation and what a good structure looks like.

Plan your presentation

Before you start creating your presentation, you should always brainstorm. Think about the topic and write all your ideas down. Then think about the message you want to communicate, what your goal is and what you want your audience to remember at the end.

Think about who your audience is so that you can address them in the best possible way. One possibility is to start your presentation with a few polls to get to know your audience better. Based on the results, you can then adapt your presentation a little. Use the poll function of SlideLizard and have all the answers at a glance. SlideLizard makes it possible to integrate the polls directly into your PowerPoint presentation which helps you to avoid annoying switching between presentation and interaction tool. You can keep an eye on the results while the votes come in and then decide whether you want to share them or not.

• an informative
• an entertaining
• an inspiring
• or a persuasive presentation?

Typical Presentation Structure

The basic structure of a presentation is actually always the same and should consist of:

Introduction

Make sure that the structure of your presentation is not too complicated. The simpler it is, the better the audience can follow.

Personal Introduction

It is best to start your presentation by briefly introducing yourself which helps to build a connection with your audience right away.

Introduce the topic

Then introduce the topic, state the purpose of the presentation and provide a brief outline of the main points you will be addressing.

Mention the length

In the introduction, mention the approximate length of the talk and then also make sure you stick to it.

The introduction should be no longer than two slides and provide a good overview of the topic.

Icebreaker Polls

According to studies, people in the audience only have an average attention span of 10 minutes, which is why it is important to increase their attention right at the beginning and to arouse the audience's interest. You could make a good start with a few icebreaker polls for example. They lighten the mood right at the beginning and you can secure your audience's attention from the start.

For example, you could use SlideLizard to have all the answers at a glance and share them with your audience. In addition, the audience can try out how the polls work and already know how it works if you include more polls in the main part.

Get to know your audience

As mentioned earlier, it is always useful to think about who your audience actually is. Ask them questions at the beginning about how well they already know the topic of your presentation. Use SlideLizard for this so that you have a clear overview about the answers. You can use both single- and multiple-choice questions or also open questions and display their results as a WordCloud in your presentation, for example.

Include a quote

To make the beginning (or the end) of your presentation more exciting, it is always a good idea to include a quote. We have selected some powerful quotes for PowerPoint presentations for you.

Present your topic

The main part of a presentation should explain the topic well, state facts, justify them and give examples. Keep all the promises you made earlier in the introduction.

Length and Structure

The main part should make up about 70% of the presentation and also include a clear structure. Explain your ideas in detail and build them up logically. It should be organized chronologically, by priority or by topic. There should be a smooth transition between the individual issues. However, it is also important to use phrases that make it clear that a new topic is starting. We have listed some useful phrases for presentations here.

Visualize data and statistics and show pictures to underline facts. If you are still looking for good images, we have selected 5 sources of free images for you here.

Focus on the essentials

Focus on what is most important and summarize a bit. You don't have to say everything about a topic because your audience won’t remember everything either. Avoid complicated sentence structure, because if the audience does not understand something, they will not be able to read it again.

Make your presentation interactive

Make your presentation interactive to keep the attention of your audience. Use SlideLizard to include polls in your presentation, where your audience can vote directly from their smartphone and discuss the answers as soon as you received all votes. Here you can also find more tips for increasing audience engagement.

Repeat the main points

The conclusion should contain a summary of the most important key points. Repeat the main points you have made, summarize what the audience should have learned and explain how the new information can help in the future.

Include a Q&A part

Include a Q&A part at the end to make sure you don't leave any questions open. It's a good idea to use tools like SlideLizard for it. Your audience can ask anonymous questions and if there is not enough time, you can give them the answers afterwards. You can read more about the right way to do a question slide in PowerPoint here.

Get Feedback

It is also important to get feedback on your presentation at the end to keep improving. With SlideLizard you can ask your audience for anonymous feedback through star ratings, number ratings or open texts directly after your presentation. You can then export the responses and analyse them later in Excel.

Presentation style

Depending on the type of presentation you give, the structure will always be slightly different. We have selected a few different presentation styles and their structure for you.

Short Presentation

If you are one of many presenters on the day, you will only have a very limited time to present your idea and to convince your audience. It is very important to stand out with your presentation.

So you need to summarize your ideas as briefly as possible and probably should not need more than 3-5 slides.

Problem Solving Presentation

Start your presentation by explaining a problem and giving a short overview of it.

Then go into the problem a little more, providing both intellectual and emotional arguments for the seriousness of the problem. You should spend about the first 25% of your presentation on the problem.

After that, you should spend about 50% of your presentation proposing a solution and explaining it in detail.

In the last 25%, describe what benefits this solution will bring to your audience and ask them to take a simple but relevant action that relates to the problem being discussed.

Tell a Story

A great way to build an emotional connection with the audience is to structure a presentation like a story.

In the introduction, introduce a character who has to deal with a conflict. In the main part, tell how he tries to solve his problem but fails again and again. In the end, he manages to find a solution and wins.

Stories have the power to win customers, align colleagues and motivate employees. They’re the most compelling platform we have for managing imaginations. - Nancy Duarte / HBR Guide to Persuasive Presentations

Make a demonstration

Use the demonstration structure to show how a product works. First talk about a need or a problem that has to be solved.

Then explain how the product will help solve the problem and try to convince your audience of the need for your product.

Spend the end clarifying where and when the product can be purchased.

Chronological structure

When you have something historical to tell, it is always good to use a chronological structure. You always have to ask yourself what happens next.

To make it more interesting and exciting, it is a good idea to start by telling the end of something and after that you explain how you got there. This way you make the audience curious and you can gain their attention faster.

Nancy Duarte TED Talk

Nancy Duarte is a speaker and presentation design expert. She gives speeches all over the world, trying to improve the power of public presentations.

In her famous TED Talk "The Secret Structure of Great Talks" she dissects famous speeches such as Steve Jobs' iPhone launch speech and Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech. In doing so, she found out that each presentation is made up of 4 parts:

• What could be
• A moment to remember
• Promise of “New Bliss”

Related articles

About the author.

Helena Reitinger

Helena supports the SlideLizard team in marketing and design. She loves to express her creativity in texts and graphics.

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Process questions are similar to recall questions but they need some deeper thoughts and maybe also analysis.

An e-lecture is a lecture that is held online. Many schools and universities offer e-lectures as technical opportunities improve.

Internal Communication

Internal communication is particularly important for corporate communication. It communicates important information from leadership to staff so that they can do their jobs in the best possible way and work processes run well.

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Glossophobia means the strong fear of public speaking.

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Article • 10 min read

How to Structure a Presentation

Choosing the best format for your audience.

By the Mind Tools Content Team

Have you ever sat through a rambling, disorganized presentation? If so, you probably found it hard to follow what the speaker was saying.

When presentations don't flow well, it's easy for audiences to get lost. This is why it's important to think carefully about the structure and organization of your presentation.

In this article, we'll explore some common structures that you can use next time you speak in front of other people.

The Importance of Structure

Without a defined structure, your audience may not be able to follow your presentation. When this happens, your opportunity is lost, the communication fails, and your reputation takes a hit. For example, if your aim is to persuade people, you'll want to use a different approach from the one you'd use if you wanted to demonstrate how a product works.

Many factors can influence your choice of structure, but the most important consideration is your presentation's purpose or goal. You need to identify what you want to achieve – do you want to inspire, motivate, inform, persuade, or entertain people?

Your audience's needs also affect the structure you choose. For example, those who are new to your topic need more background information than people with more expertise and experience. So, in this case, you'd want to choose an approach that gives you ample time to explain the context of your subject, as well as to reinforce your main points.

Structures to Consider

Below, we outline several structures that you can use to organize your presentation.

1. Open – Body – Conclusion

The Open – Body – Conclusion approach is one of the most practical structures you can use for presentations. (Click here to download a worksheet that helps you use it.)

People often call it the "tell 'em" approach, because you:

• Tell audience members what you're going to tell them (introduction).
• Tell them (body).
• Tell them what you told them (conclusion).

This structure is simple, effective and easy to remember. Its repetitive nature allows you to reinforce your points, which helps others remember them. It is also flexible: you can adjust the introduction and body to persuade, motivate, educate, or entertain them.

One downside, however, is that repetition can quickly bore people. The approach is also "old hat" to many, which can cause them to lose interest. If you choose to use it, balance repetition with plenty of interesting facts, images, anecdotes, or stories to hold your audience's interest.

Let's look at each stage of the Open – Body – Conclusion structure in detail and discuss the elements that you need to include in each. We'll start with the body, rather than the introduction, because the rest of your presentation will be based on that.

The body of your presentation needs to contain your key points. You should present these in a logical order, so that your audience can follow them easily.

Keep in mind that the body should comprise a limited number of ideas: the more you try to include, the fewer people will remember. A good guide is to cover three to five main points, but no more.

When organizing your ideas, use the chunking principle to put the information into specific units. This will make the concepts easier to grasp, and help people remember what you have told them.

Make sure that you back up your main points with facts. Use good information-gathering strategies in your research, and consider citing the sources that you use. To add credibility to your presentation, consider using the following information to support your ideas:

• Data, facts or statistics.
• Images or diagrams.
• Stories and examples.
• Quotes or testimonials from experts or industry leaders.

Reliable sources will strengthen your credibility , and build trust with your audience.

Your opening, or introduction, has two main purposes: to grab your audience's attention, and to cover the key points that you intend to talk about.

Instead of telling people what you plan to say, you can use a different approach and explain why they are there. What will they learn from your presentation, and how will the content benefit them?

It's also important to get their attention right from the beginning. You can do this in several ways:

• Tell a story.
• Ask a rhetorical question.
• Play a short video.
• Make a strong or unexpected statement.
• Challenge your audience.
• Use a quotation or example.
• Appeal to people's self-interest.
• Request a specific action.
• Use suspense.

If you plan to answer questions at the end of your presentation, it's a good idea to mention this in the introduction, so people don't interrupt you mid-flow.

Many presenters overlook the importance of a conclusion – but the statements you finish with are what many audience members will remember best.

With the "tell 'em" approach, your conclusion summarizes the main points in the body of your presentation. If you want people to take action, be specific about what you want them to do.

Think carefully about how you want them to feel once you've finished; your conclusion is a great opportunity to reinforce this. Why not inspire them with a great story, a quote or a compelling call to action?

2. The Sandwich Approach

The Sandwich Approach is a variation of the Open – Body – Conclusion structure. This three-part structure covers:

• Advantages and/or benefits of your message or idea.
• Risks and concerns.
• How the benefits manage or eliminate those risks.

This approach is effective when you want to persuade audience members, or change their minds.

Having evidence to support your position is critical. However, factual data and reams of spreadsheets and charts are not highly persuasive. What people respond to is "vivid" evidence that brings your concept or argument to life.

To brush up on your persuasion skills, look at The Rhetorical Triangle . This tool asks you to consider your communication from three perspectives: those of the writer, the audience and the context. It's a method that builds credibility, and helps you ensure that your arguments are logical.

3. Monroe's Motivated Sequence

Monroe's Motivated Sequence is another good structure to use when you need to motivate or persuade. This sequence consists of five key steps:

• Getting your audience's attention – Use an interesting "hook" or opening point, such as a shocking statistic. Be provocative and stimulating, not boring and unemotional.
• Creating a need – Convince the audience there's a problem, explain how it affects them. Persuade them that things need to change.
• Defining your solution – Explain what you think needs to be done.
• Describing a detailed picture of success (or failure) – Give people a vision; something they can see, hear, taste, and touch.
• Asking the audience to do something straight away – Get them involved right from the start. If you do this, it's then much easier to keep them engaged and active in your cause.

4. Demonstration Structure

Use a simple demonstration structure when you are unveiling a new product or service.

Start by explaining why the product or service is so good. What makes it special? What problem will it solve for people?

Next, demonstrate what it does. How you do this will depend on your product but, whatever you do, make sure it works! Bring any important points to the audience's attention and provide helpful tips, where appropriate. Show them the results, and finish by giving them useful information, a good understanding of your topic, and something to remember.

Don't get too wrapped up in the detail; remember to keep it simple. Your presentation will be more powerful and your audience will remember more if you highlight just a few of the most important features. This will whet their appetite, and leave them wanting to know more.

5. Opportunity, Benefits, Numbers Structure

The Opportunity, Benefits, Number (OBN) structure is useful when you face busy people who want to hear what you have to say in the shortest time possible.

To use this structure, give audience members a quick summary of the opportunity that they need to consider, and outline the benefits that they can expect. Then, show them the numbers that back up your claims. [1]

For example, imagine you are explaining why your company should implement a new performance management system. First, you might give some background on the proposal – for example, you want to drive a high-performance culture. Then, you could explain the benefits, such as improving organizational performance and profits. Finally, you could compare the cost of bringing the system in with the predicted return on investment, based on a similar system at another organization.

Presentations that lack a clear flow are confusing and ineffective. This is why it's important to pay careful attention when choosing the most appropriate structure.

Different structures fulfill different purposes. Before you begin, think about why you are giving your presentation. Do you want to inform, persuade, inspire, or entertain your audience?

The most common structure for presentations is Open – Body – Conclusion. This is often effective because it gives you the opportunity to repeat your key points a number of times. However, other structures can be more appropriate, depending on the circumstances, such as when you're trying to persuade an audience, demonstrate a product, or provide information in the most time-efficient way.

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[1] Martinuzzi, B. (2013). '11 Ways to Structure a Knockout Presentation,' from American Express OPEN Forum [online]. Available here . [Accessed 7 August 2014.]

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Member Podcast

Presentation Structures: Everything You Need to Organize Your Talk

Hrideep barot.

• Presentation , Public Speaking , Speech Writing

A presentation structure includes an introduction, context, main body, conclusion, and scope for questions. Depending on the type of presentation you’re doing, this format can change. The article discusses various considerations for each section of a presentation structure.

For presentations to be understood and create a good impression, they can’t be haphazard. It has to have some sort of pre-planned presentation structure that is both logical and simple enough. Depending on the type of presentation you’re doing, there are likely some basic frameworks available that people tend to follow. Before we delve into the format, let’s consider key points to consider when planning a presentation.

How do you structure and plan a presentation?

We plan a presentation by considering the type of presentation, who our audience is, ideating the purpose, and formulating subtopics through research.

Consider the type of presentation

This leads to understanding the ideal flow to convey your content best. For instance, for persuasive presentations, you could use creative ways to convey what is best about a product, such as starting with a story about how it has helped many people achieve something.

On the other hand, for a progress presentation at your workplace, you might have conventions about what is expected, which must be followed precisely.

A few other types of presentations include:

• Informative presentations
• Instructive presentations
• Motivational presentations
• Analytical presentations

You might also want to consider if you want audience interaction and put that into the structure accordingly. While some allow questions mid-presentation for smaller audiences, it is typically left towards the end.

Consider your audience’s knowledge level and interests

This will determine if you can assume a particular knowledge base and not include it in your presentation structure or if you have to start off with basics and build up on that.

For instance, if you’re teaching 1st-year students about something, you might start with basics. But for graduates, a similar format would be unnecessary as they might have already learned about it.

Similarly, if your purpose is to deliver something entertaining, knowing about the interests and values of your audience helps a ton.

The most simple way is demographics. It’s typically quite easy to find out the expected age group, gender, etc of the audience. This information can help you have a basic idea of the sort of experiences they go through, which helps formulate an understanding.

Consider the purpose of your presentation

While this may seem obvious, many of us lose track of the main purpose and spend too much time on remotely related content. This diverts attention from the topic and might even cause boredom.

For example, if you’re advocating for some social action, it would be beneficial to stay on the topic itself, like the pros, cons, what can be done practically, etc. Instead, if the presenters spend more time criticizing others, the presentation will fall short of its purpose.

Few other examples of different purposes your presentation could have:

• Entertainment
• Providing information
• Telling your story
• Proposing ideas
• Discussing future plans for the company

Research your topic and start noting down the subtopics

Skip this if you already know exactly what needs to be a part of your presentation, and plan to include just that. While looking up your topic, you’ll discover the various sub-topics within that field. After you start noting them down, you can organize later what comes under which to build a structure.

Here is a guide on short presentations that you might be interested in.

So with these three considerations and subtopics in mind, we’re good to go over to decide our final structure.

What is the best presentation form?

The best presentation format is one that includes the introduction, context, main body, conclusion, and questions.

Here, we will discuss a template or structure for a typical presentation.

Introduction

• Greet the audience and introduce yourself, e.g., what you do and why you’re here
• The purpose of your presentation
• The flow or outline gives a sense of what they can expect
• Depending on the topic and audience, you might have to provide more or less context about your topic
• This could include a brief history, terminologies, the current market status, the current status of the field, etc.
• Includes the full depth of the primary purpose of the presentation
• All major chunks of data, including examples, evidence like research studies, etc, are included here
• Care needs to be taken at times to ensure that your introduction and context are not taking up so much time that the main body isn’t receiving enough attention. Ever wonder if a presentation can be too short? Check out this article .
• Bring emphasis to the main takeaways
• Thank your audience if they have been a good one
• Take questions and encourage healthy discussion
• End with sharing ways they can address their questions later

To make sure that the structure works out, it is important that you practice your presentation. This will also tell you if you’re falling within the time constraints. Here is a guide on how you can go about practicing your presentation.

5 Ways to Structure Your Presentation

The five ways include ordered, problem-solution, comparative, storytelling, and demonstrating structures.

1. Ordered Structure

The presentation follows a logical sequence starting with an introduction, main points, and then conclusions. This is what this article has focused on, as it’s the most straightforward method and tends to be very clear for the audience. However, for presentations that do not follow a clear progression, this may not be useful.

2. Problem-Solution Structure

This is useful when persuading the audience. You explain the problem (+ its importance and impact) and then provide a solution that motivates the audience to take it. This could be in the form of a product, a particular method of communication, some technical thing, etc. There should be a decent amount of time spent on the benefits of the solution as well as the exact “How?” to implement it to make the audience convinced. It helps to address any questions or barriers you expect them to have during the speech itself.

3. Comparative Method

This is useful when you want to highlight the benefits of something over alternatives . It is ideal to first fully address the alternatives by talking about their benefits and limitations. Then you lastly talk about the solution that you possess that effectively addresses the other limitations or is in some way a better choice than others, based on your arguments.

Alternatively, if you do not want to highlight the benefits of something particular and just form a comparison that demonstrates the pros and cons of different subjects in an unbiased manner, this technique is still used. For instance, how the main benefit of a product is practically useful for the consumer in comparison to the main benefit of another product can be discussed.

4. Storytelling Structure

This is useful when your goal is just to tell a story. This could be to explain the context or history of a company. It could also serve to talk about yourself and how you got there. A story will typically have an introduction, a complicating factor that introduces some challenges, and then an ending that highlights the importance of some action or belief. 

You may also go in a timewise order when explaining a story. This might take away from the thrill but is useful nonetheless when it is required for the audience to properly understand what is being conveyed. Storytelling can be done in various ways, so feel free to find your own structure.

5. Demonstration Structure

This is useful when demonstrating products or services . The benefits of the product/service are highlighted and it is demonstrated showing those capabilities. The goal should be on persuading the audience that it is useful to them for their needs.

How to structure a scientific presentation?

Structuring a scientific presentation typically includes an introduction, methods, results, and discussion.

This typically follows the below format, but depending on the university/conference guidelines, you’ll have to adjust accordingly. The rest of the sub-topics revolves around these sections.

• Introduction/Background 
• Literature review (if applicable)
• Acknowledgments (often optional)

After this, time is given to take questions.

How do you structure a presentation script?

The presentation never includes the full extent of the information. It’s just a concise version of what you’re speaking that adds as a visual aid at times while also highlighting major points. 

The script is where the major content lies. The structure remains the same, but the content is greater in depth .

Sample Presentation Script

To make it easier for you to understand how you can structure your presentation script, here is a sample script for a presentation on the topic: Importance of Public Speaking.

This follows the same flow introduced earlier- introduction, context, main body, conclusion, and questions.

Title: Importance of Public Speaking

Slide 1: Why is Public Speaking Important?

Greetings, ladies, and gentlemen. Today, I will be exploring the importance of public speaking. My name is John, and I’m thrilled to discuss with you how improving our public speaking abilities may make a significant difference in our quality of life in the personal, social, and professional domains.

Slide 2: Introduction

Public speaking involves persuading an audience with a well-organized message. It is an essential part of our daily lives. We use it when we make conversation in social groups as well as when we address enormous crowds at social gatherings. It is a highly multifaceted and effective tool.

I will start off by giving some information about the context, moving on to its benefits, which is the main crux of our presentation, and then we will spend some time concluding.

Slide 3: Context

Effective communication is essential in our globally interconnected society. Speaking in front of an audience enables us to express our views and thoughts clearly and firmly. It facilitates the development of solid bonds and influences others, and acts as a catalyst for constructive change. Public speaking may open doors of opportunity and propel achievement for anyone, whether they are a student, professional, or member of the community.

Slide 4: Personal Development

Public speaking increases self-esteem and confidence, which are quite rudimentary to our self-efficacy. Effective communication skills help us to be more assertive and feel more in control of our lives. Research suggests that having an internal locus of control (i.e., feeling in control) leads to better outcomes in our personal lives as well as greater mental health.  As we organize our ideas and arguments through public speaking, it improves critical thinking and organizational abilities. Furthermore, as we interact with others during talks and Q&A sessions, public speaking also enhances our listening abilities.

Slide 5: Professional Advancement

The ability to speak in front of an audience effectively is highly essential in most workplaces.

You ask Why? Well, it is because we are better able to communicate our qualifications and worth to potential employers, which enhances our performance in job interviews. Secondly, our influence within organizations grows when we can make a strong case for our points in meetings and conferences.

Next, for leadership positions, where success depends on inspiring and motivating others, public speaking is critical. And in general, you’ll need public speaking in any meeting or any talk you would typically deliver in front of a bunch of people. 

Slide 6: Conclusion

Public speaking is a sought-after, multifaceted, and handy skill across many settings. It gives us the ability to inspire others, tell our stories, and make a lasting impression. Strong public speaking abilities help us communicate clearly and lead with influence in many facets of our lives.

Slide 7: Questions

I appreciate everyone here for being a great audience and cooperating wonderfully throughout the presentation. Now I will be taking any questions you all have. Feel free to discuss this now or reach out to me after the session is over.

Slide 8: Thank you

I want to thank you all for being here today.

I hope that the presentation did well to emphasize the importance of public speaking and perhaps motivated at least some of you to work on improving your abilities. We will end here.

[End of presentation]

Here are some tips for delivering an effective presentation.

We considered a few key points for presentation structure and the typical format that can be followed. We also covered five ways you can structure your presentation and the format for a scientific presentation. Lastly, we covered a sample script for presentations.

Public speaking coaching is a great way to increase your skills and get better at presentations as well.

Enroll in our transformative 1:1 Coaching Program

Schedule a call with our expert communication coach to know if this program would be the right fit for you

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Building Strategy Consulting Slide Decks: The Complete Guide

Table of contents.

There’s something different about slide decks from strategy consulting firms like McKinsey, Bain or BCG . For some reason, they just seem more convincing. But it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly what makes those presentations good.

As a strategy consultant, you very quickly realize there are two important components of a compelling strategy presentation:

• The ‘thinking’. This is the rigorous problem definition, analysis, synthesis, and insight that happens before you open up PowerPoint. Without this, even the most well-crafted strategy presentation lacks impact.
• The presentation.  This is the distinctive, structured, and clear way that strategy consultants build their slide decks. Without this, even the most powerful insights lose their force.

In this guide, we show you how to do both those things. In chapters 1-3, we discuss how to structure your slide deck, define your objective, and craft a compelling argument and storyline.

Then in chapters 4-6, we show you best practices for building your slides and reviewing your slide deck.

By the end of this guide, you’ll have the ability to craft a compelling strategy slide deck with a clear and compelling storyline that leads your audience to your desired conclusion.

Structure your slide deck

Before we get into the detail of building your slide deck, it’s important to understand how to structure your presentation.

There is a common structure that is used for almost all strategy presentations. It’s based on a concept known as the Pyramid Principle , which was popularized by Barbara Minto at McKinsey & Co.

According to Minto, there are three components to a well-constructed slide deck:

• The executive summary: Provides the reader a full summary of the argument and recommendations within your slide deck for readers that are more interested in the ‘so what’ than the detailed analysis.
• The body slides: Illustrates the analysis that supports each claim you make in your slide deck’s argument and thus slide objective.
• Next steps or recommendations slides:  Clearly outlines the key implications or ‘so what’ of your slide deck, as well as any next steps required.

In this guide, we will walk you through how to tackle each of these sections one by one. But first, we start by setting the objective of your slide deck, and crafting your argument and storyline.

Define the objective of your deck

Let’s start at the beginning. The purpose of your slide deck isn’t to show off all the things you know… or how great you are at analysis… or how beautiful your slides are.

Instead, the purpose of your slide deck is to persuade your audience and lead them to an objective. And, as the author of the slide deck, you need to set the objective before you start building your slide deck.

Having a clear objective for your slide deck is important for a number of reasons:

• It helps you focus your research and analysis on things that are relevant to your objective.
• You can quickly test the quality of your content by testing whether it is sufficient to achieve your objective.
• It helps inform the tone and positioning of the messages in your slides.

Your objective can take many forms. For example, it could be simply to inform your audience, to gain endorsement for a decision, or to achieve a specific action or next step.

As the author of the slide deck, you must ensure that the objective is clear and agreed upon. All the work that you’re about to do to build your slide deck is guided by your objective.

Craft the argument and storyline

Now that you’ve determined the objective of your slide deck, you need to craft an argument and storyline that leads to your objective.

To some extent, your slide deck’s argument will naturally appear from insights gathered through research and analysis. As you conduct research, you’ll slowly uncover the “real state of affairs”, which will be supported by data.

It’s your job to translate this argument into a compelling story; one that grabs the attention of your reader and communicates your argument in a clear and easy-to-understand way.

To do this, you should use a situation-complication-resolution storyline .

This is a universal structure; it’s used in books, plays, films, advertising, religion, politics, and more. It looks something like this:

• The scene is set and the characters are introduced (situation)
• Something goes wrong (complication)
• They fix the problem and live happily ever after (resolution)

When storytelling in PowerPoint, you should use the same structure. But in the context of your slide deck, your storyline will look something like:

• This thing is important  (situation)
• There is a problem with this thing  (complication)
• Therefore, we need to respond — and here is how  (resolution)

The dot-dash structure

Writing a storyline for your presentation doesn’t happen in PowerPoint. In fact, you don’t open up PowerPoint until you’re completely satisfied with your storyline.

Instead of jumping into PowerPoint, you start by writing out your storyline in a text document using the dot-dash structure .

By writing your slide deck’s storyline in a text document, you can easily identify any faulty or missing logic in your story and ensure that you have the data required to support each claim you make.

And when you’re completely satisfied with your storyline, you can move it into PowerPoint. Your storyline should be communicated in the slide lead-ins, like so:

And once you’ve built the skeleton of your slide deck with the storyline communicated “horizontally” across the leads-ins, you’re ready to start building individual slides and the “vertical flow”.

Build body slides

Before you jump into building individual slides, there are two main components of slides that you need to understand:

• The lead-in:  The text at the top of your slide. This should be written as an action title that communicates the implication or ‘so what’ of the slide, not describes the content of the slide.
• The slide body:  The content of your slide. You should only communicate one insight per slide and choose the simplest method possible.

There is a close relationship between the slide lead-in and slide body. And this relationship is best explained by the Golden Rule of slide building.

The Golden Rule of slide building is:

“One slide, one insight, fully articulated in the lead-in, and supported by the body”

In other words, each slide should only communicate one insight. That insight should be fully explained in words in the lead-in, and fully supported by data in the slide body.

In addition, there should be nothing in the lead-in that’s not in the body, and nothing in the body that’s not in the lead-in.

Data, charts, and other quantitative slides

Claims that are supported by data are naturally more compelling than claims supported by ‘expert’ opinions, focus groups, and other qualitative evidence.

Therefore, where possible, you should always prioritize quantitative slides over qualitative slides.

But don’t go overboard with your data visualization. Sometimes it can be tempting to show off our technical skills by choosing the most complex visualization available. This is bad practice.

Instead, you should always choose the simplest chart to demonstrate your insight. But it can be tricky to determine which chart to use. So we’ve put together a simple decision tree to ensure that you always choose the most appropriate chart for your data .

Text, conceptual, and other qualitative slides

There are some insights that simply cannot be communicated with charts or data. In these cases, you need to find the most appropriate conceptual chart.

Unlike qualitative slides, there are no simple guides for text and conceptual slides. And because of this, the ability to craft well-structured conceptual slides is the mark of a skilled consultant.

It’s surprisingly tricky to be able to communicate a qualitative insight in a clear and structured visual manner. The best way to build the skill is to practice. But you can also learn by exploring common qualitative slides used by strategy consultants .

Download 120+ strategy consulting presentations for free

Looking for slide inspiration? Download 120+ consulting slide decks from top strategy consulting firms, such as McKinsey, BCG and Bain!

Write the executive summary

An executive summary slide is the first slide in your presentation but the last slide you build.

The executive summary slide fully summarizes the argument, storyline, and supporting evidence of the body slides. Because we already need to have finished every other part of the slide deck, we write it last.

Executive summary slides help the reader “follow along” with your slide deck. There are a few main benefits:

• They provide context to help the reader understand why the topic of the slide deck is important.
• They communicate the high-level argument before the reader gets into the body of the slide deck. This helps the reader understand your more detailed body slides.
• They are a “map” that the reader can reference back to if they start losing the line of argument in the body of the deck.

A typical executive summary looks something like the following slides, which are from a BCG report on “Melbourne as a Global Cultural Destination” and can be downloaded here .

Good executive summaries follow three best practices:

• They are structured with bolded text for summary sentences and bullet points for supporting data. This ensures that every claim is clearly supported by data.
• The bolded summary sentences can be read alone to tell the slide’s storyline (i.e. you don’t need to read the supporting data in the bullet points).
• The bolded summary sentences reflect the SCR storyline structure of the slide deck

One other good practice (that you don’t see in the BCG example) is to reference the associated body slide throughout the executive summary. This helps direct a reader to the detailed analysis behind every claim in the executive summary.

Review your slide deck

Now that you’ve finished building all your slides and writing your executive summary, it’s time to review and finalize your slide deck.

There are three things that you need to check as you review your slide deck:

• Chart completeness : Check that your charts are comprehensively labeled, including chart titles, axis labels, units, time periods, etc.
• Text brevity : Review your slide text, including your lead-ins, and ensure that you make your points with the minimum number of words possible.
• Slide consistency : Review your slides and ensure that there is consistent formatting across the slides.

Reviewing your charts and visualizations

There’s a surprising amount of detail contained in charts and it’s quite easy to forget to key include key information.

Some examples of common charting mistakes include missing chart titles, labels, axes, units, dates, and legends. You should also consider how you highlights the implication of your charts.

To make this easier, you should use a charting checklist to methodically cross-reference your chart with best practice.

Refining your slide text

There’s an important place for text in slides. Not only can your use text to provide important context to support your visualizations, but also to communicate insights without data.

Most people use too many words in their slides. They tend to use fancy “consulting speak” or long, verbose explanations that actually obsure their message.

As you review your slide deck, you should review all of the text in your slides and savagely sharpen your text by removing unnecessary words .

Ensuring consistency across slides

Finally, you should use your last review to check for consistency across slides.

Start by ensuring that the formatting is consistent. For example, your slide format, spacing, fonts and slide numbers should all be consistent across the slides.

And then finish your review by ensuring all concepts are communicated consistently across slides. For example, if you’ve numbered or colored concepts a certain way, then ensure that they remain consistent throughout your slide deck.

3 Great Examples of Slide Structure from McKinsey, Bain, and BCG

By Paul Moss

Consulting firms all around the world consistently rely on the pyramid principle to build high-quality presentations with proper slide structure..

Consulting firms like McKinsey, Bain, and BCG rely on proper slide structure to communicate insights to their clients. In this post, I’ll show you exactly how they use the Pyramid Principle to structure their slides, and why it makes such a big difference in the clarity of their presentations.  

If you’re new to this blog, make sure you check out our other  consulting slide breakdowns . And when you’re ready, take a look at our advanced PowerPoint and presentation building  courses  where you can learn to create presentations like a top-tier consultant. 

FREE Slide Design Course

Enroll in our free 5-day email course and learn how to design slides like a McKinsey consultant.

Complete hands-on exercises , review a realistic consulting case study , and get personalized feedback from your instructor!

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Table of Contents

What is the Pyramid Principle?

Put simply, the Pyramid Principle is just a structured way of communicating your ideas where you  start with your main point and then work your way through the supporting details of that main point.  It is represented pretty well with a pyramid because you start right at the top of the Pyramid and then move down to the bottom with more supporting details and data.

Let’s say I am trying to communicate the idea that LeBron James is my favorite player. I would first start with the main point, and then provide my three key arguments for why he is my favorite player. Then below that, I could provide supporting details for each key argument. 

In this visualization,  each idea is meant to summarize all the ideas below it.  For example, the idea that Lebron James scores a lot of points summarizes the two supporting details about his career average of 27 points per game, and him being the 3rd highest all-time scorer. 

This style of top-down communication works really well in a variety of settings, including email, face-to-face communication, and of course, PowerPoint presentations — which is what I’m going to focus on here. 

BCG Example

The first example on our list is BCG . The slide is an excellent example of the Pyramid Principle because it is well-structured and clear. The slide title says “Melbourne seen as a cultural and creative city”, which is the main point the slide creator is trying to communicate (which is why it sits at the top of the slide in bold green letters).

Then they’ve split the main point into two key arguments: “Melbourne perceived by Australians as the country’s leading cultural city” and, “International travelers also perceive Melbourne as a creative city”. Then below each subtitle, there are four supporting points that are meant to provide support. 

“Melbourne as a Global Cultural Destination” BCG

In this example the Pyramid Principle is quite easy to see. The title of the slide is the main point, the subtitles of the slide represent the key arguments, and the bullet points below that make up the supporting details and data. Each aspect of the slide fits into one of these three layers, and  everything on the slide has a purpose.

By structuring the information in this way,  BCG makes it easy for the audience to process the contents of the slide quickly and easily.  There’s no question about what they’re trying to say, or why they’re trying to say it.

With data-heavy slides like this, it can be easy for the audience to get lost — especially if they’re trying to listen to a live speaker, read the words on the slide, and think critically about the slide’s message. Even for a smart person, this can be cognitive overload.  Organizing the slide into digestible bites significantly reduces the mental load on the audience. 

McKinsey Example 

The next slide from McKinsey is also reasonably straightforward. It’s from a deck about high-growth emerging economies, which they refer to as “outperforming economies”.

The title of the slide says “A pro growth agenda of productivity, income, and demand propelled the outperforming economies”, and the slide itself shows the three areas that have propelled the growth for these emerging economies: productivity, growth, and demand. 

“Outperformers: High-growth emerging economies and the companies that propel them” McKinsey, October 2018

There’s a few data points on the slide and a nice visual in the middle to break down the three main categories, making it pretty easy to spot the different layers in the Pyramid. So obviously, just like in our last slide, the main point will be represented by the title. That is what they want us to understand and take away from the slide first.

Then next the key argument level is also pretty clear with “higher productivity”, “boosting demand”, and “strong and inclusive growth” shown in bold text within each bracket (and also mentioned in the title). Then lastly, the bottom layer of the pyramid is represented by the various bullet points within each bracket (below the key arguments).

Altogether, it makes for  a well structured slide with a clear message and clear supporting points.  Despite not be organized visually in the same way as the BCG slide, the slide is very well structured and easy to understand. 

Bain Example

Then lastly, we have a slide from Bain , and this one is slightly more complicated than the first two. The title says “Greater than 60% of growth in 2011 continues to come from new customers. However, share from existing customers improved.” The slide is all about the luxury goods market in China, and more specifically, they’re trying to show where the growth in the market is coming from.

 “China Luxury Market Study” Bain & Company, December 2011

The BCG slide was organized neatly into the left and right sections of the slide, and in the McKinsey slide they were bolded with bullet points underneath. What’s tricky about this slide however, is that  the Pyramid Principle is not clearly visible at first glance. 

The title of the slide still represents the main point, and the key arguments are not emphasized visually, but logically they’re still present. The first key argument is that growth is coming from new customers, and the second key argument is that growth is coming from existing customers. Then if you look through the body of the slide,  you’ll notice that everything falls into one of these two categories. 

In the waterfall chart for example, notice how it is split into these two categories: new customers (as represented by the red columns), and then existing customers (as represented by the dark grey columns). Then on the right hand side of the slide, each of the bullet points can fit into one of the two categories. 

For example, the first bullet says “China market is still supply driven; new store openings create new demand.” This clearly fits into the key argument about growth coming (in part) from new customers. Combined with the key argument about growth coming from existing customers,  these two provide solid logical support for the main point. 

So despite not having an easy visual layout like the previous two examples, this slide is well organized logically, and provides a nice structure that helps the audience clearly understand the main message, as well as the support for that main message. 

You can watch a video version of this article on YouTube .

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This course includes PowerPoint slide decks organized by chapter and aligned to course content.

Since the slides are openly licensed, you are welcome to retain, reuse, revise, remix, and redistribute them. They are also accessible. If you do revise them, make sure to follow these guidelines for creating accessible PowerPoints .

Download individual decks, below:

• Module 1: Introduction to Management
• Module 2: History of Management
• Module 3: Planning and Mission
• Module 4: Environments and Strategic Management
• Module 5: Decision Making
• Module 6: Organizational Structures
• Module 7: Human Resource Management
• Module 8: Groups, Teams, and Teamwork
• Module 9: Culture and Diversity
• Module 10: Leadership
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• Module 14: Communication
• Module 15: Control
• Module 16: Globalization and Business

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Top 10 Strategic Management PPT Templates with Samples and Examples

Neha Ranaut

In today's fast-paced business environment, effective strategic management is crucial for organizations, aiming to achieve their goals and stay ahead of the competition. A well-designed and visually appealing presentation can significantly convey strategic concepts and ideas to stakeholders, whether for board meetings, investor pitches, or internal communications.

In this blog, SlideTeam has curated a collection of the Top 10 Strategic Management PowerPoint Templates that are creative and powerful. Each template is carefully selected to provide a comprehensive range of design options and content layouts, enabling you to effectively communicate your strategic vision, goals, and action plans.

Whether you're a seasoned executive, a budding entrepreneur, or a student studying strategic management, this blog will provide you with the most impactful PowerPoint templates and teach you how to leverage them effectively. So, let's dive in to elevate your presentations to the next level. You'll have a handful of attractive templates that help you captivate your audience, communicate your strategic vision with clarity, and inspire action toward your organizational objectives.

Template 1: Strategic Management Guide for Leaders Strategy

This PPT Template is a powerful resource designed to assist leaders in managing and communicating their strategic initiatives. It is a comprehensive guide that provides you with valuable insights, tips, and real-life examples to enhance their strategic management skills. By utilizing the Strategy CD template, leaders can structure their presentations, have a table of contents, incorporate data-driven visuals, and engage their audience through storytelling techniques. You can customize it according to your wants and add multiple features to ensure your presentation aligns with your organization's unique strategy and messaging. Download it now.

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Template 2: Marketing Strategic Management PowerPoint Presentation Slides

This PPT Deck offers comprehensive tools for marketers to communicate their strategic plans and initiatives. In today's competitive business environment, marketing drives a significant portion of growth and captures market share. These presentation slides give marketers a structured framework to showcase their marketing strategies, objectives, target audience analysis, competitive analysis, and action plans. The visually appealing elements, charts, and graphics enable marketers to convey complex marketing concepts with clarity and impact. Use this PPT Presentation communicate their strategic vision, align their teams, and secure buy-in from stakeholders, ultimately leading to successful marketing campaigns and business outcomes. Download it now.

Template 3: Sustainable Competitive Advantage in Strategic Management PowerPoint Presentation Slides Strategy

This PPT Template is a valuable resource for organizations seeking a sustainable edge in the marketplace. The slides offer a complete framework to analyze and develop sustainable competitive advantages. It guides organizations through key strategic concepts such as value proposition, differentiation, cost leadership, and innovation. The visually compelling design and customizable features help convey complex ideas effectively, enabling presenters to articulate their unique value propositions and strategic initiatives with clarity and persuasion. Get it now.

Template 4: Strategic Management Advisory Company Profile Complete Deck

The PPT Deck helps firms present their capabilities, industry experience, and unique value proposition to potential clients and stakeholders. It covers all essential aspects of the company profile, including an introduction, mission and vision, team expertise, service offerings, case studies, client testimonials, and contact information. Use this presentation to effectively communicate your expertise, build credibility, and establish trust with its target audience, ultimately attracting new clients and partnerships. Download now from the link below.

Template 5: Business Strategic Management PowerPoint Presentation Slides

The planning template provides professionals with a systematic toolkit for creating impactful presentations on strategic business management. This slide offers a diverse range of visually captivating design options, content layouts, and data visualization tools that enable presenters to communicate complex strategic concepts with clarity and influence. From analyzing the external business environment to devising strategies and executing action plans, this template encompasses all essential elements of strategic business management. Use these slides to effectively articulate the strategic vision, engage stakeholders, and foster strategic alignment within their organizations. Whether for board meetings, executive briefings, or team presentations, download this template to empowers users with the necessary resources to deliver compelling and persuasive presentations on strategic management.

Template 6: Strategic Management Accounting PowerPoint Template Bundles

This template covers vital subjects such as cost analysis, budgeting, performance measurement, and financial forecasting. Use these templates to present financial data, analyze patterns, and communicate strategic initiatives' financial ramifications. Whether for financial reports, budget presentations, or strategic planning sessions, this PPT Layout helps professionals with the necessary resources to create informative and visually engaging presentations that facilitate informed decision-making and drive strategic accomplishments. Download it now.

Template 7: Strategic Management Planning Process PowerPoint Presentation Slides

This template guides users through the strategic management planning process, covering crucial steps such as environmental analysis, goal setting, strategy formulation, implementation, and evaluation. By utilizing these slides, professionals can effectively convey the strategic planning journey, engage stakeholders, and foster alignment within their organizations. Whether for executive briefings, team workshops, or strategic planning sessions, this template equips users with the necessary resources to deliver compelling and persuasive presentations that drive strategic excellence. Download now.

Template 8: Strategic Management Maturity Model Assessment PowerPoint Presentation Slides

This presentation template offers a structured framework to assess the maturity level of strategic management within an organization, covering crucial areas such as strategic planning, implementation, performance measurement, and organizational alignment. Organizations can use this template to identify strengths, weaknesses, and growth opportunities in their strategic management practices. It empowers organizations to create a roadmap for elevating their strategic capabilities, fostering a culture of ongoing improvement, and aligning their strategic initiatives with long-term success. Download now.

Templates 9: Stages of Strategic Management Maturity Model PowerPoint Presentation Slides

This presentation slides offer a structured framework outlining the stages of strategic management maturity, from initial ad-hoc processes to advanced, integrated approaches. This PPT Preset provides visually appealing design options, content layouts, and data visualization tools; presenters can effectively convey the stages of maturity and their corresponding characteristics. With the help of this template, organizations can assess their current position, identify areas for improvement, and develop a roadmap for advancing their strategic capabilities. This template empowers organizations to navigate the stages of strategic management maturity and align their strategies with long-term success. Get it now.

Template 10: Strategic Management Process PowerPoint Template Bundles

With this PPT Theme, you can seamlessly navigate the complexities of the strategic management process as you craft your narrative, seamlessly transitioning through environmental analysis, goal setting, strategy formulation, implementation, and evaluation. Each slide combines visuals and data visualizations in perfect harmony, weaving a captivating tale that sparks the imagination of your audience. Whether in the boardroom or a conference hall, your presentations will exude confidence and inspire action. Embrace the limitless possibilities of this template and witness your strategic expertise shine brightly, akin to a remarkable work of art. Download it now.

Template 11: Hoshin Kanri Strategic Management Schedule Performance Methodology Processes

The PPT Preset provides a comprehensive framework for organizations to manage and align their strategic objectives effectively. This template emphasizes a disciplined approach to strategic planning and execution. By implementing these processes, organizations can establish clear performance targets, track progress, and make data-driven adjustments to achieve strategic goals. With this template, organizations can enhance their strategic execution capabilities, drive organizational alignment, and achieve sustainable success. Get it now.

Template 12: Strategic Management PowerPoint Template Bundles

These bundles enable professionals to communicate strategic concepts with impact and clarity effectively. This template gives you suitable options whether you are creating a presentation on environmental analysis, strategy formulation, implementation, or performance evaluation; this will help you. Each slide is creatively designed to captivate and engage your audience, allowing you to convey complex ideas compellingly and persuasively. Using this Template Bundle gives you access to the necessary resources to deliver presentations that deeply resonate with stakeholders, foster strategic alignment, and inspire decisive action. Download it now.

The blog emphasizes the importance of well-designed and professionally crafted PowerPoint templates in conveying strategic messages and capturing the audience's attention. These templates cater to various strategic purposes, including business planning, project management , and marketing strategies. By utilizing these top-rated strategic PowerPoint templates, professionals can enhance the visual impact of their presentations and effectively communicate their strategic ideas. These templates offer a convenient and time-saving solution, it permits users to focus on the content rather than spending excessive time on design. It emphasizes visually consistent and cohesive strategies to create a professional and polished impression.

FAQs on Strategic Management

What do you mean by strategic management.

Strategic management is a process of planning, implementing, and evaluating an organization's long-term goals and objectives. It involves analyzing the internal and external factors that impact the organization's success, formulating strategies to achieve a competitive advantage, and making decisions that align with the overall strategic direction. Strategic management encompasses various activities, such as conducting environmental scans, setting strategic goals, formulating action plans, allocating resources, and monitoring performance.

What are five stages of strategic management?

The five stages of strategic management provide a systematic approach for organizations to plan, execute, and evaluate their strategies effectively.

The first stage is environmental analysis, where organizations assess the external and internal factors influencing their strategic decisions. Next is strategy formulation, involving the identification of goals and strategic options aligned with the organization's mission and vision. Strategy implementation follows, translating formulated strategies into action plans and allocating resources accordingly. The fourth stage is strategy execution, where organizations coordinate activities, monitor progress, and make necessary adjustments. Finally, the evaluation and control stage involves assessing outcomes, measuring performance, and learning from the results to improve future strategic decisions. These stages form a comprehensive framework for successful strategic management.

What are the 4 aspects of strategic management?

The four aspects of strategic management encompass environmental analysis, strategy formulation, strategy implementation, and evaluation/control. Organizations must assess their external and internal environment, develop a clear strategy, effectively execute it, and continuously evaluate progress to ensure strategic success in a dynamic business landscape.

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Home Blog Business How To Create a Project Presentation: A Guide for Impactful Content

How To Create a Project Presentation: A Guide for Impactful Content

Corporate, academic, and business meetings share one common factor: successfully delivering project presentations. This is one skill professionals should harness in terms of articulating ideas, presenting plans, and sharing outcomes through an effective project presentation.

In this fast-paced reality where new tools and frameworks make us question the human factor value, we believe there’s much to be said about how working towards building presentation skills can make a difference, especially for making a project stand out from the crowd and have a lasting impact on stakeholders. We can no longer talk about simply disclosing information, the manner in which the narrative is built, how data is introduced, and several other factors that speak of your expertise in the subject.

This article will explore the art of project presentation, giving insights to presenters to deliver a memorable project plan presentation. Whether you are new to this experience or a seasoned presenter, this article promises to give you valuable information on how to build and present a project presentation that resonates with your target audience and will convert into your expected results for the project. Let’s get started.

Table of Contents

• Who is the audience of a project presentation?

Executive Summary

Project overview, the project process model, the project scope, the project resources, the project roadmap, the project activities plan, the project risks, quality control, project execution and monitoring.

• The Project Team

What Is a Project Presentation?

A project presentation is a business activity that brings together stakeholders and team members to oversee a project from execution to completion. During a project presentation, one or two people present a document or slide deck with an overview of all the project’s details.

During a project presentation, the project manager highlights key data about the project initiation and planning activities, like the project scope, requirements gathering, a deliverable list, timelines, and milestones.

The first instance of a project presentation is right before the execution of the project itself. Then, during the project process life cycle, you present it again with timely updates and news about the progress.

Who is the audience of a project presentation? 

A project-related audience is made up of stakeholders – all individuals and entities that affect or are affected by the project’s existence.

Discuss the project presentation with team members that’ll work on the project so they know what’s at stake and what’s expected of them. They’ll need information like requirements, the roadmap, the work breakdown structure, and deliverables.

Stakeholders

Present your project to the stakeholders that can authorize resources and expenditures. Show them how the project will offer the solutions they want under the conditions they impose in a set amount of time. 

Stakeholders want to know details like project scope, budget breakdowns, timing calculations, risk assessments, and how you plan to confront these risks and be ready for changes. 

The Structure of a Project Presentation

Project presentations follow a standard structure covering all critical elements. Follow this guideline to ensure that you cover everything with the slides, the speech, and the discussion.

In the next section, we describe a project presentation structure you can build with SlideModel templates or working with our AI PowerPoint generator . As you will see, most sections in the structure are summaries or overviews of project management practices completed during initiation and planning. 

At the start of your presentation, add an executive summary slide . This section is meant to welcome the viewer to the presentation and give an idea of what’s to come. To differentiate your executive summary from the project overview that comes right after it, use the opportunity to place the project into context. 

In an executive summary , show how this particular project fits into the overall strategy for the company or the section it belongs to. If, for example, your project is about TikTok Marketing, offer information as to how it fits in the overall marketing strategy.

Continue the presentation with a project overview to show the audience what to expect. This section covers one slide or a combination of slides depending on the layout. The project overview slide serves as the introduction to a project presentation and what’s inside.

Include these items:

• An Introduction with a brief background about the project. 
• A short explanation of the project’s objectives and completion goals.
• A quick overview of the timeline with start and end dates.

The project life cycle is the series of phases that a project goes through from its inception to its completion. The project process model is the group of knowledge areas, processes, and their relationships that will guide the activities along the project lifecycle. The next slide should display the chosen project process model and explain how it’ll be carried out along the different lifecycle phases. Project process models examples include Waterfall, Scrum, and V Model for software development, and Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) and Swimlane for general business-related projects.

Process models are important for the team to understand execution processes. Stakeholders need to see the process model to understand the systematic process of activities and how long they will take. 

Use one slide for the model, show only high-level components, and offer details during the presentation if the audience asks for them.

The scope is a crucial element of any project and needs its own section in the presentation. The scoping process begins with requirements gathering and includes the creation of a work breakdown structure , an analysis of what’s in and out of scope, plus validation and scope management plans. 

One or two slides are enough to highlight key scope details in a dashboard-style layout mirroring the information on your project scope statement. Preferably, place the scope slides towards the start of the project presentation close to the process model and project resources.

Every project needs resources, and that assessment must be included in the project presentation as well. In a general sense, all resources are what make up the overall budget for the project. In turn, you’ll need to show a budget breakdown that shows high-level resources.

Like many aspects of a project presentation, what you include depends on the industry you’re working for. Construction projects use constructors, materials, machinery, etc. Software projects use programmers, designers, software licenses, computers, etc.

Time is the main resource of any project. During project planning, the project management team estimates the required effort needed to complete the defined scope. Using the Project Process Model, Scope, and Resources, a plan is built. Present a roadmap to highlight the expected time for project completion and where each milestone falls along that line.

Roadmaps can be constructed with an infinite variety of visual layouts, from highly creative and illustrative to structured formats resembling spreadsheets and tables with color-coded roadmaps across the cells. Use one slide to show the roadmap highlighting time estimates, constraints, and projections. For updated project presentations, mark where the project is on the roadmap at that particular moment in time.

Every phase of the roadmap is broken down into action plans . Action plans list activities, their duration, allocated resources (human, material, and financial), and the relationship between activities.

Present your project activities plan with a Gantt Chart and a Costs Report. The Gantt Chart will show the activities to execute, how long they will take, and who (person or team) will be responsible for them. The costs reports will show how much the execution of activities will cost.

During the presentation, you’ll spend the most time on this section, as this is when and where your entire plan is outlined. To show more detail than the roadmap overview, use a few slides to show specific sections of the main Gantt chart and show key activities per phase or milestone.

All projects present risks, and to control them, they must be identified, assessed, evaluated, and mitigated . Visualize your risk assessment with a risk matrix and include it in the project presentation. 

Use this slide to explain to stakeholders how you plan to mitigate the identified risks. Share with team members what’s expected of them in order to keep the risks under control. Risk management is a critical component of project management and something stakeholders will always be looking at.

Controlling the quality of project deliverables is critical for positive project outcomes and continued success with the deliverable. This process is called quality control or quality assurance.

The project process model includes which quality control techniques the team will use and when. Some quality assurance (QA) techniques include statistical process control (SPC), Six Sigma, ISO 9000, and Total Quality Management (TQM). Use one slide to visualize the process and your plan to execute it.

Once the project starts, the project plan is a living entity and evolves over time. This section will need to be regularly updated with progress reports, performance KPIs, and status updates.

Across these slides, explain how activities will be monitored and deliverable outcomes measured. Show exactly how you will determine if the project is on course or has deviations. Visualize all execution activities with a Gantt chart to show the current progress. Use big numbers and data points to highlight performance metrics. Use a comparison slide to visualize the completeness percentage vs. planned progress and budget consumption vs. planned budget.

Explain all monitoring activities for the execution phase using a calendar or schedule that shows on what days activities will take place and who is involved.

The Project Team 

When presenting a project, include a stakeholder map to describe the management team, the sponsors, the main stakeholders, and the implementation team or teams. Depending on the size of the project, this will be an org chart or multiple org charts across a few slides.

Why is it important to present the project team to the stakeholders and vice versa? So that everyone involved knows the other parties and their responsibilities.

Another use for the team slide or slides is to present the next person who will speak during the project presentation. This gives the audience some background on that person’s role in the project.

Case Study – Project Presentation Example

Using the structure we present above, we outlined a case study of a realistic project and how the project manager puts together the project presentation using SlideModel templates. The project presentation example is based on a complex project of building a bridge (Cline Avenue Bridge). For the educational purpose of this article, we are not delivering all the elements of the project presentation, as it is out of scope. Still, we illustrate the more representative slides of each section, show how to prepare a PowerPoint Presentation for a project and how simple it is to adapt the templates to the content that needs to be presented. As a disclaimer, all information we present is an adaptation and reinterpretation of the real project, modified by SlideModel to fit the use case learning goals. This information and presentation should not be considered a source of information related to the Cline Avenue Bridge Project.

In this slide, the presenter summarises the project highlights in a project charter style. The Project Manager can extend this introduction all over the project lifecycle, and the speech can jump from different knowledge areas without the need to change slides or get deeper into details. Specifically, in the Cline Bridge Project, the objective is narrated, the location is just mentioned and linked to a map for further details, and a set of important facts are presented (Building Information Modelling Process, Budget, Duration, Sponsor, and Constructor). Key Highlights of the final deliverable are listed (Segmental Bridge, Material Concrete, 1.7 miles of length and 46 feet of width)

Process Model

The Process Model slide illustrates the framework for the project lifecycle, processes, planning, and execution. In this slide, the Project Manager will describe the model and how it is tailored to the specifics of the project. In this case, for the development and construction of the Cline Bridge, the builder has defined the use of BIM (Building Information Modelling) as the process model. During this slide, the presenter can describe the lifecycle phases (Design, Production, Construction, Operation, and Planning) and drill down one level over the knowledge practices involved. For example, the initial stage consists of “Design”, which has two main knowledge areas, Conceptual Design, and Detailed Design. The project manager is able to explain this definition without the need to outline detailed processes and activities within them.

The Scope section of the presentation generally involves several slides, as the content layout is a list of “requirements.” Based on this fact, a table layout is suggested to make good use of space. It is important to avoid abusing the “list” and present the group of requirements rather than specific requirements. Otherwise, the project manager ends up transcribing the requirements document.

In this project presentation example, we present 10 groups of requirements traversing different stages of the project lifecycle. 

• Design Standards: Bridge design must comply with local, national, and international design standards, including relevant engineering and safety codes
• Load Capacity: The bridge must be designed to safely carry a specific maximum load, which would include the weight of the bridge itself, traffic, pedestrians, wind, and other factors.
• Seismic Design: The design must account for seismic loads. 
• Aesthetic Design: The bridge must be designed to meet certain aesthetic criteria aligned with the artists and architects.
• Accessibility and Use Requirements: Requirements for pedestrian walkways, bike lanes, vehicle lanes, load restrictions for vehicles, clearance heights for boats if over a waterway, etc.
• Regulatory Approvals: The project must secure all necessary permits and approvals from relevant local and national regulatory bodies.
• Environmental Impact: The project must take steps to minimize its environmental impact during construction and the operation of the bridge, including implementing erosion and sediment controls.
• Materials Simulation: Materials should comply with regulations and usage expectations for current and future expected requirements.
• Site Preparation: The project must include preparation of the construction site, including any necessary land clearing or grading.
• Foundations Construction: Foundations will need to support materials weight and traffic expected for the next 30 years.
• Site Acquisition: Acquire site and terrain for building and logistics.

Building a bridge involves a high level of resource usage. In an executive meeting of a project presentation, the recommendation is to structure this section as a Financial table with only one level of detail. Further details are delegated to specific resources and cost analysis presentations.

The resources list presented is:

• Professional Services
• Construction Labour
• Quality Assurance
• Contingency
• Waste Disposal and Cleanup
• Subcontractors

In order to break the style of table after table during the project presentation, we suggest using visual elements as icons and colors metaphorically related to each of the elements listed.

Project Roadmap

As explained earlier in the article, the project roadmap serves to offer a comprehensive overview of the significant milestones that will happen over the course of time. Given the magnitude of a bridge construction project and its prolonged duration, it is advisable, particularly for such extensive endeavours, to present a roadmap that aligns milestones with corresponding lifecycle phases in a discernible manner. This approach enables the audience to mentally envision the sequential progression of the construction process.

Aligned with previous slides, in the example we created a roadmap with the following high level milestones, and sub componentes:

• Project Budgeting and Financing
• Land Purchase & Renting
• Conceptual Design
• Detailed Design
• Access Routes
• Waste Disposal
• Simulations
• Materials Tests
• Seismic Tests
• Fabrication
• Preparation of Modular Pieces
• Build and Assembly
• Test under Acceptance Criteria
• Stress Test
• Operation and Maintenance

As you can see, the Project Manager decided over a sequential roadmap, presented with little detail in timings, with start and end dates to picture dimension over the diagram.

Action Plan

In the bridge construction project of the example, there will be plenty of activity plans. All along the project several of these slides will be created and updated. The most suitable option for presentation tasks, durations, precedence relationship and resource allocation is the Gantt Chart Template. We present the first Quarter of the project, over the Conceptual Design Activities. 

As displayed in the PowerPoint Slide , the subtitle clarifies the number of slides that will be used for this purpose.

The activities presented are:

• Site Analysis
• Feasibility Analysis
• Design Concepts
• BIM Model Creation
• Model Revision
• Environmental Impact
• Present Design

Project Risks

Risk management is an iterative process all over the project life cycle. When presenting your projects, the risks will vary depending on the progress over the roadmap. For this specific example we decided to present the risks being discussed during the Ideation stage, where the developer is exchanging risks with contractors and the company that will build the bridge.

Our suggested layout for this kind of information is a simple table, where the risks are clearly readable and visible, while the description is a hint for discussion rather than an in depth explanation.

It is very important to classify the presented risks, at least with two dimensions; “Impact” and “Probability”. This will generate quality conversations around them. 

Outlined Risks during the Initiation Phase:

• Design Errors
• Construction Delays
• Budget Overruns
• Regulatory Changes
• Site Conditions
• Equipment Failures
• Health and Safety Incidents

As the reader can spot, the risks outlined, are very high level, and each of them will trigger specific Risk Analysis Reports.

The quality control section of the project presentation may vary depending on the quality process adopted. For large scale companies with a uniform portfolio of projects , it is common to see a continuous improvement quality model, which iteratively builds quality over the different projects (for example software companies) For construction companies like the example, the situation is not different, and the quality control model is aligned with the specific building process model. In this specific case, the project manager is presenting the quality control process to be applied over the BIM model and the Quality Control process to be followed for the physical construction of the bridge:

Execution and Monitoring

During the project, several status meetings will be carried out. During the project presentation the manager can establish the pattern to be used along the project.

For this example, we set a basic progress dashboard where the project manager can present : 

• The current timeline
• Top 5 issues
• Current Burndown
• Top 5 risks.

The art of project presentation goes beyond listing data in random slides. A project presentation is a powerful tool to align stakeholders and foster an environment of trust and collaboration over factual information.

With a structured approach, all members involved in the project design and execution can understand the direction that’s being taken and the importance behind certain decisions. We hope these insights can turn your project into a powerful presentation that inspires and deliver results.

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Project Management, Project Planning Filed under Business

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Change Management Presentation Template

Motivate your staff to support change with Miro's Change Management Presentation Template. Explain the benefits of transformation and prevent employee frustration.

Trusted by 65M+ users and leading companies

About the Change Management Presentation Template

Impactful change management communication begins with the right slides. Use our Change Management Presentation Template to help your staff, colleagues, and partners prepare for change and embrace it.

Build awareness, eliminate stress, and get your employees excited about the future transformation. This template allows you to create an effective change management process presentation in minutes and personalize it to match your unique strategy.

What is change management?

Organizations undergo all sorts of human-centered, structural, technological, or cultural changes. These can be proactive or reactive and caused by external or internal factors.

Whatever your case may be, your employees have the right to know what’s happening and how it’s going to affect their work. They also need to understand how to support the transition and make things run more efficiently than before.

That’s where change management comes in. It’s a framework for implementing change and ensuring everyone’s on board. A change management plan helps your entire organization prepare for it and successfully navigate the new landscape, be it a merger, software migration, or major shift in the hierarchy.

Why give a change management presentation?

Contrary to popular opinion, sending a memo isn’t the best way to deliver important news. If anything, it’s guaranteed to sow confusion across the entire company and spark heated debates in the break room. If you want to tell your team about an upcoming organizational change, it’s better to go face-to-face or jump on a video call with them to explain what’s about to come and leave no questions unanswered.

A well-structured change management presentation can help you communicate organizational change effectively and ensure a smooth transition. If you find the right way to tell your employees the big news, you can boost their morale and help them mentally prepare for the shift. They won't be taken aback or outright scared when sudden changes come into effect, and they’ll have time to process them.

How to use the Change Management Presentation Template

You can map out your change management presentation and communication plan on Miro’s infinite canvas. Define your organizational change, highlight its benefits, address challenges, and outline the implementation timeline.

Once the backbone of your presentation is ready, pick this Change Management Presentation Template and start editing it frame by frame. Replace the generic information in the template with your own and tweak its structure by adding or removing slides.

When you’re done customizing your Change Management Presentation Template, switch to Presentation mode . This mode allows you to see the slides as your audience sees them, without any distractions. Use the arrow buttons or keys to navigate between slides. You can always jump back to editing mode if you need to make some adjustments.

Miro is the perfect presentation creator for quickly building presentations using one of many ready-made templates.

Tips for giving a change management process presentation

Show empathy : Speak to your team directly and try to look at the situation through their lens to fully understand how the new order of things is going to affect them.

Address the underlying causes of change : Don’t mask unpleasant truth just to make your organization appear invincible. If financial or legal problems influence the current change, your team will find out about it sooner or later.

Don’t steer away from discussing potential problems : Openly address the “side effects” of the transformation and let your staff know that you’ve performed a thorough risk assessment.

Demonstrate responsibility : Show that you’re aware of what’s at stake and that your organization is pursuing long-term benefits, not short-term wins.

Use facts and numbers : Squeeze the water out of your presentation and populate your change management slides with data from real reports, case studies, or publications to prove why this particular solution or structure is better than what you had before.

Facilitate open communication : Collect feedback and ask questions to understand how ready your staff is to accept the change and what’s holding them back.

Invite participation : Encourage your employees to vocalize their thoughts and worries and welcome any bottom-up initiatives that can help make the transition seamless.

How do I communicate organizational changes to increase trust?

The key is to show your team that you all are leaving your comfort zone for a reason. You’ll have a much easier time convincing your employees to accept change if you stay honest with them and prove that this temporary turbulence is well worth it. Combat uncertainty with facts, avoid false positivity, and focus on long-term goals. Use real-world examples to demonstrate what the future transformation means in practice. Also, make your employees feel seen and respected by recognizing and addressing their fears, concerns, and skepticism.

When is the right time to give a change management presentation?

A strong change management plan requires agility. You don’t want to wait for the perfect moment and end up delivering your change management presentation too late to ease the transition. If rumors about the upcoming change have already started circulating, they’ll negatively affect your company’s image and undermine staff trust. Prioritize timing over the perfect presentation. The goal is to announce organizational change before it’s in full swing and clearly communicate what it means. This way, you’ll prevent misconceptions or panic from spreading far and wide — and inspire genuine organizational commitment.

Get started with this template right now.

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Change management presentations: The all-in-one guide

Learn how to create effective change management presentations that engage your audience and help you achieve your goals.

Raja Bothra

Building presentations

Hey there, fellow presentation enthusiast!

If you're reading this, you're probably gearing up for a change management presentation.

Well, you're in luck because today, we're diving deep into the world of change management presentations.

Get ready to discover everything you need to know to ace your next presentation and leave your audience not just informed but inspired.

What is change management?

Change management is a concept that's become essential in today's ever-evolving business landscape. It's all about making strategic shifts within an organization while ensuring a smooth transition. Why? Because change is inevitable, but its success isn't. Companies that adapt effectively thrive, while those that struggle often find themselves facing a bumpy ride.

Reasons why change management initiatives fail

Now that we know the importance of change management let's explore why some initiatives hit a brick wall. The truth is, not all change efforts yield the desired results. Here are a few common reasons why:

• Resistance to change: One of the most significant roadblocks to change is resistance from employees. It's like trying to push a boulder uphill. We'll discuss strategies to tackle this later on.
• Lack of executive commitment: If the top brass isn't fully on board, it's tough to expect employees to embrace change wholeheartedly.
• Unrealistic expectations: Sometimes, organizations set the bar too high, leading to disappointment when results fall short.
• Inadequate team: Building a capable change management team is crucial. Without the right players, your strategy may crumble.

How to structure an effective change management presentation

Now that we understand what change management is and why it often hits roadblocks, let's get into the nitty-gritty of crafting a compelling presentation. Your presentation should be like a well-structured roadmap, guiding your audience through the change journey. Here's how you can achieve that:

• Introduction to change management: Start by defining change management. Explain why it's vital for organizations today. Make it crystal clear.
• The change management process: Dive into the step-by-step process of change management. It's like following a recipe – each ingredient plays a crucial role.
• Utilizing powerpoint templates: Presentation slides are your canvas. Explore how templates can make your presentation visually appealing.
• Understanding organizational change: Delve into the dynamics of organizational change. What drives it? What are the forces at play?
• Overcoming resistance to change: Address the elephant in the room: resistance. Share strategies to navigate this challenging terrain.
• Executing the change process: Break down the implementation phase. What steps should you follow to make it successful?
• The change management team: Introduce the key players behind change management. It's a team effort.
• Navigating current and future states: Discuss the transition from the current state to the future state. It's like crossing a bridge – a bit shaky but necessary.
• Identifying barriers: What obstacles might you face on your change journey? Identify and strategize.
• Engaging key stakeholders: Your stakeholders are your allies. How can you get them on board with the changes?

Do’s and don'ts for an effective change management presentation

Congratulations, you've mastered the structure of a compelling change management presentation. Now, let's delve into the critical do's and don'ts to ensure your presentation not only hits the mark but leaves a lasting impact.

Do's :

• Engage your audience : Start by captivating your audience's attention. Share relatable stories, use visual aids, or pose thought-provoking questions.
• Stay focused on the message : Keep your presentation laser-focused on the core message. Avoid veering off into tangents.
• Use visuals effectively : Incorporate compelling visuals to reinforce your points. A well-placed graph or chart can convey complex information with ease.
• Simplify complex concepts : Break down intricate ideas into digestible pieces. Your audience should leave with a clear understanding of the subject.
• Interact with your audience: Foster engagement by encouraging questions and discussions. Make your presentation a dialogue, not a monologue.

Don'ts :

• Avoid jargon : Steer clear of technical language or industry jargon that might alienate your audience. Speak in plain, understandable terms.
• Don't overload with information : Less is often more. Don't overwhelm your audience with a barrage of facts and figures. Focus on the most relevant information.
• Refrain from reading slides : Your slides are there to complement your presentation, not serve as your script. Avoid simply reading off them.
• Don't rush through : Take your time to explain concepts clearly. Rushing through your presentation can leave your audience bewildered.
• Steer clear of negativity : Maintain a positive tone. Avoid dwelling on the challenges of change; instead, emphasize the opportunities it presents.

Summarizing key takeaways

Let's take a moment to distill the wisdom you've acquired throughout this journey. Consider this section as your treasure chest of insights, a concise roadmap to guide you in your pursuit of mastery in change management presentations.

• Engagement is essential: Begin with a captivating introduction. Engage your audience from the start.
• Clarity is king: Maintain a singular message. Avoid tangents and information overload.
• Leverage visual aids: Use charts, graphs, and images. Simplify complex ideas and enhance understanding.
• Simplify complexity: Break down intricate concepts. Ensure a clear and uncomplicated understanding.
• Encourage interaction and dialogue: Foster questions, discussions, and engagement. Make your presentation a two-way communication.
• Avoid jargon: Speak in plain language. Keep it accessible and relatable.
• Quality over quantity: Focus on the most relevant information. Prioritize content wisely; avoid overwhelming your audience.
• Be the narrator, not the reader: Use slides as visual aids, not scripts. Engage through storytelling and explanation.
• Avoid rushing: Take your time for clarity. Don't rush through your material.
• Emphasize positivity: Highlight the opportunities that change presents. Maintain a positive tone throughout.

In conclusion, change management presentations are your ticket to successfully navigating organizational transformations. By following these guidelines and using Prezent, you're well on your way to becoming a change management presentation pro. Remember, change is constant, but with the right tools and knowledge, you can ride the waves of change with confidence.

1. What is the significance of using a change management powerpoint or change management ppt in presentations?

Utilizing a change management powerpoint or change management ppt is crucial for visually representing complex ideas. These presentations help convey the forces for change effectively. Visual aids simplify understanding, and you can easily download templates to streamline the process.

2. How do you ensure active manager involvement in the change management process?

Managers play a pivotal role in change management. To foster their involvement, align their objectives with the change plan's objective. Ensure they have the necessary support system for change agents and understand their performance management role in the transition.

3. What are the key phases of change in a change management plan, and how do you ensure a smooth implementation of change?

The phases of change typically include preparation, planning, execution, and evaluation. To ensure smooth implementation of change, focus on alignment with your team members, provide the required resources for change, and gauge the organization's readiness for change.

4. Can Google Slides be used effectively for change management presentations?

Absolutely, Google Slides can be a valuable tool. They offer collaborative features, making it easier to work on a change project. Just ensure they align with your change plan and conduct a gap analysis if needed to evaluate their suitability.

5. How can organizations maintain sustaining momentum during a change initiative, especially when facing restraining forces?

To maintain sustaining momentum, it's crucial to identify and address restraining forces effectively. This often requires strong sponsorship, a clear understanding of driving forces, and a commitment to learning and reinforcing new behaviors. Effective leadership at all levels is essential to navigate these challenges successfully.

Create your change management presentation with Prezent

Are you excited to put your newfound knowledge to use? We recommend using Prezent, the all-in-one AI presentation software for enterprise teams. With a library of over 35,000 slides, real-time collaboration, and brand-approved designs from Fortune 500 companies, Prezent can save you up to 70% of presentation creation time while keeping you 100% on brand.

So, go ahead, create a presentation that not only informs but inspires change. Good luck!

Ready to boost your change management presentations? Start with a free trial or book a demo with Prezent today!

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How to Prepare an M&A Management Presentation

Merger and acquisition (M&A) management presentations provide critical pieces of information to prospective investors who are considering either investing or buying your SaaS business and or SaaS product. Depending on the size of the potential deal, a SaaS company may engage an investment bank to help put this together, or it may lay solely on the shoulders of a founder. In any event, creating an M&A management presentation that paints a SaaS business in the best possible light is a heavy lift for everyone involved. 

The article will review the role of M&A management presentations and its key elements, such as financial information, value proposition, crafting an engaging narrative, and ways to build trust with potential investors and buyers. 

The Role of Management Presentations

Management presentations are essential components of the M&A process, giving potential investors and buyers a chance to hear from management and get insights into a company’s current performance, future plans, and projected performance. The management presentation will typically be the first step in a potential M&A transaction and is commonly called a Confidential Information Memorandum (CIM). The idea is to give prospective investors and buyers enough detail to allow them to determine if the SaaS business or product is something they may be interested in. 

By presenting an informative and well-prepared management presentation, a SaaS business helps create trust and credibility with prospective bidders, which will benefit the eventual deal to be negotiated. 

Key Elements in a Successful Presentation

M&A management presentations will commonly include the following information, but not limited to:

• Overview of the SaaS company and market
• Current strategy and opportunities for growth
• Current SaaS products and services
• Leadership team and organization structure
• Past financial performance, forecast and SaaS specific metrics. 

While each section of the management presentation is important and serves a purpose, it goes without saying it will be of keen interest to all potential investors or buyers. 

Preparing Your Financial Information

Even the most seasoned SaaS may not have their bookkeeping and financial records up to date. Well before a SaaS is considering selling, an effort should be made to clean up its financial house. With the financial house in order with prepared financial statements, a SaaS business can focus on the most important part of the M&A process, getting the best bid and sale price possible. 

Historical Financial Performance

Potential investors and buyers need to see how well a SaaS business has financially performed in the past and how the financial performance is trending. This information should be provided in an easy-to-consume fashion in the management presentation; however, this information will be pulled from prior period financial statements. Common financial statement ratios such as liquidity and leverage ratios will provide greater insight into the financial performance of the company. SaaS businesses should also consider including SaaS-specific metrics such as the Rule of 40 and SaaS Magic Number . These industry-specific metrics provide valuable insight into the SaaS business and allow prospective investors or buyers to be able to compare the results with industry peers. 

Creating a Comprehensive Forecast

It’s critical to include thorough forecasts in the management presentation, which should be taken from a very detailed and accurate financial model that is typically created and managed in Microsoft Excel. This comprehensive forecast needs to include forecasted revenue by product line with assumptions about customer churn rates , upsells and cross-sells , etc., along with Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) and OpEx/overhead expenses such as General and administrative (G&A)

Showcasing Your Company’s Unique Value Proposition

In an M&A management presentation, it is critical to articulate the company’s distinct value and show prospective investors why they should be interested in either investing or buying the business. 

Identifying the Competitive Advantage

Identifying what sets the SaaS business or product apart from others in the industry helps reinforce the company’s unique value proposition. To identify and showcase this competitive advantage, the management presentation should clearly state where the business stands in the market, customer demographics, and how it prices products or services offered compared with rival firms. 

Crafting a Compelling Narrative

For a management presentation to be successful, it is essential for its overall narrative to be informative and captivating. To achieve this goal and create an impact on potential buyers, both intellectually and emotionally, management can voice over certain slides and information with storytelling techniques in combination with visual aids. This may include a short story on how the SaaS received recognition or awards for providing excellent customer service. 

In order to craft memorable presentations that influence investors, we will explore different ways of narrating stories along with illustrating the importance of visuals/designs in M&A management presentations. 

Storytelling Techniques

The importance of using storytelling tools, such as metaphors and anecdotes, in management presentations should not be underestimated. These techniques can help simplify concepts for potential buyers and help create an emotional impact whereby the information and presentation will be more easily remembered. 

Visual Aids and Design

When creating a management presentation for investors, incorporating visual aids and professional design elements can be beneficial. These could include charts, graphs, diagrams, photographs, or videos to help communicate complex concepts and information more effectively. They may also emphasize important points while captivating the audience’s attention at an in-person meeting. For optimal results, it is key to maintain simplicity and clarity when utilizing these visual aids, such as using easy-to-read and consistent fonts. 

Building Trust and Credibility

Successful M&A management presentations must help establish trust and credibility with prospective buyers. To help achieve this aim, when delivering a presentation, it is important to address any known reservations or doubts held by potential investors and how the business believes these apprehensions can be remedied. By addressing this head-on, the business will convey assurance these concerns can be addressed and continue to build trust through openness and transparency. 

Demonstrating Integrity and Commitment

Another effective method to demonstrate integrity and commitment is through the emphasis on ethical and integrity-based practices. Revealing that management is reliable, moral, faithful, and committed continues to build trust with prospective investors or buyers. Now, this wouldn’t typically be a slide that says the business has these values but rather shown through the review of the management presentation. This may include not using confusing notes to financial or other information presented that clouds the information provided, using realistic forecast assumptions such as growth estimates, and being able to answer questions directly and succinctly. 

To create a successful M&A management presentation that stands out to potential buyers and investors, careful planning, drafting, and review are essential. A thorough understanding of the company’s financials is required, as well as an appealing value proposition and narrative. Lastly, demonstrating trustworthiness is essential to make any potential transaction as smooth as possible, and to create an environment where investors and buyers can confidently bid for the SaaS business – ideally, at the higher end of internal valuations. 

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a management presentation in m&a.

An M&A management presentation is where the sell side presents relevant high-level information to potential investors and buyers, the buy side. The presentation answers commonly asked questions and portrays the business in the best possible light.

What are some storytelling techniques that can enhance my management presentation?

Employing analogies, similes, metaphors, and stories can assist in rendering a complex management presentation easier for the audience to comprehend and relate to. It also helps make it more accessible by providing relatable comparisons.

How can I address concerns and doubts during the M&A management presentation?

For the management presentation, it is essential to demonstrate openness and truthfulness while providing current and accurate information.