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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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Blog Beginner Guides How To Make a Good Presentation [A Complete Guide]

How To Make a Good Presentation [A Complete Guide]

Written by: Krystle Wong Jul 20, 2023

A top-notch presentation possesses the power to drive action. From winning stakeholders over and conveying a powerful message to securing funding — your secret weapon lies within the realm of creating an effective presentation .  

Being an excellent presenter isn’t confined to the boardroom. Whether you’re delivering a presentation at work, pursuing an academic career, involved in a non-profit organization or even a student, nailing the presentation game is a game-changer.

In this article, I’ll cover the top qualities of compelling presentations and walk you through a step-by-step guide on how to give a good presentation. Here’s a little tip to kick things off: for a headstart, check out Venngage’s collection of free presentation templates . They are fully customizable, and the best part is you don’t need professional design skills to make them shine!

These valuable presentation tips cater to individuals from diverse professional backgrounds, encompassing business professionals, sales and marketing teams, educators, trainers, students, researchers, non-profit organizations, public speakers and presenters. 

No matter your field or role, these tips for presenting will equip you with the skills to deliver effective presentations that leave a lasting impression on any audience.

Click to jump ahead:

What are the 10 qualities of a good presentation?

Step-by-step guide on how to prepare an effective presentation, 9 effective techniques to deliver a memorable presentation, faqs on making a good presentation, how to create a presentation with venngage in 5 steps.

When it comes to giving an engaging presentation that leaves a lasting impression, it’s not just about the content — it’s also about how you deliver it. Wondering what makes a good presentation? Well, the best presentations I’ve seen consistently exhibit these 10 qualities:

1. Clear structure

No one likes to get lost in a maze of information. Organize your thoughts into a logical flow, complete with an introduction, main points and a solid conclusion. A structured presentation helps your audience follow along effortlessly, leaving them with a sense of satisfaction at the end.

Regardless of your presentation style , a quality presentation starts with a clear roadmap. Browse through Venngage’s template library and select a presentation template that aligns with your content and presentation goals. Here’s a good presentation example template with a logical layout that includes sections for the introduction, main points, supporting information and a conclusion: 

2. Engaging opening

Hook your audience right from the start with an attention-grabbing statement, a fascinating question or maybe even a captivating anecdote. Set the stage for a killer presentation!

The opening moments of your presentation hold immense power – check out these 15 ways to start a presentation to set the stage and captivate your audience.

3. Relevant content

Make sure your content aligns with their interests and needs. Your audience is there for a reason, and that’s to get valuable insights. Avoid fluff and get straight to the point, your audience will be genuinely excited.

4. Effective visual aids

Picture this: a slide with walls of text and tiny charts, yawn! Visual aids should be just that—aiding your presentation. Opt for clear and visually appealing slides, engaging images and informative charts that add value and help reinforce your message.

With Venngage, visualizing data takes no effort at all. You can import data from CSV or Google Sheets seamlessly and create stunning charts, graphs and icon stories effortlessly to showcase your data in a captivating and impactful way.

5. Clear and concise communication

Keep your language simple, and avoid jargon or complicated terms. Communicate your ideas clearly, so your audience can easily grasp and retain the information being conveyed. This can prevent confusion and enhance the overall effectiveness of the message. 

6. Engaging delivery

Spice up your presentation with a sprinkle of enthusiasm! Maintain eye contact, use expressive gestures and vary your tone of voice to keep your audience glued to the edge of their seats. A touch of charisma goes a long way!

7. Interaction and audience engagement

Turn your presentation into an interactive experience — encourage questions, foster discussions and maybe even throw in a fun activity. Engaged audiences are more likely to remember and embrace your message.

Transform your slides into an interactive presentation with Venngage’s dynamic features like pop-ups, clickable icons and animated elements. Engage your audience with interactive content that lets them explore and interact with your presentation for a truly immersive experience.

8. Effective storytelling

Who doesn’t love a good story? Weaving relevant anecdotes, case studies or even a personal story into your presentation can captivate your audience and create a lasting impact. Stories build connections and make your message memorable.

A great presentation background is also essential as it sets the tone, creates visual interest and reinforces your message. Enhance the overall aesthetics of your presentation with these 15 presentation background examples and captivate your audience’s attention.

9. Well-timed pacing

Pace your presentation thoughtfully with well-designed presentation slides, neither rushing through nor dragging it out. Respect your audience’s time and ensure you cover all the essential points without losing their interest.

10. Strong conclusion

Last impressions linger! Summarize your main points and leave your audience with a clear takeaway. End your presentation with a bang , a call to action or an inspiring thought that resonates long after the conclusion.

In-person presentations aside, acing a virtual presentation is of paramount importance in today’s digital world. Check out this guide to learn how you can adapt your in-person presentations into virtual presentations . 

Preparing an effective presentation starts with laying a strong foundation that goes beyond just creating slides and notes. One of the quickest and best ways to make a presentation would be with the help of a good presentation software . 

Otherwise, let me walk you to how to prepare for a presentation step by step and unlock the secrets of crafting a professional presentation that sets you apart.

1. Understand the audience and their needs

Before you dive into preparing your masterpiece, take a moment to get to know your target audience. Tailor your presentation to meet their needs and expectations , and you’ll have them hooked from the start!

2. Conduct thorough research on the topic

Time to hit the books (or the internet)! Don’t skimp on the research with your presentation materials — dive deep into the subject matter and gather valuable insights . The more you know, the more confident you’ll feel in delivering your presentation.

3. Organize the content with a clear structure

No one wants to stumble through a chaotic mess of information. Outline your presentation with a clear and logical flow. Start with a captivating introduction, follow up with main points that build on each other and wrap it up with a powerful conclusion that leaves a lasting impression.

Delivering an effective business presentation hinges on captivating your audience, and Venngage’s professionally designed business presentation templates are tailor-made for this purpose. With thoughtfully structured layouts, these templates enhance your message’s clarity and coherence, ensuring a memorable and engaging experience for your audience members.

Don’t want to build your presentation layout from scratch? pick from these 5 foolproof presentation layout ideas that won’t go wrong. 

4. Develop visually appealing and supportive visual aids

Spice up your presentation with eye-catching visuals! Create slides that complement your message, not overshadow it. Remember, a picture is worth a thousand words, but that doesn’t mean you need to overload your slides with text.

Well-chosen designs create a cohesive and professional look, capturing your audience’s attention and enhancing the overall effectiveness of your message. Here’s a list of carefully curated PowerPoint presentation templates and great background graphics that will significantly influence the visual appeal and engagement of your presentation.

5. Practice, practice and practice

Practice makes perfect — rehearse your presentation and arrive early to your presentation to help overcome stage fright. Familiarity with your material will boost your presentation skills and help you handle curveballs with ease.

6. Seek feedback and make necessary adjustments

Don’t be afraid to ask for help and seek feedback from friends and colleagues. Constructive criticism can help you identify blind spots and fine-tune your presentation to perfection.

With Venngage’s real-time collaboration feature , receiving feedback and editing your presentation is a seamless process. Group members can access and work on the presentation simultaneously and edit content side by side in real-time. Changes will be reflected immediately to the entire team, promoting seamless teamwork.

7. Prepare for potential technical or logistical issues

Prepare for the unexpected by checking your equipment, internet connection and any other potential hiccups. If you’re worried that you’ll miss out on any important points, you could always have note cards prepared. Remember to remain focused and rehearse potential answers to anticipated questions.

8. Fine-tune and polish your presentation

As the big day approaches, give your presentation one last shine. Review your talking points, practice how to present a presentation and make any final tweaks. Deep breaths — you’re on the brink of delivering a successful presentation!

In competitive environments, persuasive presentations set individuals and organizations apart. To brush up on your presentation skills, read these guides on how to make a persuasive presentation and tips to presenting effectively . 

Whether you’re an experienced presenter or a novice, the right techniques will let your presentation skills soar to new heights!

From public speaking hacks to interactive elements and storytelling prowess, these 9 effective presentation techniques will empower you to leave a lasting impression on your audience and make your presentations unforgettable.

1. Confidence and positive body language

Positive body language instantly captivates your audience, making them believe in your message as much as you do. Strengthen your stage presence and own that stage like it’s your second home! Stand tall, shoulders back and exude confidence. 

2. Eye contact with the audience

Break down that invisible barrier and connect with your audience through their eyes. Maintaining eye contact when giving a presentation builds trust and shows that you’re present and engaged with them.

3. Effective use of hand gestures and movement

A little movement goes a long way! Emphasize key points with purposeful gestures and don’t be afraid to walk around the stage. Your energy will be contagious!

4. Utilize storytelling techniques

Weave the magic of storytelling into your presentation. Share relatable anecdotes, inspiring success stories or even personal experiences that tug at the heartstrings of your audience. Adjust your pitch, pace and volume to match the emotions and intensity of the story. Varying your speaking voice adds depth and enhances your stage presence.

5. Incorporate multimedia elements

Spice up your presentation with a dash of visual pizzazz! Use slides, images and video clips to add depth and clarity to your message. Just remember, less is more—don’t overwhelm them with information overload. 

Turn your presentations into an interactive party! Involve your audience with questions, polls or group activities. When they actively participate, they become invested in your presentation’s success. Bring your design to life with animated elements. Venngage allows you to apply animations to icons, images and text to create dynamic and engaging visual content.

6. Utilize humor strategically

Laughter is the best medicine—and a fantastic presentation enhancer! A well-placed joke or lighthearted moment can break the ice and create a warm atmosphere , making your audience more receptive to your message.

7. Practice active listening and respond to feedback

Be attentive to your audience’s reactions and feedback. If they have questions or concerns, address them with genuine interest and respect. Your responsiveness builds rapport and shows that you genuinely care about their experience.

8. Apply the 10-20-30 rule

Apply the 10-20-30 presentation rule and keep it short, sweet and impactful! Stick to ten slides, deliver your presentation within 20 minutes and use a 30-point font to ensure clarity and focus. Less is more, and your audience will thank you for it!

9. Implement the 5-5-5 rule

Simplicity is key. Limit each slide to five bullet points, with only five words per bullet point and allow each slide to remain visible for about five seconds. This rule keeps your presentation concise and prevents information overload.

Simple presentations are more engaging because they are easier to follow. Summarize your presentations and keep them simple with Venngage’s gallery of simple presentation templates and ensure that your message is delivered effectively across your audience.

1. How to start a presentation?

To kick off your presentation effectively, begin with an attention-grabbing statement or a powerful quote. Introduce yourself, establish credibility and clearly state the purpose and relevance of your presentation.

2. How to end a presentation?

For a strong conclusion, summarize your talking points and key takeaways. End with a compelling call to action or a thought-provoking question and remember to thank your audience and invite any final questions or interactions.

3. How to make a presentation interactive?

To make your presentation interactive, encourage questions and discussion throughout your talk. Utilize multimedia elements like videos or images and consider including polls, quizzes or group activities to actively involve your audience.

In need of inspiration for your next presentation? I’ve got your back! Pick from these 120+ presentation ideas, topics and examples to get started. 

Creating a stunning presentation with Venngage is a breeze with our user-friendly drag-and-drop editor and professionally designed templates for all your communication needs. 

Here’s how to make a presentation in just 5 simple steps with the help of Venngage:

Step 1: Sign up for Venngage for free using your email, Gmail or Facebook account or simply log in to access your account. 

Step 2: Pick a design from our selection of free presentation templates (they’re all created by our expert in-house designers).

Step 3: Make the template your own by customizing it to fit your content and branding. With Venngage’s intuitive drag-and-drop editor, you can easily modify text, change colors and adjust the layout to create a unique and eye-catching design.

Step 4: Elevate your presentation by incorporating captivating visuals. You can upload your images or choose from Venngage’s vast library of high-quality photos, icons and illustrations. 

Step 5: Upgrade to a premium or business account to export your presentation in PDF and print it for in-person presentations or share it digitally for free!

By following these five simple steps, you’ll have a professionally designed and visually engaging presentation ready in no time. With Venngage’s user-friendly platform, your presentation is sure to make a lasting impression. So, let your creativity flow and get ready to shine in your next presentation!

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How to Create a Successful Project Presentation?

In any business, project managers need to be able to communicate a project strategy to clients effectively. It can bring in new, long-term clients to your agency if done correctly. However, doing so incorrectly could seriously undermine your efforts to acquire or retain clients. One thing that unites business, academic, and corporate meetings is making a project presentation look good. 

Professionals need this skill when effectively communicating ideas, outlining goals, and sharing project results. Creating and delivering a project presentation that connects with your target audience will lead to the project’s anticipated outcomes, regardless of your level of presentation experience. This blog will walk you through the art of presenting a project and offer business professionals advice on making their project plan presentation stand out. 

What is a Project Presentation?

A project presentation is a business activity where team members and stakeholders come together to supervise a project from start to finish. It is a formal submission of a project to stakeholders for discussion of a topic and acceptance. One or more business professionals provide a document or slide deck summarizing every project detail during a presentation.

The project manager presents essential information regarding the start of the project and its preparation, including the project scope, requirements collection, deliverables list, schedule, and milestones. A project management presentation is typically made for the first time before the project’s implementation. Then, as the project progresses, you reintroduce it to the stakeholders with timely updates and news.

Who is the Audience for Your Project Presentation?

Team members and organizations involved in the project’s success or failure comprise stakeholders and other team members:

Show the project presentation to the team members who will be working on the project so they are aware of the expectations and the risks involved. Information such as the requirements, the work breakdown structure, the plan, and the deliverables will be required.

Stakeholders

Show your project to the people who can approve funds and resources, i.e., the stakeholders. Demonstrate to them how the project will provide the desired solutions for the problems they raise within the specified time frame. 

The stakeholders are interested in the project’s scope , budget breakdowns , scheduling computations, risk assessments, and your plans for mitigating those risks and adapting to changes. Hence, they are the ideal audience for your project management presentation.

How to Successfully Create a Project Presentation?

Before jumping onto how to present a project, let us see what steps you should follow to create a successful project presentation:

Establish Objectives for Your Project

• Layout your Plan
• Outline the Problem and Solution
• Keep the Slides in your Presentation Brief
• Use More Images and Less Text

Utilize Good Quality Diagrams, Presentation Aids, and Visuals

• Pay Attention to Design
• Begin with a Template for your Presentation

Before delving into the essentials of your project presentation, you should respond to the following queries:

• What goals does your project aim to accomplish?
• Why is it crucial that you and your group meet your objectives?
• How are you going to let your audience know what your objectives are?  

Your project is already doomed to failure if it lacks specific goals. It’s common for project managers  to skip the goal-setting stage. However, this is not advised. That’s because you can make things easier for yourself to fail. Stakeholder buy-in can be achieved once project goals are well-defined.

The question now is: How do you set and accomplish project goals? Using the SMART goal-setting process is one way to do that. 

SMART project goal-setting:

• “SMART” is an abbreviation for the words “specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound”.  
• Setting and carrying out effective project plans need the use of SMART targets . It requires a closer examination of the more minor elements that matter most to your audience.

Layout Your Plan

Outlining your strategy for achieving your goals is a crucial next step after setting them. Putting your idea into an executable plan with steps for execution is a great place to start. 

You may be wondering why this is a necessary stage in making a project presentation that works. Well, p lanning a project , no matter how big or small, is easier when you have a thorough strategy, structure, and layout. It eliminates ambiguity and makes it easier for your audience to understand the project roadmap without missing anything.

Both technical and non-technical project aspects should be included in your plan layout. As a result, you should use a project presentation template that outlines all the procedures and activities in detail to offer yourself an advantage. Additionally, the structure of your PowerPoint or Google Slides presentation should be straightforward and understandable.

Depending on the kind of project, your plan might contain important information like:

• The earlier-described aims and objectives
• Your project’s framework, technique, and scope
• Project deliverables, acceptance criteria, and milestones
• Timeline and schedule for the project 
• Estimates of resources and budget, etc.

You can use a pre-made customizable project management presentation template available online, like SlideUpLift . You can make this presentation template uniquely yours by modifying it.

When creating a project plan, there are no hard and fast rules. However, you should divide it into three sections if you want to develop an engaging approach that will stick with your audience:

• Introduction
• Conclusion and key takeaways

Outline the Problem and its Solution

You have just finished drafting your project action plan . It’s time to let your audience know about your project’s objectives and plan. It’s your responsibility to hold your audience’s attention from the beginning to the end, whether you’re pitching a project plan to clients or an investor deck.

Emphasizing your audience’s problems is one of the best strategies to get their attention.  Having stunning slides highlighting your outstanding product features and project activities is insufficient. Ensure that your project presentation is set up to:

• List the problems that your audience is facing.
• Stress how your initiative, offering, or service helps them with their problems.
• Describe the advantages of using your product or contributing to your project for them.
• Simply put, your audience should understand how your project improves their lives. As soon as they know this, they will pay attention to your suggestions and act accordingly.
• Avoid assuming anything about your audience in general. 

If you want the audience on board, discuss their issues and potential solutions in a separate presentation. Make sure they know how your initiative will help them.

Keep the Slides in Your Presentation Brief

Prioritize quality over quantity while designing project presentations. Make sure your slides are brief and easy to understand. Your audience will appreciate that you respect their time when you do this. 

The following justify why you should keep your presentation short:

• Not only may concise presentation slides be effective, but they may also be memorable.
• There is a noticeable decline in attention span after 30 minutes during project or business presentations. You run the risk of losing the interest of your audience midway through if you make long speeches. 
• No one wants to spend hours watching you flip a ton of slides. Focus your audience’s attention and get them to pay attention to the material by using shorter slides.

Use More Images and Less Text  

Using more images and less text in your presentations is another excellent method to keep them engaging but succinct. Recall that your slide show should support, not take the place of, your spoken presentation. Therefore, you want to avoid cramming too much data onto a single presentation. 

Adding too much text to your presentation could: 

• Bore and overwhelm your audiences.
• Draw the audience’s focus to the text, which will lessen the impact of your presentation.

When information is presented visually and in bite-sized portions, people remember it better. This holds for corporate leaders, project managers, both B2B and B2C audiences.

Presenting projects successfully requires the use of visuals. Visual aids help viewers retain 95% of a message, drawing them in and holding their interest. However, they maintain just approximately 10% when exchanged by text. 

You can employ a wide range of visual aids in your presentations, such as:

• Pictures Videos 
• Charts and graphs
• Maps of heat and choropleth
• Dispersion charts 

Your chances of gaining audience engagement and encouraging answers to your call-to-action (CTA) will increase if you include images and videos. Mind maps, Gantt charts , and whiteboard drawings are excellent tools for visualizing project plans in their early stages. Using maps, graphs, charts , and trees, you can display the architecture for projects, including technology. 

Pay Attention to Design  

Your project presentation may succeed or fail based on its design. Whether you are a rookie or an expert designer, design tools offer you an advantage. In minutes, you can produce visually striking presentation designs for your company.

The good news is that creating eye-catching project presentations doesn’t have to break the cash. Millions of breathtaking royalty-free photos and lovely pre-made layouts are available for your slides. 

These are some pointers to keep in mind when creating your slides.

• Make Use of a Proper Color Scheme 

Use color sparingly in your presentations if you want them to look appealing. Everyone loves color, so we get it. However, using too many colors may make your presentations disorganized and unpleasant.

• Make Use of Clearly Identifiable Typography 

Changing your font can influence readers’ understanding of your words. Therefore, ensure that your slides convey the intended content and look professional and well-organized. 

Begin With a Template for Your Presentation

Making powerful project presentations can take much time, regardless of experience level. Suppose you are facing an impending deadline. Writing your project plan, making your slide notes, creating your slides, finding and including images, and other tasks would be on your plate. Creating these things from scratch could take longer and result in messy presentations. 

Using presentation templates might relieve all of your worries. They make it quick and simple for you to create project presentations that appear professional. Because the slides are pre-designed, there will be space for you to add any type of content you would require. The design is present in every form—progress bar, chart, graph, table , video , or image. All you have to do is enter text, add data, or add an image. And just like that, your presentation is set to go. 

Case Study For a Project Presentation

The Cline Avenue Bridge is an example of a difficult project that serves as the basis for the project presentation example. Since it is outside the purview of this article, we are not providing all of the presentation’s components for instructional purposes. Nevertheless, we demonstrate how to create a PowerPoint presentation for a project, how to customize the templates to the content to be presented, and how to show the more typical slides of each component. 

This is a case study of a real project and how the project manager uses templates to put together the project presentation using the structure we presented above.  Here’s how to create a PowerPoint presentation for a project, along with some project presentation ideas.

Project Overview:

The presenter provides a project charter-style summary of the project’s highlights on this slide. The project manager can expand upon the introduction throughout the project lifespan, and the speech can seamlessly transition across several knowledge domains without requiring a slide change or in-depth discussion. 

In particular, the Cline Bridge Project narrates its goal, briefly mentions its location, provides a link to a map for additional information, and presents several key statistics (Building Information Modelling Process, Budget, Duration, Sponsor, and Constructor). The final deliverable’s salient features—a concrete segmental bridge measuring 1.7 miles in length and 46 feet in width—are enumerated.

Process Model:

The framework for the project lifecycle, processes, planning, and execution is shown in the Process Model presentation. In this slide, the project manager will discuss how the model is customized to the project’s particulars. In this instance, the builder has specified the use of BIM (Building Information Modelling) as the process model for the design and construction of the Cline Bridge. 

During this slide, the presenter might further detail the knowledge practices involved in each lifecycle phase—Design, Production, Construction, Operation, and Planning. Conceptual and detailed design are the two primary knowledge areas that make up the first stage, for instance, “Design.” 

Since the content arrangement for the scope section of the presentation consists of a list of “requirements,” it typically consists of multiple slides. This information leads to a recommended table arrangement that maximizes available space. It’s crucial to portray the set of needs rather than the individual requirements and to refrain from misusing the “list.” If not, the requirements document is transcribed by the project manager.

This example project presentation shows ten categories of requirements covering various project lifecycle stages. 

• Conceptual Design
• Construction
• Construction Logistics

Utilizing a lot of resources is necessary when building a bridge. Organizing this component of a project presentation as a single-level financial table at an executive meeting is advised. Specific resources and cost analysis presentations are tasked with providing more information.

The list of available resources is as follows:

• Expert Services
• Construction labor, land machinery, materials, and quality assurance
• Backup Subcontractors for Waste Disposal and Cleaning

We recommend incorporating visual elements, such as icons and colors that are symbolically tied to each of the items stated, to break up the monotony of table after table throughout the project presentation.

Project Schedule:

The purpose of the project roadmap , as previously mentioned in the article, is to provide a thorough overview of the critical turning points that will occur over time. Owing to the size of a bridge-building project and its extended duration, it is recommended to provide a roadmap that clearly matches milestones with relevant lifespan stages, especially for such large-scale undertakings. This method helps the viewers visualize the step-by-step development of the building process.

In keeping with earlier slides, we developed a roadmap in the example that included the following high-level benchmarks and subcomponents:

• Project Start-Up
• Contracts, Clearances, Budgeting, and Financing for Projects
• Buying and Renting of Land
• Initial Design Detailed Design Conceptual Design
• Site Setup: Clearing, Grading, and Access Routes
• Waste Management Examination
• Tests of Materials
• Site Evaluations
• Tests for seismic activity
• Manufacturing Fabrication
• Assembly of Modular Components
• Building, Assembling, and Construction
• Test of Quality under Acceptance Standards
• Stress Exam
• Management and Upkeep

As you can see, the project manager chose a step-by-step plan that was given with minimal scheduling specifics and start and end dates to provide context for the diagram.

Project Hazards:

Throughout a project, risk management is an iterative process. The risks you face while presenting your initiatives will change based on how well they proceed along the roadmap. In this particular instance, we have chosen to showcase the risks deliberated about at the ideation phase, wherein the developer trades risks with contractors and the bridge construction business.

Our recommended structure for this type of material is a straightforward table with easily readable and visible risks and a description that serves more as a starting point for conversation than a thorough explanation.

It is crucial to categorize the risks given, if just in terms of their “impact” and “probability.” This will lead to some really interesting discussions about them. 

Risks outlined in the first phase:

• Mistakes in Design
• Building Hold-Ups
• Overspending on the Budget
• Modifications to Regulations
• Conditions of the Site Equipment Failures
• Incidents about health and safety

The hazards listed are highly serious, as the reader can see, and each will result in a different Risk Analysis Report.

The project presentation’s quality control component may change depending on the quality process used. A continuous improvement quality approach, which iteratively improves quality over many projects, is typical for large organizations with a consistent portfolio of projects (for example, software businesses). The scenario is the same for construction organizations , such as the example, and the quality control model aligns with the building process model. In this instance, the project manager is outlining the quality control procedure to be used on the BIM model as well as the procedure to be adhered to during the bridge’s actual construction:

Using a simple dashboard, we created in this example, allowing the project manager to show: 

• The Existing Chronology
• Top 5 Problems
• Present-Day Burnout
• Top 5 Risks

How to Present a Project Management Presentation?

A project plan is an official document that follows a set format and flow. Your presentation should follow this flow for maximum impact. 

To present a project plan , you should go over the following eight steps:

• Give an overview. Provide a brief overview of the project, outlining its goals and rationale. 
• Examine the key results and objectives, or OKRs. Talk about the main deliverables and anticipated deadlines. Before starting a project, what crucial information should you obtain from a client? Think about this before engaging in conversation.
• Describe the exclusions and expectations. Make assumptions clear and restate anything that is outside the project’s scope. You might be wondering when to show a client the project cost. This is the right moment to ensure both of you have clear expectations.
• Give a high-level timetable. Use a Gantt chart to show the important milestones and dependencies in the project schedule. 
• Give a brief introduction of your group. Present the customer to coworkers with whom they will be working closely, as well as anyone whose experience will strengthen your reputation (such as a seasoned subject matter expert.)
• Explain communications. Make sure your client is aware of the collaborative process. Mention how they can contact you with any queries or issues and how they will be updated.
• Talk about the unexpected. Examine the procedure you’ll use to address requests for changes and problems when they come up.   
• Q&A. To make sure nothing was missed, conclude with a Q&A session. 

Top 5 Project Management Presentation Templates From Slideuplift

Here are some templates which will help you make your desired presentations. These will also give you project presentation ideas. Feel free to click on the images to download SlideUpLift’s templates.

• WBS Project Management PowerPoint Template:

Streamline project planning with this template focused on Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) , offering clear visual guidance for breaking down complex projects into manageable tasks.

• Scrum Agile Project Management PowerPoint Template:

Perfect for Agile enthusiasts, SlideUpLift’s Scrum Agile Project Management template provides visually engaging slides explaining the Scrum framework, roles, ceremonies, and critical components to enhance Agile project communication.

• Circular Project Management PowerPoint Template:

Enhance project visualization with this template featuring circular diagrams and charts, ideal for representing project cycles, feedback loops, and continuous improvement processes.

• SIPOC Project Management PowerPoint Template:

Optimize process mapping using this template designed for SIPOC (Supplier, Input, Process, Output, Customer) models, facilitating the illustration of information and resource flows in projects or processes. 

• Risk Management PowerPoint Template:

Navigate project uncertainties seamlessly with this template tailored for Risk Management . Expect insightful slides on identifying, assessing, and mitigating risks, providing a comprehensive overview to keep your projects on track.

Questions To Ask The Client Before Starting The Project Management Presentation

The client project focus ensures that your client’s business goals are sufficiently handled and that transparency is maintained throughout the project. Objectives, milestones, acceptance criteria, etc., are frequently discussed beforehand.

You might still need to ask a few questions, though, and these are the top five:

• Who are the project stakeholders in your organization? What authority and interest levels do the people who intend to be associated with the project have? 
• Have you already worked on projects similar to this one? How did you overcome the obstacles, if any? 
• What characteristics, outputs, or specifications should we constantly focus on?
• Are you having trouble sleeping at night because of anything related to this project? If yes, what would it be?
• Do you have any questions about risks, difficulties, or other project parts we haven’t yet covered? 

Questions the Client Might Ask During a Project Presentation and How To Answer Them

For new speakers, the Q&A section can often be their biggest worry. The most difficult part of being ready for this is that you never know what queries a client may have. 

Client inquiries frequently revolve around their worries about potential problems. You’ll be able to anticipate their questions more accurately when you know about their priorities. Assume that your client has a tight deadline for finishing the project. Among the queries they might have are:

• How are you going to guarantee that the project is completed on time?
• How would you respond if deadlines begin to elude you?
• Which risks could cause the project to be delayed?

You can prepare well-reasoned responses to their questions by considering their priorities and potential issues beforehand. But what about those unexpected queries that come out of nowhere? 

Three pointers to help you handle unforeseen queries from clients during a project presentation are as follows:

• Firstly, thank them for raising the question. Encourage your client to speak with you and express their worries upfront. 
• Find out what motivates the question. Ask why a question is being asked if it appears pointless or strange. Perhaps the client possesses knowledge that you are unaware of. You will also have extra time to consider your response as a result.
• Put it on the table for later. Inform the customer that you will investigate and get back to them if you are unsure of the response. Give your client a timeframe during which they can anticipate receiving your response.  

Establishing objectives and having a well-thought-out plan to reach them are the first steps in producing an effective project presentation. It also calls for effective delivery, careful attention to design, and the creation of captivating content.  

A strong pitch deck that explains the specifics of your idea and its potential for success is essential if you want to seal those transactions. Using a user-friendly project presentation program such as SlideUpLift can be a game changer. 

The ideal design tool for producing eye-catching and captivating project presentations is something SlideUpLift specializes in.  You can use various features and tools with SlideUpLift to assist you in achieving your ideas for your projects.  

To help your presentation succeed, SlideUpLift offers hundreds of presentation templates , graphic components, font styles, data visualization tools, and pre-installed stock photos and videos.  

You now have all the advice and resources you need to ace the project presentations for the future. With the presentation templates from SlideUpLift, get tips and tricks on standing out when presenting, go ahead and amaze your audience!

How do I effectively present my project?

To present your project effectively, focus on clear communication, use visuals, and tailor your message to your audience’s level of understanding.

How can I present my project as a project manager?

As a project manager, presenting a project involves clear communication of goals, methodologies, and outcomes while addressing potential risks and solutions.

What are the best ways to present a project?

The best ways to present a project include engaging visuals, storytelling, and addressing key points such as objectives, timelines, and potential challenges.

Are there templates for project management presentations?

Several platforms, including SlideUpLift, offer templates specifically designed for project manager presentations .

What are effective ways to present my project to clients?

Effective ways to present your project to clients include emphasizing value, addressing their specific concerns, and showcasing project outcomes.

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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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Project Presentations: How to Prepare and Deliver a Project Presentation

Can anything make a project manager’s heart sink faster than being told that they need to give a project presentation to the board of directors? The pressure. The responsibility. Sure, you’re happy that the directors of the company trust you enough that they want your input in the project, but having to present in front of these powerful players is making your stress levels spike.

If you haven’t come across these presentation requests from senior managers yet, you will! These scenarios are common on projects, especially projects that introduce a new product or involve organizational change. But don’t feel overwhelmed. Giving project presentations may feel scary, but you can plan and prepare for them just like any other meeting.

What Is a Project Presentation?

A project presentation is an opportunity for you to explain your project processes and deliverables to key stakeholders. These can be informal, like a quick update via reports with a few individuals, or formal. Formal project presentations often require proper meeting times, thought-out slide decks, goal review and more. We’ll spend most of our time discussing how to prepare and deliver a formal project presentation.

A formal project presentation requires good data. Project management software can provide you with the dashboards and reports you need to supplement your points and progress updates. ProjectManager has real-time dashboards that you can share with stakeholders, and eight different in-depth project reports that you can make with just a few clicks. Get started for free today!

Why Is a Project Presentation So Important?

A project presentation is your opportunity to convey the importance of the work you and your team have been doing. If you’re unable to articulate your progress and achievements, key stakeholders won’t understand why money, time and resources are being spent on your project.

When you think of it like that, it’s no wonder why people spend so much time preparing for their project presentations. Read on to see how you can knock your next presentation out of the park.

How to Prepare for a Project Presentation

Preparing for a project presentation can be more important than you actual delivery. That’s because good preparation can set you up for success on the big day. Let’s go through some preparation techniques you can do for your project presentation.

1. Create a Calendar Invite for Your Project Presentation

You can’t just expect people to turn up – they need to know that there is an important event that requires their attendance, so get it in their diaries. People plan their meetings and calendar appointments sometimes quite far in advance, giving ample warning. Schedule the presentation as soon as you can, and check with the individuals (or their assistants) if you don’t get a reply about their availability.

If you have been invited to someone else’s meeting to talk about your project, make sure it is in your planner and book some time to plan for it in advance. If you don’t, you risk running out of time to prepare your material.

2. Select a Format for Your Presentation

How are you going to get your message across? If you’ve scheduled a project meeting it’s likely that you are expecting to do a formal presentation. That’s fine, but how? Will you use slides or flip charts or mirror your iPad on a monitor? Do you expect the audience to participate in any part of the presentation? Can you speak without notes or would it be better to have some pointers with you on the day?

You should also consider where you will be giving the presentation. For example, a format that is suitable for a small room and a limited audience, such as a loosely-structured project update with a couple of slides, is not going to be appropriate for a room full of stakeholders, laid out like a lecture theatre with you at a lectern at the front.

3. Practice Your Project Management Presentation

Giving presentations is a skill. Practice, practice, practice. Before your big project presentation, volunteer to do some smaller ones, like staff briefings or shorter updates at team meetings. You want to feel comfortable both standing up in front of the room and with the material. Run through your presentation at home or in an empty meeting room so that you remember where the slide transitions are. Practice using the projector and a clicker to move the slides forward. Write out your flip charts several times so that it becomes second nature.

Practice and training will make your delivery much more polished and professional and give your audience a far better experience.

4. Write Big So Your Presentation Is Legible

Whether you are using slides or flip charts, write big or use big fonts. It is often difficult to see what is on the screen, even in a small room – and that means your message is not getting across. And it’s an excuse for audience members to check their phones instead of listening to you.

A good tip is to print out your slides and put them on the floor. If you can still read them clearly from a standing position, then the text is big enough. If you can’t read the words or you have to bend down to read them, make the font size larger!

5. Have a Backup Plan for Your Presentation

Projectors break, meeting rooms don’t have conference phones in, pens run out just at the critical moment. Plan for everything to go wrong. Your presentation audience is made up of busy people and they don’t want to sit there watching you fiddle with the technology. Get it all working before they arrive, and if it doesn’t work when you get going, make sure that you have a contingency plan (like a printout of your slides) so that you can carry on anyway.

How to Give a Project Presentation

When the fateful day arrives, there are some important things to keep in mind when giving your project presentation. Follow these best practices and you’ll portray your project and your team in the best possible light.

1. Speak Clearly and Don’t Rely on Jargon

Presentations depend on clarity and good communication . If you bog down your presentation with jargon and convulated reasoning, you’re going to lose your audience. Make sure that you use language that your audience will understand, so they can follow along with all of the key points you need to make.

Remember, not everyone in that meeting is going to understand all the intricasies of your project, in fact, none of them likely will. So speak slowly, clearly and ensure that you communicate.

2. Stick to What Matters and Use Data

When giving your project presentation, don’t lose sight of the original goals and requirements of the project. Your stakeholders agreed on certain goals at the beginning, how are you trending towards reaching those goals? Sometimes it’s easy to focus on setbacks or difficulties, or things that you may find fascinating. However, it’s best to recenter on critical business objectives.

It’s important to use data to supplement your project presentation as you address key goals and initiatives. But don’t use too much data! People will get lost in the numbers and stop listening to what you have to say. It’s a delicate balance.

3. Tell a Story

You have probably sat through a fair few presentations in your time, and I expect you’ve tried to stop yourself from nodding off in some of them. Project status updates can be boring. If the subject matter isn’t dull, often the speaker is. Don’t let that be you.

One way to keep the attention of the audience is to structure your presentation in the most interesting fashion. Consider what they will find interesting (and it won’t be the same as what you find interesting). Telling the story of your project is a good idea. Think about a start, a middle and an end to your presentation. Perhaps follow the lifecycle from the perspective of a customer.

Focus on the benefits and not the project management process. If you don’t know if your presentation material makes sense, run it past a friend or family member who doesn’t know anything about your project. If they don’t fall asleep, it’s OK!

4. Ask for Feedback on Your Presentation

When your presentation is over, ask for feedback. You could do this directly at the end of the session before people leave the room, or a couple of days later. It’s good to get some feedback as it helps you work on what to improve for next time.

Ask people to give you their impressions both of your presentation skills and also of the presentation content. You could find that the content was really good but you lacked confidence delivering it, or conversely that you were an engaging presenter but the material was not relevant to them. All this is useful stuff to know and it will help you improve your presentation skills for next time.

Project Management Presentations Take Time to Master

Giving presentations isn’t an everyday occurrence on projects but it is likely that you will have to give one or two during the project lifecycle – more if your project involves a lot of workshops or user sessions.

Don’t panic – presentation skills are something that you can learn and you will get better with practice! Once you have cracked it, you’ll feel confident delivering presentations and you’ll find that it gets easier to prepare for them in the future.

The scheduling features of our software can be used to book your presentations on the team calendar, which can be easily seen on the project dashboard. With it you have the ability to share agendas and slides after the presentation with the online document library. Then you can carry on the discussion after the meeting by using the great chat tool. Try the software from ProjectManager free for 30 days and see how helpful it really is.

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How To Deliver a Project Presentation Like a Pro

Gary Froniewski

Use this guide to wow your audience with a project presentation that’s both engaging and effective..

Planning a project from beginning to end is already a huge endeavor, but what about presenting it to stakeholders or clients to get their support?

You have to be informative and engaging all while delivering your presentation as concisely as possible—that, or you risk losing the attention of your audience (and potentially their buy-in).

To that end, it’s imperative to cover the most valuable aspects of your project plan and do so in a way that resonates with your specific audience. Below we’ll share what an effective project presentation entails and outline a step-by-step process to delivering a creative, show stopping one of your own.

/ What is a project presentation?

A project presentation is a presentation designed to convey the details of a new project to stakeholders or clients. This includes information such as the goals of the project, the overall project plan, and the specific phases of the project. Effective project presentations are meant to be persuasive, informative, and engaging.

Steps for delivering a project presentation

Delivering a successful project presentation can be intimidating, but—with some preparation—it doesn’t have to be. Breaking the presentation down into its component parts to map out details and rehearse ahead of time will leave you feeling confident and ready when it’s time to step up to the podium.

Step #1: Set SMART goals

Setting SMART goals means setting goals that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound. In the context of project management, SMART goals will help you go beyond merely stating your final objective and instead outline how you’ll get there.

For example, let’s say the aim of your project is to increase customer retention. That’s a worthy goal, but what actions will you take to achieve it? By how much do you want to increase retention? On what channels will this take place and over what timeframe?

Here’s how SMART goal setting can help answer some of these questions.

While increasing your customer retention is a worthy goal in and of itself, a SMART version of that goal would include more detail e.g., “Increasing customer retention through improvements to our website’s user experience.”

Making your goal measurable ensures you have key performance indicators (KPIs) that you’re tracking towards. This allows you to map all your actions back to increasing those KPIs which, if selected properly, will feed back into your now-specific goal.

Examples include:

Increasing website traffic by 30%

Achieving a 25% bounce rate

Attracting 500 email signups from home page calls to action

Making sure your goals are attainable is an important aspect of SMART goal setting as it ensures you’re working towards something you can actually achieve. This helps you better track progress along the way and avoids wasting time and effort on unrealistic objectives.

For instance, it’s much more attainable to say you will grow your website’s traffic 30% through user experience improvements than it is to say your website will become number one in your vertical or industry.

The first goal is a metric to track towards whereas the second goal is a pie in the sky ideal that may be possible but isn’t the most useful for goal setting.

Do your project goals ladder up to your organizational goals? This question is especially important if you’re seeking buy-in from internal stakeholders. You need to be able to demonstrate that what you’re doing will contribute to their interests and, more importantly, the business’ at large.

Revisiting our example, a time-bound goal would be to “increase website traffic by 30% year over year through user experience improvements, targeting a 3% uptick in traffic each month.”

This is a good SMART goal because it states what you’re trying to accomplish, how you’re going to do it, over what time frame, and it also builds in a micro goal to shoot for over the course of the overall project. This micro goal—if you notice—is also slightly more aggressive than simply dividing your yearly target by the number of months.

Give priority to important individual tasks within your project plan to be even more specific in your goal setting. This will give folks working on the project milestones to work towards and help them prioritize effectively.

Step #2: Lay out your project plan

Now that you’ve set SMART goals, the next step in presenting your project is to determine how you’ll lay out your project plan. This plan will take the form of the three main sections of your presentation:

Introduction and thesis statement

Conclusion and key takeaways

This will allow you to clearly communicate the overall goal of the project in the beginning, preferably with a hook that captivates your audience. Following this with a snapshot of your main points will let your audience move into the body of your presentation interested in what you have to say and aware of the key takeaways right from the beginning.

You’ll follow this with the bulk of the presentation dedicated to details e.g., micro goals, the project scope and methodology, milestones, deliverables, the schedule, and things like necessary resources and budget estimates.

Your conclusion will restate your main goal and also reoffer the key takeaways that encapsulate the most important and compelling parts of your presentation. If the goal is to earn stakeholder buy-in or approval from a client, this final step is crucial. You want your audience to leave with the sense they know exactly what you’re trying to do and what it will accomplish for them.

Utilize visual aids like charts, infographics, and even gifs throughout your presentation to support the key points and keep your audience engaged. Visuals are also a great way to add clarity and reinforce what you say verbally.

Step #3: Introduce cross-team dependencies

In a complex project, things often need to happen in a certain order to pave the way for subsequent tasks. One way to help determine the most optimal order is to map out your project’s critical dependencies. While there are various types of dependencies, we’ll focus on cross-team dependencies here.

A cross-team dependency is the relationship between work created by different functions that determines the order work tasks must be performed i.e., tasks that need to be completed for other tasks to become possible. Examples include developing and creating assets before they can be posted to social media channels or writing web copy prior to a site being published.

The reason this is important to be aware of from the outset is that it helps stakeholders better understand the project timeline, allows contributors to appropriately prioritize tasks, and establishes a dialogue between key players of the project before it gets started in earnest.

Ladder these cross-team dependent tasks back up to the SMART goals you set and align them within your project plan as well. This lets people know how their role, team, and department will work together to contribute to the success of the overall project.

Step #4: Review project phases

Having laid out your project plan and determined critical team dependencies, you can now review the phases of your project and map out how you’ll cover them in your presentation.

These phases include the following:

Initiating: The bulk of your work so far has been in the project initiation phase, including determining SMART goals and identifying dependencies. This also refers to details like project scope and clarifying budget and time constraints.

Planning: The planning phase covers the “how” of your project. As part of your presentation it’s important to outline project milestones, a proposed project timeline, and when and how stakeholders will communicate during the project.

Executing: This phase covers how your project will be executed e.g., ongoing costs, incorporating feedback, and communicating with team members. This is where tools like a Gantt chart come in handy (which we’ll cover shortly).

Closing: This is when you’ll track and report results then conduct an after-action assessment to see how your project performed against your goals. This phase will likely receive the least amount of time during your presentation.

It’s not necessary to cover each of these phases explicitly as part of your presentation, but it is important to discuss the elements that will help clarify details, answer questions, and relay information that’s relevant to your audience.

Focus on the Initiating and Planning phases of your project during the presentation. Also be prepared to answer questions around the Executing phase, which we’ll cover below.

Step #5: Leave time for Q&A

Lastly, make sure to leave time for questions from your audience at the end of your presentation. You’ll have covered a lot of key details, and—while the way you’ve laid out the presentation ensures you shared everything relevant (right?)—there will likely still be clarifying questions.

Try to anticipate these questions and have answers prepared or at least be ready to address them with next steps you’ll take to determine the answers. If you’ve done a good job, people will be excited to engage with you on these details.

Make a bulleted list of potential questions and answers which you can break up by phase of the project or by stakeholder/team. Have these ready during your presentation and make sure to note new questions that arise for follow-up.

Creative ways to present a project

Just as important as the content of your presentation—perhaps even more so—is the way you present it. Here are some of the more creative and effective ways to visualize your project presentation.

Gantt chart

A Gantt chart is a type of bar chart that helps visualize a project schedule, including elements like dependencies, the current status of the schedule, and how task timelines overlap with one another. Activities are listed in a column on the left side of the chart and along the top of the chart is a suitable time frame for completion [ 1 ] .

While this is perhaps the most recognized way to display a project timeline, you may or may not have all the elements ready by the time your presentation is set to occur. If you do, however, this is an informative and visually appealing way to relay your project plan.

An example of a Gantt chart from Instagantt ( Source )

A simple and elegant approach to slide deck creation is using Guy Kawasaki’s 10/20/30 approach i.e., 10 slides over 20 minutes with a font that’s at least 30 points [ 2 ] . This method ensures you’re not overloading your audience with information while presenting it in a way that’s easy to view and understand. Make sure to leverage visuals to support your text as well.

Presentation software

Lastly, presentation software is an excellent option to consider especially if your presentation will be delivered remotely. Many solutions include tools to pin the presenter’s camera, present content of any type, or highlight and draw attention to on-screen elements in real time.

Many presentation tools also feature practice modes which allow you to rehearse your presentation ahead of time, recording and timing the result for review. This is especially important if you’re speaking in front of a large group or have a lot of information to cover in a short amount of time. 

An example of presentation software from Reactiv SUITE ( Source )

Capterra tools & tips: Putting it all together to deliver a stellar project presentation

Following these five steps and choosing an engaging presentation method that works for you will nearly guarantee that your project presentation is well received by your stakeholders or clients. Armed with the actionable tips at the end of each step to get you started, you’re now poised to create and deliver a project presentation that’s sure to earn you the buy-in you need.

Interested to learn more about how to project manage like a pro? Visit the Capterra blog regularly for new content or get started here:

What Is Agile Project Management? An Expert Guide

Top 7 Project Management Tools To Unlock Time and Efficiency in 2022

How To Build and Implement a Project Transparency Plan in 4 Simple Steps

Note: The screenshots of applications included in this article are examples to show a feature in context and are not intended as endorsements or recommendations.

What is a Gantt Chart? , Gantt

The 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint , Guy Kawasaki

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About the author.

Gary Froniewski is a Content Writer at Capterra, covering all things digital marketing, with a focus on emerging trends in experiential marketing. A recipient of multiple AMD Spotlight Awards for flagship product launch campaigns, he has a wealth of experience creating compelling copy to support Fortune 500 companies and small businesses alike. In his spare time he loves to enjoy food experiences, play tennis and disc golf, and explore nature in his home base of Austin, TX.

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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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A podcast is an audio or video contribution that can be listened to or viewed via the Internet. Podcasts can be used for information on specific topics but also for entertainment.

Slide Master

To create your own Template in PowerPoint it is best to use the Slide Master. After updating the Slide Master with your design, all slides (fonts, colours, images, …) adapt to those of the Slide Master.

Slide Layouts

PowerPoint has different types of Slide Layouts. Depending on which type of presentation you make, you will use more or less different slide layouts. Some Slide Types are: title slides, section heading slides, picture with caption slides, blank slides.

Eulogy Speech

A eulogy speech is given at a funeral. It is given by familiy members or friends of the deceased. The aim is to say goodbye and pay tribute to the person who has passed away.

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Project Presentation Template

Outline all your key project information with a visually-appealing design to encourage buy-in from investors and get everyone on the same page.

Trusted by 65M+ users and leading companies

About the Project Presentation Template

Our customizable and professional presentation template helps you plan your upcoming project presentation for clients, investors, and stakeholders. Using our modern design, you can create a stunning presentation that outlines all your key project information. 

To create your presentation, you can customize our existing decks to suit your target audience. Add or remove slides, change their order, and upload your company brand assets to create a professional and effective project presentation. 

What is a project presentation? 

A project proposal presentation (sometimes known as a project kickoff presentation) provides an overview of an upcoming project. The purpose of the presentation is to update clients, investors, key stakeholders, and team members on your project plans. You’ll discuss changes and improvements delivered by the project and get approval to launch. 

The aim is to get everyone on the same page. Investors and shareholders will understand why you’re running the project, and your project team will understand what they need to do to make it happen. 

Tips for making the perfect project presentation 

Creating a successful and engaging project presentation is easier said than done. Here are some tips to get you on the right track. 

Use a professional template. Save time and create a professional, visually-appealing presentation with a Project Presentation Template. Creating one from scratch will be more time-consuming, and it might not look as striking or professional as a ready-made template. 

Present the problem. Be clear about why you want to launch this project. Is it to solve a customer problem? Or maybe to improve an internal process? Whatever it is, clearly present the problem and show how your project will fix it. 

Clearly communicate your project goals. Everyone needs to know what you want to achieve with your project, so be sure to clearly outline what your goals will be and how you plan to measure them. Take a look at the SMART goals framework to help with this. It’ll also show stakeholders and investors what the project will do for the business (which can help get buy-in and approval to launch). 

Break down your project plan. Show everyone what’s involved in the project by clearly breaking down your project plan. You don’t need to outline every single detail, just the key milestones and the top-level plan. A Scope of Work Template can also help you outline this information. 

Keep slides short. If you go into too much detail in your slides, you risk standing in front of your audience and reading off the screen. To improve your presentation delivery and keep your audience engaged, only include the top-level, necessary information on all your slides. 

Use quality visuals and presentation tools. Give stakeholders, clients, and investors a good impression by using high-quality visual elements to create a clean and professional design. For example, only use high-quality images and keep everything on-brand. Professional presentation tools like Miro will also help you create a well-designed and engaging presentation.

How to create a project presentation with Miro's customizable template 

Use Miro’s digital workspace to organize your thoughts, jot down notes, and share ideas with your project team. When you’re ready to create your presentation, simply select the template and start customizing it to suit your needs. You can add your own color palette, vector icons, and any other graphic elements that you need.  

Our interactive slides (or frames ) can be easily edited. You can add or remove slides and restructure their order in your presentation. All of the slides also have placeholder text, which you can remove to add your own presentation content.

Once you’re ready to present your slides, all you have to do is hop into Presentation Mode . This automatically puts your presentation in fullscreen, and you can move between the slides using the arrow keys.

How do you structure a project presentation? 

Every project presentation is different, so there’s no correct way to structure your presentation . However, there are some common topics that occur in most project presentations: 

High-level information for stakeholders: Your presentation shouldn’t go into too much detail about the specifics of your project. Instead, it should provide top-level information that stakeholders can easily digest — for example, your budget, your return on investment expectation, and your goals. 

Timelines: It’s helpful for your audience to know when you want to start the project and how long it will last. Outline your project timeline so they can see what you plan to do and when you plan to do it (but remember, keep it top-level). 

Deliverables: What will the result be? Tell your audience what your deliverables and outputs will be, so they know what to expect.

Goals: Show your audience how you plan to measure success. As mentioned, take a look at the SMART goals framework to create clear and specific goals.

What do you write in a project presentation?

Your project presentation should outline the top-level information about your upcoming project. This includes the problem you’re trying to solve, your budget, the project timeline, key deliverables, and your goals.

How do you introduce a project presentation?

Start by telling the audience who you are and what the presentation is about. This means summing up your project presentation in a couple of sentences (ideally, you’ll have this prepared beforehand). Show them an agenda so they know what to expect and give a rough timeline for when the presentation will wrap up.

How can I make a perfect presentation?

It’s hard to say how to create the perfect presentation. What’s perfect for you and your audience might not work for someone else, but any successful presentation is engaging, compelling, and convincing. It takes the audience on a journey, building an emotional connection with them along the way. At the end of the presentation, the audience thoroughly understands what the project entails and why it’s important.

Get started with this template right now.

Sales Presentation Template

Works best for:.

Presentations, Marketing

The Sales Presentation Template provides you with a straightforward, ready-to-go structure for your next sales pitch — all you need to do is plug in the information specific to your buyer and focus on your delivery.

Critical Design Review Presentation Template

Presentations, UX Design

Use this template to finalize the design phase of a project. Keep all team members on the same page and ensure that your team’s technical efforts are on track.

Effective Meeting Template by Zoom

Team Meetings

Run effective meetings and keep everyone focused with Zoom’s Effective Meeting Template. Bring structure and creativity to every online meeting.

Change Management Presentation Template

Presentations, Strategic Planning

Employee resistance to change can block any positive initiative. You won’t have to struggle with it if you clearly communicate what upcoming changes mean and how they’ll benefit your company in the long run. Use our Change Management Presentation Template to outline your implementation strategy and spark enthusiasm among employees.

Storyboard Presentation Template

Presentations, Design Thinking

Use this Storyboard Presentation Template to visualize the structure, content, and flow of your presentation. Make sure that your presentation covers all the key points and hits the mark.

Portfolio Presentation Template

Display your work in an engaging and visually-appealing format with Miro’s Portfolio Presentation Template. Exhibit your best work and help your audience visualize your designs.

How to Give a Stunning Project Presentation

April 3, 2019 by Bernie Roseke, P.Eng., PMP 2 Comments

Many projects require a presentation, whether at the beginning, end, or somewhere in the middle.  Sometimes it is given to the managers or executives, sometimes to the project team , and sometimes to stakeholders who have a specific interest in the project.

Project presentations can be very nerve racking and difficult for many people, but that doesn’t mean they have to be difficult.  With practice and some basic guiding principles, you can give a stunning project presentation that will knock their socks off.  I’ve given many project presentations, and I’m going to share my secrets with you.

Present the Problem and Solution

• Repeat the main point 3 times
• Include an analogy or story
• Keep slides short
• Include pictures and Diagrams
• Connect with the audience

Many audience members assume that you know what you’re talking about, and most of the time you do.  But somehow, if the presenter doesn’t include the topic of the presentation directly, the audience doesn’t want to decide what it is for themselves.

It’s similar to a sales pitch in that it’s the presenter’s job to keep the audience engaged.  If you wish to maximize the communication of the message, you need to state it directly.

Include an Analogy or Story

• An analogy is a comparison to a similar real life thing, for example, This product works like a rocket ship taking off to the moon.  It takes a bit of preparation time which might seem a bit daunting at times only to have a very quick experience that over relatively quickly, but the experience is worth every second in the end.  I’ve become a true believer in the immense power of analogy.  Analogies engage audiences in milliseconds and give them something to remember the presentation by.  I’ve incorporated analogies in my writing at every opportunity, and the results have been truly amazing.  Many project presentations come in groups, that is, they are one out of many.  In this case, the presentation with an analogy is the one that will be remembered by the audience.
• A story is an experience that relates to the topic being presented, for example, Last year I had the privilege of working with sick kids at the hospital.  These kids needed life saving medical care, and the doctors were fantastic.  It made me realize that this product really has the potential to impact people, and maybe even save lives.  A story is a personal experience, either yours or somebody else’s.  They work just like an analogy by engaging the audience and giving them something to remember the project by.  But they have the potential to drag on when the audience starts to feel like it’s not about them.  The key to pulling off a successful story is to keep it short and relevant.  If the audience can’t connect it to the project, they will lose interest.

Ideas for analogies are surprisingly easy to find with internet searches.  Personal story ideas require brainstorming and thinking about the relationship between the topic and real world experiences.

Repeat the Main Point 3 Times

• Tell them what you’re going to say
• Tell them what you just said

In most presentations, this takes the form of an introduction, main body, and conclusion.  But all three parts need to spell out the main point in a prominent place, clearly and succinctly.  You want to make sure the audience doesn’t need to think, that people can be daydreaming about what they’re going to be doing that evening but they’ll perk up and get hit with a short but prominent main conclusion that they won’t forget.

In most presentations, audiences are not in a position where they want to exercise their thought muscles.  Similar to a sales presentation, they don’t want to think for themselves, they figure it’s the presenters job to tell them what to think.  Hence, they forget what they are told very quickly.

Speaking of which, did you notice the analogy?  I’ll bet that if you remember nothing else from this article, you’ll remember that the audience doesn’t want to exercise their thought muscles.

Keep Slides Short

Many presentations contain long winded verbiage that requires long form reading while the presenter is talking.  I see this time and time again in presentations that I attend, and I’ve even done this myself when it seemed like there was no other way to get the point across.  But in hindsight this is a waste of good presentation time.  Nobody is going to read long paragraphs.  In fact, nobody is going to read long sentences either.

The idea is simple.  When writing presentation slides, keep bullet points under two lines of text.  Any more and it should be said verbally or placed into the next bullet.

Include Pictures and Diagrams

This idea is self explanatory.  Make sure no more than about half of the presentation slides contain only written words.

Connect with the Audience

The previous 5 bullets contained advice for good presentation slides and planning, but what are some ideas to deliver the presentation in a stunning way?

There are a few secrets, but the key to all of them is connecting with the audience.

Remember first that the audience wants to hear your presentation.  They wouldn’t be there if they didn’t.  However, most people don’t have the attention span to stay engaged for an entire presentation unless they have a very high interest in the subject matter.  They will move in and out of attention, remembering only the most interesting (not necessarily important) parts.

Here are a few pointers:

• Use Outline notes Don’t read from a script.  Although it is permissible to read for some of the time, extensive reading from a written script disconnects from the audience and loses the message because people stop listening.
• Talk to one person I’ve found it helpful to pick one person in the audience and deliver the presentation to them.  Don’t look only at them, of course, but let it sink in that you are not so much talking to a larger audience as you are giving many presentations to individual people, simultaneously.
• Don’t let down the most interested person in the audience Here’s another tip I’ve used in my presentations as well as my musical performances.  There’s guaranteed to be at least one person in the audience who loves what you’re saying and wants to learn all about it.  So wouldn’t it be a huge disappointment if you let them down?  Let all your presentation anxiety submit to the desire to make sure that that one person who really wants to know your information isn’t disappointed.  I mean, why are you even talking to everyone else, that doesn’t care, anyway?

Those are my secrets for stunning presentations!  Let me know how it goes and what other tips you have in the comments section below.  I’d love to hear from you!

Related posts:

About Bernie Roseke, P.Eng., PMP

Bernie Roseke, P.Eng., PMP, is the president of Roseke Engineering . As a bridge engineer and project manager, he manages projects ranging from small, local bridges to multi-million dollar projects. He is also the technical brains behind ProjectEngineer , the online project management system for engineers. He is a licensed professional engineer, certified project manager, and six sigma black belt. He lives in Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada, with his wife and two kids.

Awesome post! I instantly shared this with my presentation writing service and they found your content quite in-depth and informative. Do share some similar knowledgeable content in the near future. Cheers!

Brilliant and effective tips! Your tips are very effective and I am going to make use of every tip spelled out here. Thanks for the knowledge and I pray that you share more of such with the public.

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How to present a project? Ultimate Guide

Project success belongs to the way you adapt to present it. If you present your project in an effective way that you grab the intention of your client and take him/her to an agreement but if you create blunders and skip important points that you need to discuss while presenting your project .

Importance of properly presented project. 

Presenting a project effectively is crucial for several reasons. It can significantly impact the project's success and your ability to communicate its value to stakeholders. However, here we have some key reasons why you must present your project correctly:

• Proper presentation helps ensure that your audience understands the project's objectives, scope, and goals. It reduces ambiguity and confusion.
• Project presentation will align all stakeholders, ensuring that everyone is on the same page regarding the project's purpose, deliverables, and timelines. This alignment will ultimately lead to project success. 
• An engaging presentation can capture your audience's attention and keep them interested throughout. So, you can expect better feedback, buy-in, and support for the project. 
• Effective project presentations provide the necessary information for decision-makers to make better choices. Whether it's approving project funding, adjusting the scope , or making strategic decisions, clear project presentations are essential for everything. 
• By presenting your project properly, Stakeholders will know who is responsible for what. It will ultimately help to prevent misunderstandings and finger-pointing. 
• Presenting the project can also help identify potential risks and issues early on. Stakeholders may raise concerns or offer insights that can help you address problems before they become major roadblocks.
• Project presentation helps in resource allocation . It allows stakeholders to see the project's resource requirements, helping them allocate personnel, budget, and other resources accordingly.

In short, presenting a project correctly is not just about creating a visually appealing slide. It is also about conveying information and aligning stakeholders. You must ensure that everyone involved has a clear understanding of the purpose, progress, and potential challenges of the project. Therefore, effective project presentation is a skill that you must learn. 

A complete guide on how to present a project?

Do not panic, and be confident about the content and visuals you have prepared to present your project. You should have command of all the information about your project, and you should also know each word you have included in your presentation so that you can explain it deliberately and confidently. You should follow some important steps to present your project:

First of all, know the goals of your project.

You should know the goals of the project you are doing as a project manager or being an owner of the project. First, you should discuss the project and fix its goals by having a warm call-up meeting with your teammates and the owner of the company or the client for whom you are doing the project. It is important when it comes to how to present a project.

Goal setting and owning are most important to make a project successful. It is the winning spot you set to win the race. If you do not do this, it means you do not have directions for where you will go, and all your efforts are useless.

Explain the goal of your project.

After setting the goals, you need to convince the audience by sharing the goals of your project in a way that they could have a better understanding of it. You can explain your project by

• Verbally presentation
• Documentations

If you explain the goals very well, you have done half of the work .

Organize the steps on a paper to present your project

After setting and explaining the goals of your project, you need to convince the audience or your client by explaining the ways to achieve these goals that seem. For that purpose, you should prepare well. You should make a layout of your presentation in which all the steps are organized and explained.

It will provide you with backbone support in presenting the project in an organized and ordered way. This organization will help you remember all key points and give you confidence about what you are saying. You know its meaning.

Prepare a rough sketch of the words you are going to speak

It is just like writing a speech. The delivery of words plays an important role in convincing the audience. If you know how to play the game of words well, you will easily take the audience to your platform. Therefore, before speaking in front of a crowd, keep in mind that you will be judged based on the words you deliver.

So, prepare for speaking and know the meaning of every word you have included. It can prove your strength or your weakness. It all depends on your preparation.

A healthy discussion with your team

When you work with your team, the pressure of work is minimized, and the moral support of your team also encourages you to give your best. While presenting your project, make your team ready to collaborate with you; you can divide the presentation into chunks and share it with your team members asking them to explain that specific part.

Team collaboration encourages success step-wise with the best quality in a short time as the work is divided and you are not burdened. Have trust in your team and get unique ideas by having a healthy discussion with them. Show value to others' ideas by considering and appreciating them.

Prepare your team-mate on standby if there appears to be a need to get their services while presenting the project. They provide you support to answer some critical questions asked by the client if you have pre- planned with your team members . You should keep this in mind when you are talking about how to present a project.

Prepare a presentation on PowerPoint

Another effective way to present the project is to put your ideas on the slides and mention the most important content about them. You can use the images to clarify the concept of your presentation and its purpose, as the images also describe the stories behind them. The images you use for visual description should be very clear and easy to understand.

Several tools in a presentation can help you present your project in the form of image illustration. You can play these slides automatically by setting the time duration. Do practice over these slides after fixing the duration for playing the.

You can present your project not only in the form of words or images but also through videos or graphics. The message you want to convey should not be lengthy or complicated. It should be simple and perfectly visible. Video audio presentation can be of more advantage in this regard.

Create some humor for the audience

If you talk a lot and change slide after slide, this will cause boredom among the audience. Here, you need to engage the audience while conveying your serious message in such a way that it seems entertaining. You can relate the bullet points or images with funny day-to-day activities to create humor, or you can also add some funny pictures or illusions to make fun of during heavy, serious discussions.

You will indirectly and silently decently engage the audience. If you do so, you will not feel the need to ask or make a request to the people to listen to you. They will do so willingly . It is an art, and if you know how to do it without realizing the audience you are doing this intentionally, you are a successful speaker.

In this way you will easily grab the attention of the client of your audience, they will love to listen and understand you, and even they will wait and expect the next bouncer from your side.

Adopt a confident body language.

It is human nature that we feel hesitant when we address a crowd who is sitting to judge us and ready to argue with us when it is our first time. But slowly, you will learn to deal with such a situation.

No matter if you are a beginner, you do not need to get worried. Just stay confident that you have prepared your presentation and practiced as well, and you can answer every query raised by the audience.

Focus on your body language; avoid doing the things that reveal your nervousness, like pressing your hands and playing with a pen by producing the sound of a tick-tock. It looks so odd and leaves a bad impression on your audience.

Make sure you have presented all the aspects.

Keep a checklist with you on paper or a computer slide and check with it whether you have explained important parts of your project, your client must know about them, or one of them is left by mistake. If it is left, it is okay; make a turn and explain it in a way that it seems you did not explain it before to maintain the surprising effect of your project.

I will say again that practice is the key to making your project presentation successful and completed within the expected or allocated time limit.  It is important when you come up with the question of how to present a project.

Present everything without getting nervous. 

Project presentation can sometimes be a real headache, even for pros. However, when you are presenting your project presentation, you must explain everything you have prepared without getting nervous. 

It would be better to keep these steps in mind to make the most out of this experience:

• You must keep your presentation concise, but don't forget to cover any of the essential points. 
• When you are presenting your presentation, you can take a quick pause to gather your thoughts. Slowing your breathing will certainly calm your nerves. 
• Take notes of what you will cover in your project presentation. It will help us to look more confident in the presentation room. 
• Above all, practicing your project presentation more can also make you feel less nervous. For perfect results, it is always better to practice throughout the time. 

Answer the relevant questions

When you present your project, there will be many questions among the audience that are mostly related to the project type, but some of them will ask such questions just to confuse you or let your morals down. Here, you need to play the mind game; do not let these questions disturb you, but answer them with patience whether you know the answer or not.

If you do not answer, simply tell them you do not know about it but want to know and ask for an explanation in the sense to add up your knowledge. If these questions are shits just to disturb you, they will not be thrown towards you next time.

You must be prepared for your question-answer session during and after your project presentation. It is because your audience may ask you some difficult or tricky questions. Regardless of what you have been asked for, it is always important to take proper time and answer their questions with the information they are looking for. 

Wrap up with a project

After discussing every aspect of the project with the client in detail, answering the queries, and getting suggestions, you need to end the session by wrapping up the project presentation in the form of a summary and giving a short review. In this way, all important parts of the projects will be recalled and finalized.

Common mistakes to avoid in project presentations 

When presenting a project, avoiding common mistakes is essential for ensuring clarity, engagement, and effectiveness. So, here are the common mistakes that you must avoid in your project presentation:

• Lack of Preparation

Inadequate project presentation can affect you in multiple ways. For example, you may stumble over your words during the presentation, lose your thought process while explaining some concepts, or even don’t have your project material ready to present. 

Effective preparation is key to a satisfied audience. Therefore, you should also focus on preparing your project presentation. The process involves researching your topic thoroughly, creating a structured outline, and practicing your presentation multiple times to build confidence and fluency. 

• Information overloading

When it comes to presenting a project, people usually make the mistake of overwhelming their audience with the overload of information. They add excessive data, statistics, and technical details of the project that may be hard to digest for the audience. 

The best practice here is to focus on adding the most important and relevant information only to your project presentation. Additionally, you can also add some statistics to support your key points. The best practice to simplify complex or technical project information is adding visuals in your presentation. 

• Not clearing your project purpose. 

Without clear objectives, your audience may leave the presentation unsure. It is because they don’t get what actions they should take, the scope of the project , or what they will get from the project. 

You should overcome this problem by stating the purpose of your project early on. Moreover, it would be better to outline what you want to achieve with this project and what others will get from it. 

• Poorly designed visuals 

Visuals in your project presentation should complement your spoken words. The visuals in the presentation should not distract your audience from what you are saying. 

Remember that cluttered or confusing slides can lead to disengagement.

You must keep slides simple, with clear headings, bullet points, and visuals that reinforce your message. Use a consistent design template and appropriately designed visuals for improved engagement. 

• Skipping the introduction 

An engaging introduction sets the tone for your presentation. It gives you an opportunity to capture the attention of your audience and increase it consistently.

For this, you have to craft a compelling opening, such as a relevant story, a surprising fact, or a provocative question. These practices will certainly help you to draw your audience in. 

• Not defining the problem statement. 

Failing to clearly define the problem your project addresses can leave your audience wondering why the project is necessary. As a presenter, you must provide a concise and relatable problem statement early on. It should demonstrate the relevance and importance of your project. 

• Poor storytelling 

Stories help make your presentation memorable and relatable. They add a human element to your content. Therefore, it would be better to incorporate relevant anecdotes, case studies, or real-world examples into your project presentation. These will help you to illustrate your points and connect with your audience emotionally.

• Disorganized presentation structure 

A disorganized presentation structure can confuse. Even your audience will find it difficult to follow your thoughts. So, you must create logical sections with clear sections, transitions, and signposts. These will help you to guide your audience through your content seamlessly.

Final thoughts

If you are new to project management and do not know how to present a project to your client or the crowd of the audience, please do not be worried and panic at all. It is not a big deal. You can do it by maintaining your confidence level, organizing the order of steps you are going to discuss, practicing and being tricky about grabbing the attention of the audience.

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What It Takes to Give a Great Presentation

• Carmine Gallo

Five tips to set yourself apart.

Never underestimate the power of great communication. It can help you land the job of your dreams, attract investors to back your idea, or elevate your stature within your organization. But while there are plenty of good speakers in the world, you can set yourself apart out by being the person who can deliver something great over and over. Here are a few tips for business professionals who want to move from being good speakers to great ones: be concise (the fewer words, the better); never use bullet points (photos and images paired together are more memorable); don’t underestimate the power of your voice (raise and lower it for emphasis); give your audience something extra (unexpected moments will grab their attention); rehearse (the best speakers are the best because they practice — a lot).

I was sitting across the table from a Silicon Valley CEO who had pioneered a technology that touches many of our lives — the flash memory that stores data on smartphones, digital cameras, and computers. He was a frequent guest on CNBC and had been delivering business presentations for at least 20 years before we met. And yet, the CEO wanted to sharpen his public speaking skills.

• Carmine Gallo is a Harvard University instructor, keynote speaker, and author of 10 books translated into 40 languages. Gallo is the author of The Bezos Blueprint: Communication Secrets of the World’s Greatest Salesman  (St. Martin’s Press).

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Princeton Correspondents on Undergraduate Research

How to Make a Successful Research Presentation

Turning a research paper into a visual presentation is difficult; there are pitfalls, and navigating the path to a brief, informative presentation takes time and practice. As a TA for  GEO/WRI 201: Methods in Data Analysis & Scientific Writing this past fall, I saw how this process works from an instructor’s standpoint. I’ve presented my own research before, but helping others present theirs taught me a bit more about the process. Here are some tips I learned that may help you with your next research presentation:

More is more

In general, your presentation will always benefit from more practice, more feedback, and more revision. By practicing in front of friends, you can get comfortable with presenting your work while receiving feedback. It is hard to know how to revise your presentation if you never practice. If you are presenting to a general audience, getting feedback from someone outside of your discipline is crucial. Terms and ideas that seem intuitive to you may be completely foreign to someone else, and your well-crafted presentation could fall flat.

Less is more

Limit the scope of your presentation, the number of slides, and the text on each slide. In my experience, text works well for organizing slides, orienting the audience to key terms, and annotating important figures–not for explaining complex ideas. Having fewer slides is usually better as well. In general, about one slide per minute of presentation is an appropriate budget. Too many slides is usually a sign that your topic is too broad.

Limit the scope of your presentation

Don’t present your paper. Presentations are usually around 10 min long. You will not have time to explain all of the research you did in a semester (or a year!) in such a short span of time. Instead, focus on the highlight(s). Identify a single compelling research question which your work addressed, and craft a succinct but complete narrative around it.

You will not have time to explain all of the research you did. Instead, focus on the highlights. Identify a single compelling research question which your work addressed, and craft a succinct but complete narrative around it.

Craft a compelling research narrative

After identifying the focused research question, walk your audience through your research as if it were a story. Presentations with strong narrative arcs are clear, captivating, and compelling.

• Introduction (exposition — rising action)

Orient the audience and draw them in by demonstrating the relevance and importance of your research story with strong global motive. Provide them with the necessary vocabulary and background knowledge to understand the plot of your story. Introduce the key studies (characters) relevant in your story and build tension and conflict with scholarly and data motive. By the end of your introduction, your audience should clearly understand your research question and be dying to know how you resolve the tension built through motive.

• Methods (rising action)

The methods section should transition smoothly and logically from the introduction. Beware of presenting your methods in a boring, arc-killing, ‘this is what I did.’ Focus on the details that set your story apart from the stories other people have already told. Keep the audience interested by clearly motivating your decisions based on your original research question or the tension built in your introduction.

• Results (climax)

Less is usually more here. Only present results which are clearly related to the focused research question you are presenting. Make sure you explain the results clearly so that your audience understands what your research found. This is the peak of tension in your narrative arc, so don’t undercut it by quickly clicking through to your discussion.

• Discussion (falling action)

By now your audience should be dying for a satisfying resolution. Here is where you contextualize your results and begin resolving the tension between past research. Be thorough. If you have too many conflicts left unresolved, or you don’t have enough time to present all of the resolutions, you probably need to further narrow the scope of your presentation.

• Conclusion (denouement)

Return back to your initial research question and motive, resolving any final conflicts and tying up loose ends. Leave the audience with a clear resolution of your focus research question, and use unresolved tension to set up potential sequels (i.e. further research).

Use your medium to enhance the narrative

Visual presentations should be dominated by clear, intentional graphics. Subtle animation in key moments (usually during the results or discussion) can add drama to the narrative arc and make conflict resolutions more satisfying. You are narrating a story written in images, videos, cartoons, and graphs. While your paper is mostly text, with graphics to highlight crucial points, your slides should be the opposite. Adapting to the new medium may require you to create or acquire far more graphics than you included in your paper, but it is necessary to create an engaging presentation.

The most important thing you can do for your presentation is to practice and revise. Bother your friends, your roommates, TAs–anybody who will sit down and listen to your work. Beyond that, think about presentations you have found compelling and try to incorporate some of those elements into your own. Remember you want your work to be comprehensible; you aren’t creating experts in 10 minutes. Above all, try to stay passionate about what you did and why. You put the time in, so show your audience that it’s worth it.

For more insight into research presentations, check out these past PCUR posts written by Emma and Ellie .

— Alec Getraer, Natural Sciences Correspondent

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Google Takes the Next Step in Its A.I. Evolution

The tech giant showed off how it would enmesh A.I. more deeply into its products and users’ lives, from search to so-called agents that perform tasks.

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By Nico Grant

Reporting from the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, Calif.

Last May, Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive, said the company would use artificial intelligence to reimagine all of its products .

But because new generative A.I. technology presented risks, like spreading false information, Google was cautious about applying the technology to its search engine, which is used by more than two billion people and was responsible for $175 billion in revenue last year.

On Tuesday, at Google’s annual conference in Mountain View, Calif., Mr. Pichai showed how the company’s aggressive work on A.I. had finally trickled into the search engine. Starting this week, he said, U.S. users will see a feature, A.I. Overviews, that generates information summaries above traditional search results. By the end of the year, more than a billion people will have access to the technology.

A.I. Overviews is likely to heighten concerns that web publishers will see less traffic from Google Search, putting more pressure on an industry that has reeled from rifts with other tech platforms. On Google, users will see longer summaries about a topic, which could reduce the need to go to another website — though Google downplayed those concerns.

“The links included in A.I. Overviews get more clicks” from users than if they were presented as traditional search results, Liz Reid, Google’s vice president of search, wrote in a blog post . “We’ll continue to focus on sending valuable traffic to publishers and creators.”

The company also unveiled a host of other initiatives — including a lightweight A.I. model, new chips and so-called agents that help users perform tasks — in an effort to gain the upper hand in an A.I. slugfest with Microsoft and OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT.

“We are in the very early days of the A.I. platform shift,” Mr. Pichai said on Tuesday at Google’s I/O developer conference. “We want everyone to benefit from what Gemini can do,” including developers, start-ups and the public.

When ChatGPT was released in late 2022, some tech industry insiders considered it a serious threat to Google’s search engine, the most popular way to get information online. Since then, Google has aggressively worked to regain its advantage in A.I., releasing a family of technology named Gemini, including new A.I. models for developers and the chatbot for consumers. It also infused the technology into YouTube, Gmail and Docs, helping users create videos, emails and drafts with less effort.

All the while, Google’s tit-for-tat competition with OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, has continued. The day before Google’s conference, OpenAI presented a new version of ChatGPT that is more akin to a voice assistant .

(The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft in December for copyright infringement of news content related to A.I. systems.)

At its Silicon Valley event, Google showcased how it would enmesh A.I. more deeply into users’ lives. It presented Project Astra, an experiment to see how A.I. could act as an agent, vocally chatting with users and responding to images and videos. Some of the abilities will be available to users of Google’s Gemini chatbot this year, Demis Hassabis, chief executive of DeepMind, Google’s A.I. lab, wrote in a blog post .

DeepMind also presented Gemini 1.5 Flash, an A.I. model designed to be fast and efficient but lighter in size than Gemini 1.5 Pro, the midtier model that Google rolled out to many of its consumer services. Dr. Hassabis wrote that the new model was “highly capable” at reasoning and was good at summarizing information, chatting and captioning images and videos.

The company announced another A.I. model, Veo, that generates high-definition videos based on simple text prompts, similar to OpenAI’s Sora system. Google said that some creators could preview Veo and that others could join a wait-list for access to it. Later this year, the company expects to bring some of Veo’s abilities to YouTube Shorts, the video platform’s TikTok competitor, and other products.

Google also showed off the latest versions of its music-generation tool, Lyria, and image generator, Imagen 3. In February, Google’s Gemini chatbot was criticized by users on social media for refusing to generate images of white people and presenting inaccurate images of historical figures. The company said it would shut off the ability to generate images of people until it fixed the issue.

In the past three months, more than one million users have signed up to Gemini Advanced, the version of Google’s chatbot available through a $20 monthly subscription, the company said.

In the next months, Google will add Gemini Live, which will provide users a way to speak to the chatbot through voice commands. The chatbot will respond in natural-sounding voices, Google said, and users could interrupt Gemini to ask clarifying questions. Later this year, users will be able to use their cameras to show Gemini Live the physical world around them and have conversations with the chatbot about it.

Besides A.I. Overviews, Google’s search engine will present search results pages organized by A.I., with generated headlines highlighting different types of content. The feature will start with dining and recipe results, and will later be offered for shopping, travel and entertainment queries.

Ms. Reid, the head of search, said in an interview before the conference that she expected the search updates to save users time because Google “can do more of the work for you.”

Mr. Pichai said he expected that a vast majority of people would interact with Gemini A.I. technology through Google’s search engine.

“We’re going to make it more and more seamless for people to interact with Gemini,” Mr. Pichai said in a briefing before the conference.

Nico Grant is a technology reporter covering Google from San Francisco. Previously, he spent five years at Bloomberg News, where he focused on Google and cloud computing. More about Nico Grant

Explore Our Coverage of Artificial Intelligence

News  and Analysis

Ilya Sutskever, the OpenAI co-founder and chief scientist who in November joined three other board members to force out Sam Altman before saying he regretted the move, is leaving the company .

OpenAI has unveiled a new version of its ChatGPT chatbot  that can receive and respond to voice commands, images and videos.

A bipartisan group of senators released a long-awaited legislative plan for A.I. , calling for billions in funding to propel U.S. leadership in the technology while offering few details on regulations.

The Age of A.I.

D’Youville University in Buffalo had an A.I. robot speak at its commencement . Not everyone was happy about it.

A new program, backed by Cornell Tech, M.I.T. and U.C.L.A., helps prepare lower-income, Latina and Black female computing majors  for A.I. careers.

Publishers have long worried that A.I.-generated answers on Google would drive readers away from their sites. They’re about to find out if those fears are warranted, our tech columnist writes .

A new category of apps promises to relieve parents of drudgery, with an assist from A.I.  But a family’s grunt work is more human, and valuable, than it seems.

10.26/27/29 Lab Project Presentation Competition

The 10.26/27/29 lab projects presentation competition was held on tuesday, may 14, 2024., congratulations to the winners, 1st place winners, team 3.

Project Title: Establishing a Closed-loop Process for KOH-based Direct Air Capture of CO 2 using Electrolysis of Spent CO 2 Scrubbing Solution

Left to right: Prof. Greg Rutledge (Instructor-in-Charge), Yash Samantaray (TA), Alondra Hernandez, Katie Crowley, Logan Hammond, Max Ramirez

2nd Place Winners, Team 8

Project Title: Large Scale Affinity Determination for an Anti-HIV-1 Antibody

Left to right: Prof. Greg Rutledge (Instructor-in-Charge), Omar Aly (TA), Jason Zhang, Cassandra Parada, Alexander Freedline, Prof. Brandon DeKosky (Team Instructor)

3rd Place Winners, Team 5

Project Title: Biocatalytic Enhancement of CO 2 Capture using Recombinant Carbonic Anhydrase

City of Lawrence to host community presentation on Massachusetts Street improvements project

photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World File Photo

Liberty Memorial Central Middle School is pictured in September 2018.

The City of Lawrence will host a community presentation next week to share more information about a study that since October 2023 has been gathering feedback on potential improvements to the stretch of Massachusetts Street between 14th and 23rd streets.

On Wednesday, the city will host a presentation at Liberty Memorial Central Middle School, 1400 Massachusetts St., from 5 to 6 p.m. in the second floor library. The middle school is located at one end of the portion of Massachusetts Street the city has been examining for improvements.

According to a press release about the presentation, city staff will present a preferred alternative concept design and a design report developed using input from the community, traffic analysis, guidance from master plans and input from city leaders. The improvements study aims to improve the functionality and safety of the corridor for all types of transportation — including pedestrians, cyclists, transit users and automobile users.

“The project is located in a signature corridor for the city and, as such, seeks a high level of community engagement,” the release reads.

According to the release, the project will culminate in a set of recommended improvements that will be reviewed by the city’s Multimodal Transportation Commission and the Lawrence City Commission.

More information about the project is available on the city’s website .

Secretary of the Interior defers response to U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran’s concerns about Haskell to another federal agency leader

Recent change to Lawrence-Douglas County Fire Medical staffing minimums puts fire engine temporarily out of service

In letter, Haskell Board of Regents opposes Baker University land sale and New Boston Crossing development

Have electronics to dispose of? City of Lawrence will be hosting a recycling day soon

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Goodfellas Boards Japanese Director Chie Hayakawa's 'Renoir' Ahead Of Cannes Market Investors Circle Presentation

EXCLUSIVE: Goodfellas has acquired world sales rights for Japanese filmmaker Chie Hayakawa's Tokyo-set drama Renoir ahead of the project's presentation in the Investors Circle event at the Cannes Marché du Film on Sunday.

The film is Hayakawa's second film after dystopian euthanasia drama Plan 75 , which debuted in Cannes Un Certain Regard in 2022, garnering a Special Mention in the Caméra d'Or contest for best first film.

The drama went on to play in more than 30 film festivals  and was selected as Japan's entry for Best International Feature Film at the 95th Academy Awards.

Renoir is set in suburban Tokyo in 1987 and revolves around 11-year-old Fuki, whose father is battling cancer, and is in and out of hospital.

With her mother stretched between caring for him and holding down a full-time job, Fuki is left to her own devices. Turning to her rich imagination, she becomes fascinated by telepathy and falls ever deeper into her own fantasy world.

The project reunites Hayakawa with Eiko Mizuno-Gray and Jason Gray at Tokyo-based Loaded Films Ltd ( To The Ends Of The Earth , Ten Years Japan), who produced Plan 75 .

French producer Christophe Bruncher at Ici et Là ( Women Do Cry ) and Singapore-based producer Fran Borgia at Akanga Film Asia ( Tiger Stripes ) are on board as co-producers.

Further partners include Japanese film companies Happinet-Phantom Studios, which has taken distribution rights for Japan, and Dongyu Club.

Renoir will be among 10 projects presented at the second edition of the Marché du Film's Investors circle – aimed at connecting elevated feature projects with private investors, with other participants including Ruben Östlund and The Surfer director Lorcan Finnegan.

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