From my experience, how I structure a presentation and tell a story
Why we are here
We rarely take the initiative to show our values and strengths due to FEAR of getting into the spotlight and worried that it will make us appear bragging. That causes our efforts to be undervalued.
FACT: Value creation and appreciation of that value don’t happen by simply doing great work — you also need to promote and express yourself through your presentation skill.
BUT…
We have another FEAR, that is being judged as not smart and capable through what we show in the presentation.
Now, we are here to overcome fear and face challenges together.
How to do
A successful presentation combines 3 pillars: a story to tell with a message to convey, a solid structure and data insertion
- A story to tell, a message to convey
The story and message you want to convey through your presentation will depend heavily on the context and purpose of the presentation. Therefore, it is up to you and your story should base on facts, data, desires, and expectations.
- Structure your presentation with an intention (make a storyboard if needed)
This is the part where we will delve deeper today. I provide some frameworks to help you structure your presentation effectively, tightly, and convey the message easily.
- Back your presentations with data
To make the presentation more concise and persuasive, data is an indispensable component. However, people often struggle with selecting the right data to include, veering towards facts and lacking insights. I will address some practical tips to help distinguish facts from insights and how to incorporate insights into your presentation.
What to do
STRUCTURE: a combination of knowledge, skills and art
When choosing the structure of a presentation, you need to base on
- Purpose and Target Audience
- The story to be told
- The message to convey
- The outputs we expect
Here are some typical frameworks you can refer to
What -> So what -> Now what
First, tell the audience your main point (“what”), then explain why it matters (“so what”), and finish off with what you or your audience should do next (“now what”).
For example
- What: Last week we launched August Mega.
- So what: The performance was lower than our expectation in terms of traffic due to the low Click-through-rate of digital campagns (X vs. Y) and in-app traffic shortage (data here!)
- Now what: “We expect to resilient CTR by testing more content and visuals, pushing in-app traffic by list of actions. As a result, here is the traffic forecast (data here!)
This framework is also a wonderful short-hand for weekly or daily updates. Just remember What -> So what -> Now what, and fill in the gaps as you go.
Past -> Present -> Future
Start by building shared context by explaining how you’ve got here (the “past”), talk about the current challenges and opportunities in the “present”, and lastly share what the “future” will look like.
For example
- Past: “We’ve built up a base of X users, by focusing on gamified campaigns. This has served us well so far.
- Present: “Gamified campaigns consumed much resources of the Product and Developer team. In the cost effectiveness aspect, its CAC was quite expensive. Now we see resource and budget constraint challenges (data here!). We need to find a way to shorten time to market and optimize cost acquisition user. The good news is, we also see such and such opportunities.”
- Future: “Based on these challenges and opportunities, we’ve developed this new strategy. We will focus on X and Y themes. Here’s what that looks like (forecast here!).
This framework is perfect for broader strategy presentations, where you need to tell a story to bring your colleagues along.
Situation -> Complication -> Resolution
- Situation: What’s happening now?
- But… Complication: The challenges ahead. Use data to back this up. It shines a light on the problem and adds tension to the story
- Therefore… Resolution: The proposed actions/ solutions that tackle the challenges. Make sure you have evidence/ prediction/ forecast to add credibility to the story.
For example
- Situation: The shortage of new users last 3 months
- But… Complication: The new traffic shortage due to no big campaigns, the conversion rate decreased dramatically due to the absence of X and Y factor. Using data to back this up.
- Therefore… Resolution: The proposed actions to test and be resilient. Here is our forecast/ expectation (data)
Situation -> Opportunity -> Resolution
- Situation: What’s happening now?
- But… Opportunity: Opportunity is an alternative path if you wish to cast the presentation in a hopeful light
- Therefore… Resolution: The proposed actions/ solutions that tackle the challenges. Make sure you have evidence/ prediction/ forecast to add credibility to the story.
For example
- Situation: The shortage of new users last 3 months
- But… Opportunity: The retention rate was better than Q1 (data here!), we are able to reach the goal by focusing on retention over acquisition.
- Therefore… Resolution: The proposed actions to uplift the retention rate and here is what we need (budget/ resource) and what we could achieve (back this up with data!)
Goal -> Alternatives -> Assessment
This framework is perfect for facilitating discussions with 6–12 people about how best to reach a goal.
- Goal: Start by a team goal (X new users in August).
- Alternatives: Outline different alternative paths toward the goal. What choices do you have? You could do this collaboratively in the session or prepare some alternatives ahead of time that you present at this point. Discuss the different alternatives. Are they comprehensive? Are they overlapping?
- Assessment: Lastly, assess the different alternatives (scenarios analysis and forecast here!), then choose the most suitable paths toward the goal.
Data insertion
When deciding to incorporate data into presentations, your initial focus should be on facts. However, relying solely on facts can make your presentation disjointed, lacking the persuasiveness to reach conclusions or missing the connections to the message you want to convey.
Therefore, the best approach is to select key facts, string them together, and draw upon your knowledge and expertise to transform them into insights.
You have to tell facts with right numbers by this checklist
- Understand the problem first/ have a clear story in mind
- Work through funnel analysis to to deep dive the problem
- Use relevant data to back your story/ problem up by understanding the metrics and its formula
- Know the combination of metrics and its correlation
- Data consistency across slides
- Logic check by comparing overtime and benchmark
Then, you use this formula to transform facts into insights.
FACTS = Ask yourself (why/so what) + Enrich numbers by your expertise (domain knowledge, business context, intuition, expectations) + link facts to actions needed to do = INSIGHTS
Interpretation
Interpretation is the most crucial part in shaping a story. Selecting an appropriate structure and accurate data can become meaningless if you interpret them without cohesion and lacking support for the same message. Therefore, interpretation is required to make sense of numerical data and provide relevant conclusions.
Inputs:
- Understand data and metrics correlation
- Know the context and enrich insights by your expertise
- Compare and benchmark different subsets of data, time periods
- Practice and read reports as much as you can
Outputs:
- Situation/ Trend
- Performance Evaluation and Forecast/ Benchmark
- Expectation Management
- Actions Needed
Last but not least, you should make your presentations beautiful by
- Have a Presentation Structure/ Storyboard
- Standardize Position, Colors, and Styles
- Use the Suitable Charts
- Keep the Colors Simple
- No Sentences, Bullet Points please (max 6)
- Simple is the best, limit the information to essentials
Final thoughts
In order to communicate more effectively in your work, presentation skills are an essential. Beyond the skills of creating slides, the story and the structure of each presentation are prerequisites for your success. There are no shortcuts to becoming a master, instead, practice and read as many good presentations as possible. This will help you develop the mindset for selecting the right presentation structure and data interpretation.
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