Paraphrasing Albert Einstein, you have to ask the right questions if you're going to find the right answers. This is true for effective presentation planning. Following is a list of must-ask questions that will help guide your work as you develop your next presentation.
- What is the core purpose of my program?
- Why should the audience care about my content?
- What are the top 3-4 pieces of information I hope my audience will remember one week after my presentation?
- What makes me a credible expert in this area?
- What are stories I can use to get the human element into my presentation?
- How will I purposefully get the audience interacting with me, as well as each other?
- What do I think are going to be the common questions audience members will ask?
- What is the current knowledge level of the audience regarding my topic?
- What are the barriers to the audience engaging?
- Am I primarily informing, educating or motivating?
- What will the first 30-seconds sound like?
- How am I helping the audience follow my presentation?
- What is the closing call to action?
- What do I expect the audience to do with my information?
- How am I helping the audience retain the information; i.e. encouraging note taking.
- What props, AV elements, handouts, etc. are necessary?
- What content needs to be taken away because it doesn't strongly support the core purpose or is information overload?
- Where can the audience access my content and contact information after my presentation is over?
