Strategy Survival Guide

Preparing the Story
Once you have a good idea of the right length, tone and format for your presentation, you can start to design
your 'story’. As with the standard dictum that governs speeches, tell them what you are going to say, say it,
and then tell them what you have said. Secondly, don’t simply read out the contents of your slides! Use them
as the bulwark with which to fortify your commentary. The surest recipe for confusion is to be talking about a
different point to the one on the projector or the hand-out. Where one slide covers four points, consider
revealing them one by one as you talk though them. Remember that you want your audience to:
• Absorb what you are saying quickly and easily – so have the body of the slide fit tightly with the title
or 'strap-line’. Try to keep your slides uncluttered, with no more than four points on each with a
common convention for font sizes and styles and element positions.
• Have confidence in the validity of the material – cite your analytical sources
• Be clear on the recommended path of action – provide a conclusion that encapsulates your central
message.
You can be more confident of meeting your audience’s needs if you can answer the following questions:
• What is the subject I am considering?
• What is the central question in my audience’s mind about that subject?
• What is my answer to that central question?
Frequently, the agenda of the presenter and his audience may be slightly different. For example, a
presentation to the Treasury that tries to convey the innovative nature of your policy recommendation might
be lost amidst their concerns regarding its cost-effectiveness. Communications with stakeholders before the
presentation often give an indication of their concerns If they are not explicit, and if you don’t know them
before the presentation, try and pick them up as you go through rather than ignoring them.
Knowing the central question in your audience’s mind is central to generating an engaging narrative. A
common approach is to use a 'pyramid’ structure for your presentation. The pyramid should start with a
single overall summary slide, on which you sum up the key elements of your story, and the answer to the
central question that you believe will be in your audience’s mind. Behind the summary slide are more
detailed sections, each of which also starts with a slide summarising the section. Inside each section is the
detailed analysis and arguments to support the main conclusions.
Using this pyramid approach creates a strong presentation with clear conclusions extracted out of the body
of detail, and grounded in a sound logical basis. Where presentation time is short, and you are not sure
which of the slides the audience will want clarification on, a useful trick is to include 'hidden’ slides in the
presentation which can be shown later in support of a particular slide if it is questioned (in PowerPoint, go to
Slide-show ® Hide Slide).
Before writing any slides, sketch out the flow of the presentation with a separate post-it note for each slide.
Write down the exact title you are going to use on each slide. The titles alone should tell the complete story
that the audience is going to hear. Secondly, sketch out the content you are going to put on each slide –
word arguments, analytical tables, graphs or pictures. That way you can check that you have all the data that
you need before starting to prepare the slides, and more easily see the balance of the presentation between
text, tables, graphs and graphics. Once you have prepared your presentation, share it with colleagues to
check that they agree with your logic, and that your story is clear.
Every presentation should include a number of standard elements:
• Agenda – so you can explain to your audience what your are going to be presenting, and the timing
of your presentation
• Summary slides – both an overall one page summary of your presentation, and individual summaries
at the start of each new section
• Conclusions/recommendations – sum up your findings on a single page
• Next steps – tell your audience what you plan to do next, and how you will keep them involved in the
process
In the process of constructing the narrative, several teams have found it advantageous to involve individuals
with executive input into the presentation, such as external advisors, as it lessens the risk of trying to rewrite
the structure of the presentation at the 11 th hour. Quite apart from their opinion of the content, the very
process of constructing the story is very likely to increase their sense of 'ownership’ with the project.
Strategy Survival Guide – Strategy Skills
Page 88