Strategy Survival Guide

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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
Strengths • It allows you to see the logic and flow of the presentation at a very early stage, making experimentation and revision of the narrative far less costly (in time) compared with jumping straight in with slide design and revisions are required later. • It also allows you to ensure that you have all the supporting information that you need before starting to write your slides. • It allows you to see early on the viability of different elements of the presentation together, rather than as discrete units that are then stuck together in an ungainly fashion at a late stage of the project cycle. Weaknesses • It is an extra layer of planning which will be time-consuming. For very short presentations it might not be necessary to include all the elements listed above (e.g. agenda, summary slides etc.) However, even with very short presentations, it is valuable to think through your story, as you have very little time to engage your audience. Pitfalls • Including graphs, tables or analysis in your presentation just because you’ve done the work. If it doesn’t directly support your conclusions, don’t include it! • Failing to identify the key issues that your audience wants to discuss, or failing to put together a compelling story that is fully supported by the data. • Failing to match the claims of your commentary with the evidence in your slides. • The clarity of the presentation achieved via storyboarding is designed to increase its impact, not substitute for the strength of the evidence and analysis. Resources Consulting firms tend to prepare a lot of presentations, so any colleagues who have worked for a consultancy will be able to help you prepare a compelling story for your presentation. "The Pyramid Principle" by Barbara Minto describes in more detail how to structure a presentation using pyramid logic. Preparing presentations In Practice: SU Education Project The Strategy Unit conducted a review of education strategy, which exemplifies many of the elements discussed above. It was a large piece of work, and several versions of the presentation were constructed for different audiences. For the presentation to the PM, we had 90 minutes, and presented about 30 slides of substance. For general circulation the complete version was around 170 slides, with a couple of annexes containing supporting material. There was vigorous discussion regarding the structure of each presentation, but the storyboarding process helped to speed-up decisions. The common elements to each presentation were: • The contents page laid out the structure of the pack • Each section had a one-slide summary immediately after being introduced • Each slide had a descriptive strap-line, with the contents backing it up, and the source of the data clearly indicated. The slides were full, but the strap line provided a clear message that can be grasped quickly • The slide-sorter view of PowerPoint showed a balanced variety of slide formats to convey the data – text, schematics and graphs, with a common colour scheme throughout • The conclusion was a single page, summarising the thrust of the whole report. Strategy Survival Guide – Strategy Skills Page 89
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Strategy Strategy Survival Survival
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Strategy Survival Guide Version 2.1
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Building an Evidence Base 113 Data
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A Framework for Strategic Direction
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References Structure, Conduct, Perf
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Strengths • Quantitative forecast
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Scenario development In Practice 1:
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Scenarios used in the Strategy Unit
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events. There are a number of diffe
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Multi-criteria analysis In Practice
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For further material, see the Ratio
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Compelling vision for action - the
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Designing an implementation plan In
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Creating Public Value http://www.nu
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management 17, 20, 27, 34, 45 outpu
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Strategy Survival Guide

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