Time Management and MPM

If you are like me, one of the top things you worry about whenever you start a project, is how much time should I spend on each item in my work back schedule?

This is a difficult question when it comes to presentations, but here are some basic Modern Presentation Method (MPM) rules to follow in order to maximize your time

1/3: 2/3 Breakdown

From an overall time perspective you should spend 1/3 of your time in the first step of the MPM process – Visualization.  The remaining 2/3’s of your time is in the remaining steps.

 

The reason you should spend such a big chunk of time in visualization is that it is simply the most critical part of the presentation.  If you do a good job focusing on what the audience wants/needs, what you want/need, how you will present (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc…), and your story framework, you will minimize the number of revisions that you will do later in the process.

Why is this important?  Time.  Changes later in the process take 10X as much time as they would have taken if the change occurred early in visualization. 

 Create the Work back Schedule

The next step in time management is setting your work back schedule.  Backward planning is critical in presenting because oftentimes the date of the presentation can’t move.  In order to avoid the relentless pressure of such a deadline, it is helpful to put together a work back schedule immediately.

At a minimum, I will set completion milestones as follows:

1. Visualization Complete – 1/3 of the way through my allotted time
2. Storyboard Complete – Within 2 days of completing Visualization
3. Draft 1 of Build and Refine Complete – No later than 1/3 further of the allotted time.
4. All Subsequent drafts Complete – All the way up till 4 hours out.
5. Do Rehearsals – Last 24 hours.

  

Calendar Management

Many great plans fail because the project owners fail to book time.  Before you go any further, I recommend that you schedule meetings for each of the milestones.  I would get 1-2 hours on your calendar on each milestone day to give yourself appropriate time to complete each step in the process.

Hasty versus Deliberate

Oftentimes, you will have less than a day to put together a presentation.  One of the best things about MPM is that this is taken into account.  If you find yourself in this situation, I would recommend that you stick with the 1/3 : 2/3 rule as a basic guide.  If you are working as part of a team, it helps to pull everyone into a room, do the visualization together and then assign work items.  Don’t ever skip Visualization!  You’ll pay later if you do.

Summary

So there’s Time Management in a nutshell.  Use your time wisely and no matter how short your deadline is, you will never feel rushed and out of control.

As always, ping me with your ideas and comments.

DK

mailto:dkarle@microsoft.com

Presenter Tools – Part One

So first off, what software should you have?  Well for all presenters, Microsoft Office 2010 of course. 

I have found that for the majority of presentations, whether on screen or on paper, I will use PowerPoint, Word, and/or Excel at some point in the process.

PowerPoint, in addition to being a great on screen presentation tool, is even better for creating handouts during presentations.  Think of it as a blank canvas that you can use to mix and organize text, data, and graphics.  In fact one of the best practices I will be talking about in an upcoming post is how to use a single printed PowerPoint slides to help bring to life complex issues and scenarios.

Excel is the standard for pulling together data and showing it off.  I have also used it as the actual presentation tool many times.

Word is the tool I use to drive deep discussion.  It lends itself to deep intellectual exploration of key issues.  Almost 100% of the time I use Word at some point in the MPM process.

Now for those of you that are 200 and 300 level presenters I always recommend Microsoft Office 2010 as a core set of tools, but if you stay tuned for later posts I have some additional cool tools for you as well.

DK

mailto:dkarle@microsoft.com

Dark Room = Dark Slide Background

Saturday afternoon and I’m going to take a few minutes away from the first bowl games of the year.  As a result, this post will be pretty quick.

Today I want to riff on slide backgrounds.  People ask me all the time, should I use a light one or a dark one?

Well, the answer is really simple.  Dark room; use a dark background with light or white text.  Light room; use a very light background with black or very dark text. 

Attached is a 2 slide PowerPoint presentation you can use to check this out for yourself.  Here are what the two slides look like:

       

Go into a conference room and fire up PowerPoint in SlideShow mode and pull up the first slide with the Black background.  If you have the lights on it will look washed out.  But if you turn the lights way down or off the text just POPS OUT at you.  Go to the back of the room and see which line is the smallest line you can read.  In many 30 x 40 foot conference rooms, people can read the size 20 font. 

Now bring up the slide with the Light background while the room is still dark.  You can probably still read the size 20 font, but the slide seems to bloom a little before your eyes due to the while background.  Now turn the lights back on.  I’ll bet the slide looks great.  As a result of this little test here are a few observations.

1. Dark Room – Use a Dark Background (Blue, Black, Green, and Grey are best)
2. Light Room – Use a Light Background (White and Grey are best)
3. Almost all rooms greater than 50 people should be a dark room.  The light text contrasts better for readability in large spaces.

 

So that’s it…now it’s back to football for me.

DK

mailto:dkarle@microsoft.com

What is the Modern Presentation Method?

Six years ago, when I first started doing executive level presentations I was stunned to find out that there was no easy to use process for building a great presentation!  For the first year or so I muddled my way through as best as I could.  Luckily, I had access to two resources that most presenters don’t. 

• First, within my community of professionals at Microsoft and in the tech community as a whole there are some great resources and best practices.  The experts taught me how they were continually successful and what worked or didn’t.  I was able to cherry pick from their diverse points of view and integrate their experience into my own unique process.  This “tribal” knowledge was invaluable and was hard won as a result of thousands of presentations to millions of people across the world.
• Second, I brought in and worked closely with great speech coaches who helped me further refine my process.  Their frank (read brutal) guidance about whether my presentations were well crafted put me on a good path and added the perspectives required to not only build great content, but also to give it voice.

One thousand presentations later, I have refined my process into a tried and true method.  But I’ll let you be the judge.  Here is the Modern Presentation Method.

 

So what is the Modern Presentation Method? 

The Modern Presentation Method or MPM is an easily understood five step process that when learned is natural to use   One of the advantages of MPM is that it works well for presenters who have lots of time to put together a presentation and also for those who are in a rush.  This is especially important for those of us who work in real time environments and have precious little spare time. 

Here are the five steps.

1. Visualize – So you’ve been assigned a presentation and need to get started.  In this step, presenters learn how to define what their audience needs, the presenter’s needs, and how to build a great story framework.  Perhaps most importantly they get the guidance to help them decide which presentation vehicle (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc…) is best suited for the type of presentation they are doing!
2. Storyboard – Next, the presenter puts together a simple storyboard.  This is not the big Hollywood storyboard that many presentation experts advocate but rather a simple, clear overview of the presentation that is easy to understand and really helps the presenter refine the story.
3. Build & Refine – Now that you’ve roughed it out, it’s time to build it.  The devil is in the details and this is where we add the data, personal stories, demos, videos, and of course the graphics.  Again the emphasis is on speed so that the presenter can efficiently use their time.  The end result is a well-crafted and relevant presentation.
4. Rehearse – Every presentation needs to be rehearsed.  Sometimes you can only do it in your head as you wait to go into the conference room.  Other times it’s more deliberate.  Either way, MPM has some great ways of getting you from first run through to polished perfection.
5. Deliver – So you’re ready to go.  But wait, what do you do for notes during the presentation?  What happens if egad your demo fails!  MPM is there to help you take your polished presentation and deliver it regardless of what happens while you are standing and delivering to your audience.

 

Training

If there is one thing that every presenter needs it’s some training.  MPM has 100, 200, and 300 level training that helps presenters of all levels build their skill set.  The best part is that unlike training offered by other presentation experts, in MPM you actually get your hands dirty and build presentations. 

 

Tools and Resources

One of the most daunting problems I faced early in my career was what tools should I use to create great presentations.  For example, how do I get great graphics that don’t cost a lot of money?

Well, MPM has some unique tools and resources to fill this critical gap.  Templates, graphics libraries, how to quickly and cheaply source photos, etc.  Just too many to list here.

 

Summary

So there it is.  MPM is an end to end method that is the result of a tried and true process.  It provides best practices, tools, and resources that have all been through the crucible of thousands of presentations and codifies them into an easy to use method.  It is easy to use and easy to learn.  It works well for both carefully planned and hastily put together presentations.  In short it works and it works well. 

Over the next 117 days I’ll be introducing you to MPM so stay tuned!

DK

The Modern Presentation Method – It’s Not All About PowerPoint!!!

So here’s key point #1…..The method that I’m proposing for presenting does not exclusively use PowerPoint to display content. 

GASP!  How can a Microsoft speechwriter say such a dastardly thing, you cry in alarm!

Relax, I love PowerPoint and the Modern Presentation Method uses PowerPoint plenty.  But there are plenty of times in which the display tool will be other things such as Word, Excel, a Whiteboard, even sticky notes.  The simple fact of the matter is that there is a correct tool for every job and part of the Modern Presentation Method is all about picking the right tool for the job.

More later.  Stay tuned. 

DK

p.s. Hopefully the Office team is not on its way to find me right now.