How to make a GREAT PowerPoint presentation

How to make a GREAT PowerPoint presentation


Sunder Ramachandran | May 29, 2006

Does the thought of making a PPT get your palms all sweaty?

Well, you can change that. Here, we tell you how to hone your presentation skills, so that you look forward to it instead of approach it with dread.

For those who are lost, PPT is an abbreviation for the PowerPoint Presentation. This is a high-powered software tool marketed by Microsoft. They claim 30 million presentations are made with PowerPoint every day.

Basically, it is a tool used to present information in a slide show format. You can use text, charts, graphs, photographs, sound effects and even video with a lot of ease to present (sometimes boring) ideas, facts, trends, whatever information you want to.

So, whether your audience is your boss, your colleagues, a client, or students, here's how to make a killer presentation.

• 6 tips to make a GREAT presentation

When making the slides...

Shoot them with bullets 

"Less is more on a slide show. Too much information on a single slide becomes unreadable, especially when it is projected on a big screen for a large audience," says Delhi-based Ajay Jain, CEO, TCP Media.

1. Present your content in the form of four to five bulleted points per slide; anything more and you end up creating clutter. Using bullets not only makes your slide readable, it also adds to the overall impact of your presentation.

2. Let your bullets be visible. Try to use a font size of 18-24.

3. Don't let each bulleted point be too lengthy. Limit it to six words in one line -- use short sentences.

4. Try to restrict it to six lines in a slide.

5. Contrast the text with the background.

6. To highlight certain important information, present that text in a larger font size. 

Don't make it too animated

PowerPoint offers tremendous multimedia capabilities, but don't get carried away with flashy videos, music clips or graphics. Restrict it to certain slides, you don't have to employ it for each and every one.

"One of my students made a presentation on micro finance. It was a serious topic but every slide had background music and even the click of the mouse produced fancy sounds. This took away from the seriousness of the subject being discussed," says Madurai-based M Subramanian a senior faculty member with the R L Institute Of Management Studies.

Use the multimedia capabilities only for special emphasis or to demonstrate how something works. If you use animation excessively, your presentation could be labeled as 'school-boyish'.

Space it out evenly

Select the first of the three or more objects you want to space out, hold down the 'Shift' key and click the remaining objects you want evenly spaced out.

Go to the 'View' menu and select 'Toolbars', then select 'Drawing' to open the 'Drawing' toolbar. Once there, click 'Draw'.

A menu opens.

Click 'Align' or 'Distribute', then 'Distribute Horizontally' or 'Distribute Vertically' to align the objects you selected. Your slides will look balanced and dapper.

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When presenting...

Your PPT is not a Teleprompter

Don't commit the cardinal sin of reading out your slides word for word. This is guaranteed to get your audience yawning and reaching for more coffee.

PPT slides are to be used as a visual communication aid and not as a teleprompter for the speaker. 

"If I want my audience to make notes of important points, I usually provide hand-outs or leaflets after the presentation. This ensures the audience is listening instead of taking notes," says Mumbai-based Prabh Sharan, training manager with Kingfisher Airlines.

Get out of the way

Make sure you are not blocking the audience's view. Use a laser beam to identify the points on the screen, never your arm. A flailing arm is a distraction.

"In one of the college presentations, a colleague kept prompting us to read the slides but would not move away. We ended up reading the slides from his face as he was standing right in front of the projector," says Madan Ramachandran, an MBA graduate from ICFAI business school, Hyderabad.

Go slow

"In one of our routine university meets, a fellow academician flipped through a 15-slide presentation in about five minutes," says Delhi based Shanthi Chander, senior administrative officer, Indira Gandhi University. "At the end of it," he concludes, "we all had the same question on our minds -- what exactly just hit us?"

Don't rush through your slide show. Give about 30 seconds to two minutes for the images on your slide show to make an impact. This will also give you time to answer questions and make your point.

Do dummy runs

Don't make the first presentation to your audience. You should do the entire presentation by yourself (in front of a mirror, if possible). See how it flows and how long it takes.

If you are uncertain, maybe you could run it past a colleague or a friend. Ask them for feedback. Go through other presentations. if you have them, and see how others have done it. Recollect all the presentations you attended -- what you like about them, what you disliked about them, etc. Now, implement what you have learnt from all of this in your slide show presentation.

It's not just technology

PowerPoint may be a great piece of technology, but your effectiveness as a public speaker will eventually dictate the impact.

Dress smartly. Entertain the audience with some amount of planned humour. Share anecdotes and stories.

Don't talk in a monotone. Pack in enthusiasm and energy into your voice.

And, if you do goof up, never apologise -- take a breath, smile and move on. You will be surprised to know how many in your audience may not have even noticed the mishap until you made it obvious.

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Smart tips...

Go blank: If you want the audience to take their eyes off the slides, just put the presentation on slide show mode and press 'B' on your keyboard.

This will blank out the screen and you will have the audience's attention. Press 'B' again and you are back.

Add speaker notes: Worried about forgetting your script? Here's a smart solution.

Go to the slide for which you want to add notes. Go to the 'View' menu and select 'Notes'.

Click the text placeholder and begin typing your speaker notes. Only YOU can see these notes, so your audience will leave your presentation, impressed with your ability to say smart things at the right time. Try it out, it's really cool.

Navigate: If you have to navigate through slides, you can simply type in the slide number and press 'Enter'.

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A powerful presentation is not a matter of chance. It takes a lot of preparation and practice, but the thundering applause from your audience will make it all worth it.

So bring out your shining new slide show and wow even the toughest audience.

DATA REQUIRED TO DESIGN ANY ETP/STP/WTP

1. Type Of Waste : Is it dyeing and printing or only dyeing or only printing

2.Total quantity of waste : Not mentioned

3.Total processing hour in a day of 24 hours: Not Mentioned

4. Flow Rate: 40 cu mtr/ Hr

5.Inlet Parameters: pH:-------, TSS:--------, BOD:---------, COD:---------, OIl & Grease:-------, Detergents:-------

6.Outlet parameters required:

7.Available area for the proposed ETP:

8. Do you mean to reuse the treated water or some part of it, if yes how much water and where

Advice from an entrepreneur turned VC

On what, as a VC, he will look for in an entrepreneur

1. I will see if they have a fire in their belly because, at the end of the day, they are the ones going to make a venture a success. They must have passion and conviction.

2. They should be ready to play a long innings. I call it a marathon as well as a sprint. You have to be running fast despite it being a long race.

3. Ideas change, as do business models and markets, but they should understand that it is eventually all about people. If the team is strong, does the right things and learns from customers and the marketplace, it can always create value and get an exit. So, it is a team affair to begin with.

4. I will ask, are they clear about market opportunities for the ideas they are going after?

5. I will also ask them what is the implemented value they offer customers. I am not talking about the perceived value. A lot of them get confused about the stated value versus realised value. They can write anything on a piece of paper, but is that what customers are saying once they implement your services?

6. I will look at the barriers for entry. How much lead-time do they have compared to other players? How soon can they get in? Even gorillas can get in when the market becomes viable; can they compete with the big boys? Can they carve their own niche?

If an entrepreneur doesn't have answers to all the questions a VC asks, no one will invest money in his idea. It is true that he will not have all the clarity in the beginning, but he should be willing to refocus his business model when the need arises.

What entrepreneurs should keep in mind while meeting a VC

1. To begin with, he should do a lot of homework and find the right VC. He should find out what the VCs are interested in, what they are passionate about, etc.

2. Once you do the homework, select a set of VCs. If I were an entrepreneur, I wouldn't pitch to all of them on day one; I would pitch to two or three of them and get feedback.

3. Pitching should be more informal. You will know the VC's interests in the first meeting itself. VCs will put forward some common objections, but you put all objections in a bucket -- objections about the team, technology, size of the market place, competition, etc. Once you put them in a bucket, decide whether you can resolve them. Target 10-12 of the relevant ones before going to pitch.

4. At conferences like TiE-ISB, you get to meet busy VCs over a cup of tea or lunch, which you will otherwise be able to do.

5. A lot of entrepreneurs are worried about VCs stealing their ideas. My advice to them is, never worry. They should protect their intellectual property. VCs will never steal their ideas; they have very little time. So, they should shed that idea first. I must say this fear doesn't exist in Silicon Valley because so much has happened there. The level of professionalism there is higher. The fear occurs because entrepreneurship has been happening relatively recently in India. It will take some time to come out of it.

What one should do after becoming an entrepreneur

1. You have to dispel the notion that 'I want to own 90 per cent of what I build'. You have to look at making the pie bigger. It doesn't matter whether you own 90 per cent of a $10 million company or 20-30 per cent of a $300 million company. Your net worth is much higher. So, you have to create and share wealth.

2. You also have to bring in the right people to make the pie bigger.

3. When you scale a company, as an entrepreneur, you start with a lot of passion. After you build to a certain scale, you have to decide when to step aside and bring in a professional team to take the company to the next level. Entrepreneurs across the world have this possessiveness; they want to hold on to their company very closely.

4. Apart from your hard work, you have to be at the right place at the right time. Timing is everything. You have to time it right, which is where judgment comes into play. You may go up to 10-20 million in revenue but, when consolidation takes place in the marketplace, you will be nobody. You may never get an exit. Finally, remember that luck plays a major role.