Why PowerPoint is ruining your presentation (and how to avoid it)

When you have a presentation coming up the first thing you do is open PowerPoint. Quickly followed by creating an ‘agenda’ slide. Then comes adding bullet points to your main slides. A couple of images might feature, and maybe even slide animations.

It is possible that once you have completed your slides, you close PowerPoint and your preparation is done. You don’t look at it again until it is time to present.

This is destroying your presentation.

You have made everything about you. The slides were made for you as a prompt on what to say. Maybe you even read straight from the slides during your delivery. If the tech fails so do you — you have made PowerPoint your crutch.

Luckily for you, it does not have to be that way.

Here is what you should do instead:

Make it about the audience

Before you do anything else, pinpoint exactly what the audience need and want from you. This includes:

• The topic they want you to cover
• How they want to receive the information
• Actionable items you can give them
• Moments (or stories) they will remember when your presentation is over

Only when you have this information should you start designing the slides. With everything you put on a slide, consider if there is a better way that…