Slides in your presentation: a tool, not a script

I once heard someone say that PowerPoint is the walking frame of a bad teacher. Or of a bad speaker, I immediately thought. The software itself is not the problem. PowerPoint, Keynote, a flip chart or an interactive tool, it makes no difference. Things go wrong when you use a tool for something it was not designed for.

Who are your slides actually for?

I often ask speakers who their slides are for. The honest answer is usually: for me, otherwise I’ll forget what I want to say. That’s understandable, but a tool should help your audience. It should make something clear, show something or evoke a feeling. That’s difficult to do with a slide full of keywords that are really there for you.

You know what happens next. The audience reads the slide faster than you can read it aloud, then everyone waits for you to finish.

Need a script? Make cue cards

Put the framework of your story on a few cards: the key words and the things you really mustn’t forget. No fully written-out text. Rehearse your presentation out loud two or three times. Then you’ll know the words well enough to speak fluently, without turning into a robot who gets stuck after forgetting a single sentence.

Three things, each with its own purpose

• Your presentation is what happens in the room: you, your story and the audience.
• Your tool complements you and makes things extra clear.
• Your handout is a reminder for later: your key message, what people should do next and how to contact you.

Because they have different purposes, they also take different forms. Here’s a good test: if someone can fully understand your presentation just by flicking through your slides, it was a bad presentation or a bad tool.

The common mistake: starting in PowerPoint

Many people say, “I’m going to work on my presentation” and immediately open PowerPoint. Then the template determines the story. You think in slides with a title and five bullet points, instead of a structure with a beginning, tension and an ending. But people were giving presentations long before PowerPoint existed.

How to approach it

1. Write your story down first, or tell it out loud, without a screen.
2. Mark the moments when an image, a figure or an example would really help the audience.
3. Make a slide only for those moments. The rest of the time, the screen can be black or uncluttered.
4. Make your cue cards separately from your slides.
5. Create the handout last, for people who want to read something again afterwards.

What this means for the organiser

Don’t ask speakers to submit their slides first. Ask about their story. And make sure there’s a screen or monitor on stage where the speaker can see what the audience sees, so they don’t end up standing with their back to the audience. A presenter or event host who speaks between sections usually doesn’t need slides at all. In the article about the differences between the roles, you can read about how those roles work.

For the speaker who isn’t known yet

An unknown speaker is often first assessed through a video or a short pitch. Anyone who is visibly reading from a screen in one of those is immediately ruled out. Show instead that you can tell your story without slides. A client who sees that knows you can carry on even if the projector breaks down.

Do you really need that walking frame?

Start with your story, not your slides. You may find that you can walk perfectly well without a walking frame.