Giving Presentations

Projected Time

30-45 minutes

Prerequisites

• Basic comfort with Google Slides, Powerpoint, Keynote, or other presentation software of your choice.
• Access to inanimate objects or spaces (wall, bush, etc) in front of which to practice!

Motivation

Programming and related technical skills are only one piece of the job of a software engineer. Communicating your work to others is another (and by some measures the most critical) component of any job. Presentations are a more formal type of communication that help demonstrate mastery, share learnings, and teach or persuade others. Comfort giving presentations helps build your and your colleagues’ confidence in you and may open doors to additional opportunities to share your work with other teams or at conferences, recruiting events, and meetups.

Where do presentation skills have an impact in workplace?

Presentation skills will help in the following workplace or professional circumstances:

• At interviews, as the interviewer or interviewee
• At meetings, face to face or in a conference call
• At networking functions, meeting new people or getting to know ones you already know.
• Speaking to colleagues and staff
• Delivering a presentation to clients detailing a technical topic or selling a product
• Presenting at conferences
• Speaking at large internal meetings
• Presenting training
• Attending training

(leadersinheels)

Objectives

Participants will be able to:

• Write and deliver a short presentation on a topic of their choice by:
• Deciding on a topic
• Writing a basic outline of major points
• Creating slides (then edit)
• Practicing & presenting!

Specific Things to Learn

• Topic selection
• Evaluating your audience
• Writing a basic outline
• Creating Google Slides - Text-light (add speaker notes if needed) - Images (consider copyright & attribute sources as necessary)
• Presenting

Materials/Resources

• Toastmasters
• Present! A Techie’s Guide to Public Speaking
• Demystifying Public Speaking by Lara Hogan

Lesson

Giving a presentation is 90% confidence and 10% content. Building confidence comes naturally (at your own pace) from spending time crafting your content and practicing delivery so that you’re communicating your ideas clearly and persuasively. You can also think of it as sharing a story with your audience.

Try creating a 3-minute presentation about, say, paper cups (pick another common object if you prefer; something you use regularly).

Evaluating your audience:

• Who your audience will be makes a difference in how you tailor your arguments. If you’re speaking to environmentalists, they consider paper cups to be wasteful, and you’d need to convince them the good outweighs the bad. But, to a group of plastic bottle lobbyists you might want to convince them to choose a less environmentally-damaging material. You may even find ranges of experience with your topic, from “never heard of it” to expert-level.

Creating an outline:

• Let’s call this is a persuasive presentation on the benefits of paper cups. (We’re oversimplifying the topic because mastering basic outlines and practicing delivery are more foundational skills.) A presentation can often follow this structure:
  • Introduction (30s)
    • who are you, and what are you going to talk about? Ex: “My name is (your name). Today I’ll share with you why paper cups are a convenient solution for a variety of life needs, for two primary reasons: (point one) and (point two).”
  • Point one (1 min)
    • one reason paper cups are good
  • Point two (1 min)
    • another reason paper cups are good
  • Conclusion (30s)
    • summarize: what did you talk about? If no one paid attention earlier, what would you want your audience to walk away knowing?
    • Keeping this outline handy can help you remember where you are in your speech if you forget.

Creating slides:

• Slides help tell your story with visual clues. Listening alone can be hard for an audience; your slides help them follow along with what you’re saying. - Google Slides is a web-accessible tool for creating a slide deck. There are other tools as well, through a web browser or locally on a computer. Google Slides also offers pre-made templates to keep formatting consistent and font size/color that’s easy for your audience to see on any size screen. - Keep it simple. No hard rules on this, but try to make 2-4 slides per minute of speech, with roughly a one-sentence maximum. Slides should enhance and support what you’re saying, not replace what you’re saying (slides full of text are better for reading and are often distracting or illegible to a live presentation audience). - Visual representations help make your slides snazzy, too. Be as creative or simple as you prefer. For this example, a picture of a paper cup somewhere would be a good start, and maybe other images will help share your story - Note: depending on where you are presenting (such as at a public event), some images found on the web (like through a Google image search) are subject to copyright restrictions. Wikimedia Commons is a common resource for free, unrestricted or attribution-only images. - Speaker Notes: Google Slides (other tools have similar features) allows you to write notes underneath each slide that only you can see. These can help you keep track of what you plan to talk about during each slide or reminders. You can also use a physical notepad or piece of paper if you prefer.

Presenting:

• Stand and deliver! Every venue has different setups. Practicing in as many different environments as you can help you prepare for anything that comes your way. No podium? No problem! A conference room may expect you and the audience to be seated. If you have any physical limitations or other needs, make sure you ask questions of the venue to make sure it will work for you before you arrive. - Practicing: Talking to a wall, empty room, or inanimate objects may seem silly, but they are your most neutral audience. They let you focus on your content and delivery. - Timing: Time usually flies or freezes while you’re speaking, but definitely does not feel like normal time! Having a stopwatch or using a timer will help your practice sessions. Know whether you “run fast” (if time flies for you) or if you “run slow” (if time goes more slowly for you) while speaking. - (Optional) Physical movements: Not every space will allow, nor will every speaker find this helpful, but choreographing your movements during your speech can also help guide your audience and help you expend nervous energy without distracting the audience. Try taking 1-2 steps in one direction (always in front or to the side– not backwards) while transitioning between points. While walking, say the first sentence of the next point. Stop and stay planted while delivering the rest of that section. Then, step another step or two the opposite or in another direction. See if that helps– if it does, keep doing it!

Common Mistakes / Misconceptions

It’s common to:

• forget to turn off SMS, calendar or other notifications on your computer or the computer you’re using.
• be completely unaware of new behaviors that suddenly you do in public speaking that you don’t normally do. Common examples include but are not limited to: talking too fast, mumbling, avoiding eye contact, fidgeting or excessively using “ums” and “uhs.” Internally, it’s common for one’s heart rate to fluctuate wildly before, during and after giving a speech.
• have difficulty displaying your slides.

How to help avoid these:

• Quit/close all unnecessary applications/tabs on your laptop and only focus on what you need for the presentation.
• Practice in front of a mirror, record yourself, or ask a friend to watch and take notes. This is often cringeworthy but valuable to become aware of what happens to you when you’re nervous (or if you aren’t nervous, how your audience perceives your behavior in a public speaking setting). Practicing 1) helps build awareness of these behaviors and 2) builds confidence and reduces nervousness.
• Arrive early, if possible, to check all your computer/display settings. If you’re bringing your own computer, know what ports you have in it (i.e. HDMI, VGA, Thunderbolt, etc) so you can ask for help plugging in if available. If you sent your presentation ahead of time for someone to project for you, use this time to get aquainted with the technology provided to advance your slides.

Guided Practice

Have participants work through an activity with an experienced person.

Independent Practice

Try crafting your own 3-minute presentations on topics of your choice (doesn’t really matter: could be a table, M&Ms, chairs, etc). Set a timer for everyone to prepare (~20 minutes of prep time for a 3-minute speech). Anyone finished writing the presentation and slides before time is up should practice against a wall.

At time, break into groups of 2-4 and present to one another. Non-presenters should hold a timer and take notes on what the presenter has done well and what they can work on, in terms of: speech clarity (can audience understand the speaker), unnecessary words (“like,” “um”, “uh”, etc), physical behavior (such as shuffling feet, fidgeting, eye contact).

Challenge

Try crafting a 5-minute technical presentation about a homework assignment or problem you solved recently. Technical presentations aren’t that different from any other presentation, except you may find the range of visual aids to be larger– instead of just random images, you might find a screenshot of code or a dashboard you used.

Check for Understanding

• How important is it to make good presentations for your career?
• How do you create a good outline?
• What are Important things to remember for creating good slides?
• What should you as a presenter / speaker follow during the presentation?
• Common mistakes we should avoid?