Presentations: Are they important, or just a nuisance?

 

Back when we first started working as fresh graduate engineers, we tend to disregard the importance of presentations, and kind of considered them a nuisance or an unnecessary inconvenience. It’s just a presentation, right? It’s the technical content that counts - Not all those aesthetic bells & whistles!

Some of us would meet immense frustrations, purely because of a 20-minute presentation that was rejected by a tough chairman, committee or leadership team - and just like that, all of those months - even years - of hard work, all in vain.

Sometimes, it would baffle us how people used to take long distance flights just to make a 20 minute presentation. We used to think “What a waste of money!”

Over the years, however, I’ve learnt to see things differently & appreciate the importance of Effective presentations. 

If you think about it, it’s these 20 minutes - that limited window which you have an audience with the key decision makers - that can make or break your hard work. All those months of effort culminates in that single, defining, moment. 

These precious few minutes aren’t a nuisance - they are the tip of your spear! These moments may be the single most important portion of the project / assignment: and that's why, it demands your full dedication & effort for you to stick the landing!

I’ve learnt to see the importance of presentations like that of being a 100m sprinter an the Olympics. Athletes train for years - decades - of their lives to make this event. And once they ACTUALLY make it to the grand event of the Olympics, they’ve only got a couple of rounds (i.e. “heat” rounds) to reach the quarter final.

How long does each heat last? An olympic level sprinter would take around 10-15 seconds. 2 heats to determine if they make it to the finals. 

All that training, all condensed into those precious 20-30 seconds. Years of hard work, and less than half a minute of actual performance to prove themselves. 

And if they lose? 

Bye bye Olympics. 

To me, that’s how important presentations are to our projects or proposals. 

So, make it count!

That’s why I’m personally very passionate about improving the quality of our presentations, and conducted a knowledge sharing on “Bulletproof Presentations: Tips How to Effectively Deliver Technical & Management Proposals”. I’ll always put in extra effort and go the extra mile to polish and even rehearse my content. 

How effectively we condense, re-frame, and concisely convey to our leaders, our mannerisms and etiquettes in communication, the way we answer questions - all of those MATTER. 

Rather than blame the bosses for understanding, we should take up the onus to focus on what’s in our control: How can I make the content more digestible to position our chairman, the leaders and the committee to make a clearer, more informed decision? How can I improve and incorporate that extra dash of excellence / ihsan to my presentation?