6 Ways to Improve Your Presentation Skills

Implementing a few sound strategies can make your presentation process more predictable and painless, keep the audience’s attention and help ensure approval for project goals

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If anyone needs to convey complex information to get the approval of peers or higher ups, it's CIOs and the managers who report to them. Yet, before a presentation, what do you do? If you're like a lot of us, you're likely to throw everything you know onto a set of slides, hoping the random set of bullet points will result in project approval or funding. After all, you don't have the time to learn all the ins and outs of your presentation software.

A few sound strategies can make the presentation process more predictable and painless, and help to ensure success

Implementing a few sound strategies, however, can make the presentation process more predictable and painless, and help to ensure success. We've prepared a short tour to help you construct a presentation that communicates your message to the tired people in that darkened room, in a way that will keep them awake and listening.

1.Plan and Structure Your Presentation. A friend of mine does hundreds of PowerPoint presentations. She begs those she's presenting for to allow her sufficient time to craft a storyline and to prepare to speak in front of their audience — a process also known as rehearsal. When she exhorted her boss to do the same, he said: "Do you know what planes are for?" She shook her head. "They're for creating my PowerPoint slides," he replied.