Giving Technical Presentations

Giving technical presentations
Material prepared by Mike K Smith

Inspiration (blogs)
Presentations:
• Nancy Duarte: Duarte blog
• Garr Reynolds: Presentation Zen
• Chris Atherton: Finite Attention Span

There are 300 million
PowerPoint users in the
world*
Death by Powerpoint
* Estimate

There are 30 million
presentations every day*
Death by Powerpoint
* Estimate

About a million presentations
happening right now*
* Estimate
Death by Powerpoint

50% of them are
unbearable.*
* Conservative estimate
Death by Powerpoint

Think of a presentation that has
made an impression on you.
Q: What is it about that
presentation that made it stick in
your mind?

Preparing effective
presentations takes time.

Your presentation is about
marketing…

Your organisation.
Your project team.

Peer Review
vs.
Decision Making

Peer Review
You want:
– Input and technical review
– Validation of your work
– New ideas for future work
– Recognition for good work / increased
visibility.

Peer Review
The audience wants:
– New ideas
– Solutions for their problems
– Recognition for THEIR work / increased
visibility!

Decision Making
The audience wants:
– To make a decision based on best
available information.
– A clear recommendation.
– Impact of making the wrong decision.
– Confidence that the technical information
is valid / applicable etc.

Decision Making
You want:
– Your technical input to influence the
decision.
– Credibility with decision makers
– Recognition for your work / increased
visibility.

“Your brain is lazy, shallow
and easily distracted…”
Chris Atherton
Ooh,
look...
A hypertext
link!

http://www.slideshare.net/CJAtherton/chris-atherton-at-tcuk09

However, your brain CAN
process two things at once
(even if you‟re male).

Don‟t max out both in
presentations.

5/16/2013 Pharsight and Pfizer Confidential
p
Pain Relief, P(Y=1), and Recurrence, P(T>t), models
Model parameters are estimated using nonlinear mixed effects model
analysis (NONMEM V)
• Pain Relief Model
– Logit transformation
– Placebo model
– Drug model
– Effect site concentration
– Subject specific random effect
• Recurrence Model
– Hazard model
• Likelihood
Yedp +)(Cf+t)f=)}Yg{P( (1
)-e(Atrialbase)-e(A(t)f dosendttt
p


)(-k
dose2pl,
-k
pl
2pl
nd
pl
11+= 
)()(
)(
tCpekeotCe
CeslCef
tkeo
n
d



),0(~ 2
 N
(u)du)(-=S(t)=t)>P(T
t
0
exp
)}1({)log(  YPghzhz(t) si
))1/(log(}{ xxxg 
L = P(T,Y| )P( )d = P(T|Y, )P(Y| )P( )d
i=1
N
i=1
N
        
YAWN!

Feels like…
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pauldrabek/1284981253/

Remember!

Insects are all around us
• The cricket is very sensitive to
temperature.
• You can tell the temperature using
crickets.
• Count the number of chirps in 15 seconds
and add forty.
• The resulting number is very close to the
temperature in fahrenheit.

Your brain can read faster
than the presenter can talk.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/26883252@N08/3284112021

Technical Presentations
≠ Read manuscripts

Manuscript structure
• Introduction
•Methods
• Results
• Discussion
• Conclusions

"Technical presentations
shouldn't be a mystery novel
where you wait to see whodunnit.
Having the conclusion upfront
helps people put the information
that comes next into context". -
Olivia Mitchell

Peer review structure
• Introduction / Motivation
• Premise / Conclusions
• Methods
• Results
• Applicability / Applications
• Discussion, assumptions, caveats, etc.

Decision making structure
• Introduction / Motivation
• Recommendation (Suggested
actions)
• Results (Evidence)
• Discussion, assumptions, caveats, etc.
• Methods

Clear motivation is important.

Why is this important?
Why does it deserve a
presentation?
Why am I giving up my time?

What do you need me to do?
Is this for information?
Do you expect a decision?
Do you want input?

Make your message “sticky”.

You CAN engage your audience
on technical stuff without losing
their attention.

Story / Narrative
A sequence of unconnected facts
is hard to hold in your head.

Symphony / Gestalt
What is the “whole”?
AKA The BIG PICTURE

Empathy
Why should we care about making
the right / wrong decision?
Why does <<this>> matter?

Simple language
Conversational.
NOT corporate.

What are the 4-5 things you want
the audience to recall later?

If you need to share LOTS of
technical info, write a
manuscript (or an executive
summary)

If you show tables / graphs...

Avoid the audience asking:
“What the **** is that picture?”
OR
“Why the **** is that picture there?”

0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
1st Qtr 2nd Qtr 3rd Qtr 4th Qtr
East
West
North
Interpret this graph in the next 10 seconds…

0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
East
West
North
Is THIS important?

0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
East
West
North
De-emphasise what you don‟t need

Are equations EVER
REALLY necessary?
Keep „em simple.
Highlight the key points.

5/16/2013 Pharsight and Pfizer Confidential
p
Pain Relief, P(Y=1), and Recurrence, P(T>t), models
Model parameters are estimated using nonlinear mixed effects model
analysis (NONMEM V)
• Pain Relief Model
– Logit transformation
– Placebo model
– Drug model
– Effect site concentration
– Subject specific random effect
• Recurrence Model
– Hazard model
• Likelihood
Yedp +)(Cf+t)f=)}Yg{P( (1
)-e(Atrialbase)-e(A(t)f dosendttt
p


)(-k
dose2pl,
-k
pl
2pl
nd
pl
11+= 
)()(
)(
tCpekeotCe
CeslCef
tkeo
n
d



),0(~ 2
 N
(u)du)(-=S(t)=t)>P(T
t
0
exp
)}1({)log(  YPghzhz(t) si
))1/(log(}{ xxxg 
L = P(T,Y| )P( )d = P(T|Y, )P(Y| )P( )d
i=1
N
i=1
N
        

Same for tables of numbers…
Which numbers changed?
By how much?
Why?

HELP the audience
to understand

Prepare
• Know your audience
• Know why you‟re presenting
• Know what the audience expects

Attention
• Don‟t fire-hose your audience with
information.
• Keep slides simple
• Back up presentation with additional
material (exec summary / manuscript /
blog)

Engage
• How do you want your audience to recall
later?
• Make it as easy as possible to recall…
– Slide format
– Story / gestalt / empathy / simple language

Further reading (blogs)
Presentations:
• Garr Reynolds: Presentation Zen
• Nancy Duarte: Duarte blog
• Chris Atherton: Finite Attention Span
Other:
• Guy Kawasaki: How to change the world
• Seth Godin
• Kathy Sierra: Creating Passionate Users

Backup
AKA: Mike‟s rants about
presentations

Things I hate to hear in
presentations:
(And how it translates to the
audience…)

“Most of you will have heard
this talk before…”

“I‟m going to have to skip ahead,
because time is short…”
[Followed by in-depth discussion
of every bullet point]

“OK, let‟s skip to the
conclusions…”
[Skips fifteen slides]

What you say: “I know this
slide is hard to read…”

This slide intentionally blank

You don‟t have to use the
template
The following templates are
HONESTLY straight from
Powerpoint default templates…

16/05/2013 80
How to communicate bad news
 State the bad news
 Be clear, don’t try to obscure the
situation

16/05/2013
81
Goal and Objective
 State the desired goal
 State the desired objective
 Use multiple points if necessary

Is the slide background hideous?

Will your
document
be viewed by
the public?
Should I use the
Comic Sans font?
Don‟t use Comic Sans
NOYES

Are you colour-blind?
Is your audience?

Pie charts are mostly useless
Looks like
Pacman
Does not look
like Pacman

3D charts are even more useless

ABSOLUTELY NO animation.
BTW – what the HECK is that?!
…and WHY is it in my slide?

Keep builds to a minimum.
They‟re distracting.
Really distracting.
And they confuse the presenter.

DO NOT use “random”. EVER.
don‟t use more than one
Whatever you do…
type of effect.

Giving Technical Presentations

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