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How To Create a Project Presentation: A Guide for Impactful Content

Corporate, academic, and business meetings share one common factor: successfully delivering project presentations. This is one skill professionals should harness in terms of articulating ideas, presenting plans, and sharing outcomes through an effective project presentation.

In this fast-paced reality where new tools and frameworks make us question the human factor value, we believe there’s much to be said about how working towards building presentation skills can make a difference, especially for making a project stand out from the crowd and have a lasting impact on stakeholders. We can no longer talk about simply disclosing information, the manner in which the narrative is built, how data is introduced, and several other factors that speak of your expertise in the subject.

This article will explore the art of project presentation, giving insights to presenters to deliver a memorable project plan presentation. Whether you are new to this experience or a seasoned presenter, this article promises to give you valuable information on how to build and present a project presentation that resonates with your target audience and will convert into your expected results for the project. Let’s get started.

Table of Contents

• Who is the audience of a project presentation?

Executive Summary

Project overview, the project process model, the project scope, the project resources, the project roadmap, the project activities plan, the project risks, quality control, project execution and monitoring.

• The Project Team

What Is a Project Presentation?

A project presentation is a business activity that brings together stakeholders and team members to oversee a project from execution to completion. During a project presentation, one or two people present a document or slide deck with an overview of all the project’s details.

During a project presentation, the project manager highlights key data about the project initiation and planning activities, like the project scope, requirements gathering, a deliverable list, timelines, and milestones.

The first instance of a project presentation is right before the execution of the project itself. Then, during the project process life cycle, you present it again with timely updates and news about the progress.

Who is the audience of a project presentation? 

A project-related audience is made up of stakeholders – all individuals and entities that affect or are affected by the project’s existence.

Discuss the project presentation with team members that’ll work on the project so they know what’s at stake and what’s expected of them. They’ll need information like requirements, the roadmap, the work breakdown structure, and deliverables.

Stakeholders

Present your project to the stakeholders that can authorize resources and expenditures. Show them how the project will offer the solutions they want under the conditions they impose in a set amount of time. 

Stakeholders want to know details like project scope, budget breakdowns, timing calculations, risk assessments, and how you plan to confront these risks and be ready for changes. 

The Structure of a Project Presentation

Project presentations follow a standard structure covering all critical elements. Follow this guideline to ensure that you cover everything with the slides, the speech, and the discussion.

In the next section, we describe a project presentation structure you can build with SlideModel templates or working with our AI PowerPoint generator . As you will see, most sections in the structure are summaries or overviews of project management practices completed during initiation and planning. 

At the start of your presentation, add an executive summary slide . This section is meant to welcome the viewer to the presentation and give an idea of what’s to come. To differentiate your executive summary from the project overview that comes right after it, use the opportunity to place the project into context. 

In an executive summary , show how this particular project fits into the overall strategy for the company or the section it belongs to. If, for example, your project is about TikTok Marketing, offer information as to how it fits in the overall marketing strategy.

Continue the presentation with a project overview to show the audience what to expect. This section covers one slide or a combination of slides depending on the layout. The project overview slide serves as the introduction to a project presentation and what’s inside.

Include these items:

• An Introduction with a brief background about the project. 
• A short explanation of the project’s objectives and completion goals.
• A quick overview of the timeline with start and end dates.

The project life cycle is the series of phases that a project goes through from its inception to its completion. The project process model is the group of knowledge areas, processes, and their relationships that will guide the activities along the project lifecycle. The next slide should display the chosen project process model and explain how it’ll be carried out along the different lifecycle phases. Project process models examples include Waterfall, Scrum, and V Model for software development, and Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) and Swimlane for general business-related projects.

Process models are important for the team to understand execution processes. Stakeholders need to see the process model to understand the systematic process of activities and how long they will take. 

Use one slide for the model, show only high-level components, and offer details during the presentation if the audience asks for them.

The scope is a crucial element of any project and needs its own section in the presentation. The scoping process begins with requirements gathering and includes the creation of a work breakdown structure , an analysis of what’s in and out of scope, plus validation and scope management plans. 

One or two slides are enough to highlight key scope details in a dashboard-style layout mirroring the information on your project scope statement. Preferably, place the scope slides towards the start of the project presentation close to the process model and project resources.

Every project needs resources, and that assessment must be included in the project presentation as well. In a general sense, all resources are what make up the overall budget for the project. In turn, you’ll need to show a budget breakdown that shows high-level resources.

Like many aspects of a project presentation, what you include depends on the industry you’re working for. Construction projects use constructors, materials, machinery, etc. Software projects use programmers, designers, software licenses, computers, etc.

Time is the main resource of any project. During project planning, the project management team estimates the required effort needed to complete the defined scope. Using the Project Process Model, Scope, and Resources, a plan is built. Present a roadmap to highlight the expected time for project completion and where each milestone falls along that line.

Roadmaps can be constructed with an infinite variety of visual layouts, from highly creative and illustrative to structured formats resembling spreadsheets and tables with color-coded roadmaps across the cells. Use one slide to show the roadmap highlighting time estimates, constraints, and projections. For updated project presentations, mark where the project is on the roadmap at that particular moment in time.

Every phase of the roadmap is broken down into action plans . Action plans list activities, their duration, allocated resources (human, material, and financial), and the relationship between activities.

Present your project activities plan with a Gantt Chart and a Costs Report. The Gantt Chart will show the activities to execute, how long they will take, and who (person or team) will be responsible for them. The costs reports will show how much the execution of activities will cost.

During the presentation, you’ll spend the most time on this section, as this is when and where your entire plan is outlined. To show more detail than the roadmap overview, use a few slides to show specific sections of the main Gantt chart and show key activities per phase or milestone.

All projects present risks, and to control them, they must be identified, assessed, evaluated, and mitigated . Visualize your risk assessment with a risk matrix and include it in the project presentation. 

Use this slide to explain to stakeholders how you plan to mitigate the identified risks. Share with team members what’s expected of them in order to keep the risks under control. Risk management is a critical component of project management and something stakeholders will always be looking at.

Controlling the quality of project deliverables is critical for positive project outcomes and continued success with the deliverable. This process is called quality control or quality assurance.

The project process model includes which quality control techniques the team will use and when. Some quality assurance (QA) techniques include statistical process control (SPC), Six Sigma, ISO 9000, and Total Quality Management (TQM). Use one slide to visualize the process and your plan to execute it.

Once the project starts, the project plan is a living entity and evolves over time. This section will need to be regularly updated with progress reports, performance KPIs, and status updates.

Across these slides, explain how activities will be monitored and deliverable outcomes measured. Show exactly how you will determine if the project is on course or has deviations. Visualize all execution activities with a Gantt chart to show the current progress. Use big numbers and data points to highlight performance metrics. Use a comparison slide to visualize the completeness percentage vs. planned progress and budget consumption vs. planned budget.

Explain all monitoring activities for the execution phase using a calendar or schedule that shows on what days activities will take place and who is involved.

The Project Team 

When presenting a project, include a stakeholder map to describe the management team, the sponsors, the main stakeholders, and the implementation team or teams. Depending on the size of the project, this will be an org chart or multiple org charts across a few slides.

Why is it important to present the project team to the stakeholders and vice versa? So that everyone involved knows the other parties and their responsibilities.

Another use for the team slide or slides is to present the next person who will speak during the project presentation. This gives the audience some background on that person’s role in the project.

Case Study – Project Presentation Example

Using the structure we present above, we outlined a case study of a realistic project and how the project manager puts together the project presentation using SlideModel templates. The project presentation example is based on a complex project of building a bridge (Cline Avenue Bridge). For the educational purpose of this article, we are not delivering all the elements of the project presentation, as it is out of scope. Still, we illustrate the more representative slides of each section, show how to prepare a PowerPoint Presentation for a project and how simple it is to adapt the templates to the content that needs to be presented. As a disclaimer, all information we present is an adaptation and reinterpretation of the real project, modified by SlideModel to fit the use case learning goals. This information and presentation should not be considered a source of information related to the Cline Avenue Bridge Project.

In this slide, the presenter summarises the project highlights in a project charter style. The Project Manager can extend this introduction all over the project lifecycle, and the speech can jump from different knowledge areas without the need to change slides or get deeper into details. Specifically, in the Cline Bridge Project, the objective is narrated, the location is just mentioned and linked to a map for further details, and a set of important facts are presented (Building Information Modelling Process, Budget, Duration, Sponsor, and Constructor). Key Highlights of the final deliverable are listed (Segmental Bridge, Material Concrete, 1.7 miles of length and 46 feet of width)

Process Model

The Process Model slide illustrates the framework for the project lifecycle, processes, planning, and execution. In this slide, the Project Manager will describe the model and how it is tailored to the specifics of the project. In this case, for the development and construction of the Cline Bridge, the builder has defined the use of BIM (Building Information Modelling) as the process model. During this slide, the presenter can describe the lifecycle phases (Design, Production, Construction, Operation, and Planning) and drill down one level over the knowledge practices involved. For example, the initial stage consists of “Design”, which has two main knowledge areas, Conceptual Design, and Detailed Design. The project manager is able to explain this definition without the need to outline detailed processes and activities within them.

The Scope section of the presentation generally involves several slides, as the content layout is a list of “requirements.” Based on this fact, a table layout is suggested to make good use of space. It is important to avoid abusing the “list” and present the group of requirements rather than specific requirements. Otherwise, the project manager ends up transcribing the requirements document.

In this project presentation example, we present 10 groups of requirements traversing different stages of the project lifecycle. 

• Design Standards: Bridge design must comply with local, national, and international design standards, including relevant engineering and safety codes
• Load Capacity: The bridge must be designed to safely carry a specific maximum load, which would include the weight of the bridge itself, traffic, pedestrians, wind, and other factors.
• Seismic Design: The design must account for seismic loads. 
• Aesthetic Design: The bridge must be designed to meet certain aesthetic criteria aligned with the artists and architects.
• Accessibility and Use Requirements: Requirements for pedestrian walkways, bike lanes, vehicle lanes, load restrictions for vehicles, clearance heights for boats if over a waterway, etc.
• Regulatory Approvals: The project must secure all necessary permits and approvals from relevant local and national regulatory bodies.
• Environmental Impact: The project must take steps to minimize its environmental impact during construction and the operation of the bridge, including implementing erosion and sediment controls.
• Materials Simulation: Materials should comply with regulations and usage expectations for current and future expected requirements.
• Site Preparation: The project must include preparation of the construction site, including any necessary land clearing or grading.
• Foundations Construction: Foundations will need to support materials weight and traffic expected for the next 30 years.
• Site Acquisition: Acquire site and terrain for building and logistics.

Building a bridge involves a high level of resource usage. In an executive meeting of a project presentation, the recommendation is to structure this section as a Financial table with only one level of detail. Further details are delegated to specific resources and cost analysis presentations.

The resources list presented is:

• Professional Services
• Construction Labour
• Quality Assurance
• Contingency
• Waste Disposal and Cleanup
• Subcontractors

In order to break the style of table after table during the project presentation, we suggest using visual elements as icons and colors metaphorically related to each of the elements listed.

Project Roadmap

As explained earlier in the article, the project roadmap serves to offer a comprehensive overview of the significant milestones that will happen over the course of time. Given the magnitude of a bridge construction project and its prolonged duration, it is advisable, particularly for such extensive endeavours, to present a roadmap that aligns milestones with corresponding lifecycle phases in a discernible manner. This approach enables the audience to mentally envision the sequential progression of the construction process.

Aligned with previous slides, in the example we created a roadmap with the following high level milestones, and sub componentes:

• Project Budgeting and Financing
• Land Purchase & Renting
• Conceptual Design
• Detailed Design
• Access Routes
• Waste Disposal
• Simulations
• Materials Tests
• Seismic Tests
• Fabrication
• Preparation of Modular Pieces
• Build and Assembly
• Test under Acceptance Criteria
• Stress Test
• Operation and Maintenance

As you can see, the Project Manager decided over a sequential roadmap, presented with little detail in timings, with start and end dates to picture dimension over the diagram.

Action Plan

In the bridge construction project of the example, there will be plenty of activity plans. All along the project several of these slides will be created and updated. The most suitable option for presentation tasks, durations, precedence relationship and resource allocation is the Gantt Chart Template. We present the first Quarter of the project, over the Conceptual Design Activities. 

As displayed in the PowerPoint Slide , the subtitle clarifies the number of slides that will be used for this purpose.

The activities presented are:

• Site Analysis
• Feasibility Analysis
• Design Concepts
• BIM Model Creation
• Model Revision
• Environmental Impact
• Present Design

Project Risks

Risk management is an iterative process all over the project life cycle. When presenting your projects, the risks will vary depending on the progress over the roadmap. For this specific example we decided to present the risks being discussed during the Ideation stage, where the developer is exchanging risks with contractors and the company that will build the bridge.

Our suggested layout for this kind of information is a simple table, where the risks are clearly readable and visible, while the description is a hint for discussion rather than an in depth explanation.

It is very important to classify the presented risks, at least with two dimensions; “Impact” and “Probability”. This will generate quality conversations around them. 

Outlined Risks during the Initiation Phase:

• Design Errors
• Construction Delays
• Budget Overruns
• Regulatory Changes
• Site Conditions
• Equipment Failures
• Health and Safety Incidents

As the reader can spot, the risks outlined, are very high level, and each of them will trigger specific Risk Analysis Reports.

The quality control section of the project presentation may vary depending on the quality process adopted. For large scale companies with a uniform portfolio of projects , it is common to see a continuous improvement quality model, which iteratively builds quality over the different projects (for example software companies) For construction companies like the example, the situation is not different, and the quality control model is aligned with the specific building process model. In this specific case, the project manager is presenting the quality control process to be applied over the BIM model and the Quality Control process to be followed for the physical construction of the bridge:

Execution and Monitoring

During the project, several status meetings will be carried out. During the project presentation the manager can establish the pattern to be used along the project.

For this example, we set a basic progress dashboard where the project manager can present : 

• The current timeline
• Top 5 issues
• Current Burndown
• Top 5 risks.

The art of project presentation goes beyond listing data in random slides. A project presentation is a powerful tool to align stakeholders and foster an environment of trust and collaboration over factual information.

With a structured approach, all members involved in the project design and execution can understand the direction that’s being taken and the importance behind certain decisions. We hope these insights can turn your project into a powerful presentation that inspires and deliver results.

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Project Management, Project Planning Filed under Business

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Blog Beginner Guides How To Make a Good Presentation [A Complete Guide]

How To Make a Good Presentation [A Complete Guide]

Written by: Krystle Wong Jul 20, 2023

A top-notch presentation possesses the power to drive action. From winning stakeholders over and conveying a powerful message to securing funding — your secret weapon lies within the realm of creating an effective presentation .  

Being an excellent presenter isn’t confined to the boardroom. Whether you’re delivering a presentation at work, pursuing an academic career, involved in a non-profit organization or even a student, nailing the presentation game is a game-changer.

In this article, I’ll cover the top qualities of compelling presentations and walk you through a step-by-step guide on how to give a good presentation. Here’s a little tip to kick things off: for a headstart, check out Venngage’s collection of free presentation templates . They are fully customizable, and the best part is you don’t need professional design skills to make them shine!

These valuable presentation tips cater to individuals from diverse professional backgrounds, encompassing business professionals, sales and marketing teams, educators, trainers, students, researchers, non-profit organizations, public speakers and presenters. 

No matter your field or role, these tips for presenting will equip you with the skills to deliver effective presentations that leave a lasting impression on any audience.

Click to jump ahead:

What are the 10 qualities of a good presentation?

Step-by-step guide on how to prepare an effective presentation, 9 effective techniques to deliver a memorable presentation, faqs on making a good presentation, how to create a presentation with venngage in 5 steps.

When it comes to giving an engaging presentation that leaves a lasting impression, it’s not just about the content — it’s also about how you deliver it. Wondering what makes a good presentation? Well, the best presentations I’ve seen consistently exhibit these 10 qualities:

1. Clear structure

No one likes to get lost in a maze of information. Organize your thoughts into a logical flow, complete with an introduction, main points and a solid conclusion. A structured presentation helps your audience follow along effortlessly, leaving them with a sense of satisfaction at the end.

Regardless of your presentation style , a quality presentation starts with a clear roadmap. Browse through Venngage’s template library and select a presentation template that aligns with your content and presentation goals. Here’s a good presentation example template with a logical layout that includes sections for the introduction, main points, supporting information and a conclusion: 

2. Engaging opening

Hook your audience right from the start with an attention-grabbing statement, a fascinating question or maybe even a captivating anecdote. Set the stage for a killer presentation!

The opening moments of your presentation hold immense power – check out these 15 ways to start a presentation to set the stage and captivate your audience.

3. Relevant content

Make sure your content aligns with their interests and needs. Your audience is there for a reason, and that’s to get valuable insights. Avoid fluff and get straight to the point, your audience will be genuinely excited.

4. Effective visual aids

Picture this: a slide with walls of text and tiny charts, yawn! Visual aids should be just that—aiding your presentation. Opt for clear and visually appealing slides, engaging images and informative charts that add value and help reinforce your message.

With Venngage, visualizing data takes no effort at all. You can import data from CSV or Google Sheets seamlessly and create stunning charts, graphs and icon stories effortlessly to showcase your data in a captivating and impactful way.

5. Clear and concise communication

Keep your language simple, and avoid jargon or complicated terms. Communicate your ideas clearly, so your audience can easily grasp and retain the information being conveyed. This can prevent confusion and enhance the overall effectiveness of the message. 

6. Engaging delivery

Spice up your presentation with a sprinkle of enthusiasm! Maintain eye contact, use expressive gestures and vary your tone of voice to keep your audience glued to the edge of their seats. A touch of charisma goes a long way!

7. Interaction and audience engagement

Turn your presentation into an interactive experience — encourage questions, foster discussions and maybe even throw in a fun activity. Engaged audiences are more likely to remember and embrace your message.

Transform your slides into an interactive presentation with Venngage’s dynamic features like pop-ups, clickable icons and animated elements. Engage your audience with interactive content that lets them explore and interact with your presentation for a truly immersive experience.

8. Effective storytelling

Who doesn’t love a good story? Weaving relevant anecdotes, case studies or even a personal story into your presentation can captivate your audience and create a lasting impact. Stories build connections and make your message memorable.

A great presentation background is also essential as it sets the tone, creates visual interest and reinforces your message. Enhance the overall aesthetics of your presentation with these 15 presentation background examples and captivate your audience’s attention.

9. Well-timed pacing

Pace your presentation thoughtfully with well-designed presentation slides, neither rushing through nor dragging it out. Respect your audience’s time and ensure you cover all the essential points without losing their interest.

10. Strong conclusion

Last impressions linger! Summarize your main points and leave your audience with a clear takeaway. End your presentation with a bang , a call to action or an inspiring thought that resonates long after the conclusion.

In-person presentations aside, acing a virtual presentation is of paramount importance in today’s digital world. Check out this guide to learn how you can adapt your in-person presentations into virtual presentations . 

Preparing an effective presentation starts with laying a strong foundation that goes beyond just creating slides and notes. One of the quickest and best ways to make a presentation would be with the help of a good presentation software . 

Otherwise, let me walk you to how to prepare for a presentation step by step and unlock the secrets of crafting a professional presentation that sets you apart.

1. Understand the audience and their needs

Before you dive into preparing your masterpiece, take a moment to get to know your target audience. Tailor your presentation to meet their needs and expectations , and you’ll have them hooked from the start!

2. Conduct thorough research on the topic

Time to hit the books (or the internet)! Don’t skimp on the research with your presentation materials — dive deep into the subject matter and gather valuable insights . The more you know, the more confident you’ll feel in delivering your presentation.

3. Organize the content with a clear structure

No one wants to stumble through a chaotic mess of information. Outline your presentation with a clear and logical flow. Start with a captivating introduction, follow up with main points that build on each other and wrap it up with a powerful conclusion that leaves a lasting impression.

Delivering an effective business presentation hinges on captivating your audience, and Venngage’s professionally designed business presentation templates are tailor-made for this purpose. With thoughtfully structured layouts, these templates enhance your message’s clarity and coherence, ensuring a memorable and engaging experience for your audience members.

Don’t want to build your presentation layout from scratch? pick from these 5 foolproof presentation layout ideas that won’t go wrong. 

4. Develop visually appealing and supportive visual aids

Spice up your presentation with eye-catching visuals! Create slides that complement your message, not overshadow it. Remember, a picture is worth a thousand words, but that doesn’t mean you need to overload your slides with text.

Well-chosen designs create a cohesive and professional look, capturing your audience’s attention and enhancing the overall effectiveness of your message. Here’s a list of carefully curated PowerPoint presentation templates and great background graphics that will significantly influence the visual appeal and engagement of your presentation.

5. Practice, practice and practice

Practice makes perfect — rehearse your presentation and arrive early to your presentation to help overcome stage fright. Familiarity with your material will boost your presentation skills and help you handle curveballs with ease.

6. Seek feedback and make necessary adjustments

Don’t be afraid to ask for help and seek feedback from friends and colleagues. Constructive criticism can help you identify blind spots and fine-tune your presentation to perfection.

With Venngage’s real-time collaboration feature , receiving feedback and editing your presentation is a seamless process. Group members can access and work on the presentation simultaneously and edit content side by side in real-time. Changes will be reflected immediately to the entire team, promoting seamless teamwork.

7. Prepare for potential technical or logistical issues

Prepare for the unexpected by checking your equipment, internet connection and any other potential hiccups. If you’re worried that you’ll miss out on any important points, you could always have note cards prepared. Remember to remain focused and rehearse potential answers to anticipated questions.

8. Fine-tune and polish your presentation

As the big day approaches, give your presentation one last shine. Review your talking points, practice how to present a presentation and make any final tweaks. Deep breaths — you’re on the brink of delivering a successful presentation!

In competitive environments, persuasive presentations set individuals and organizations apart. To brush up on your presentation skills, read these guides on how to make a persuasive presentation and tips to presenting effectively . 

Whether you’re an experienced presenter or a novice, the right techniques will let your presentation skills soar to new heights!

From public speaking hacks to interactive elements and storytelling prowess, these 9 effective presentation techniques will empower you to leave a lasting impression on your audience and make your presentations unforgettable.

1. Confidence and positive body language

Positive body language instantly captivates your audience, making them believe in your message as much as you do. Strengthen your stage presence and own that stage like it’s your second home! Stand tall, shoulders back and exude confidence. 

2. Eye contact with the audience

Break down that invisible barrier and connect with your audience through their eyes. Maintaining eye contact when giving a presentation builds trust and shows that you’re present and engaged with them.

3. Effective use of hand gestures and movement

A little movement goes a long way! Emphasize key points with purposeful gestures and don’t be afraid to walk around the stage. Your energy will be contagious!

4. Utilize storytelling techniques

Weave the magic of storytelling into your presentation. Share relatable anecdotes, inspiring success stories or even personal experiences that tug at the heartstrings of your audience. Adjust your pitch, pace and volume to match the emotions and intensity of the story. Varying your speaking voice adds depth and enhances your stage presence.

5. Incorporate multimedia elements

Spice up your presentation with a dash of visual pizzazz! Use slides, images and video clips to add depth and clarity to your message. Just remember, less is more—don’t overwhelm them with information overload. 

Turn your presentations into an interactive party! Involve your audience with questions, polls or group activities. When they actively participate, they become invested in your presentation’s success. Bring your design to life with animated elements. Venngage allows you to apply animations to icons, images and text to create dynamic and engaging visual content.

6. Utilize humor strategically

Laughter is the best medicine—and a fantastic presentation enhancer! A well-placed joke or lighthearted moment can break the ice and create a warm atmosphere , making your audience more receptive to your message.

7. Practice active listening and respond to feedback

Be attentive to your audience’s reactions and feedback. If they have questions or concerns, address them with genuine interest and respect. Your responsiveness builds rapport and shows that you genuinely care about their experience.

8. Apply the 10-20-30 rule

Apply the 10-20-30 presentation rule and keep it short, sweet and impactful! Stick to ten slides, deliver your presentation within 20 minutes and use a 30-point font to ensure clarity and focus. Less is more, and your audience will thank you for it!

9. Implement the 5-5-5 rule

Simplicity is key. Limit each slide to five bullet points, with only five words per bullet point and allow each slide to remain visible for about five seconds. This rule keeps your presentation concise and prevents information overload.

Simple presentations are more engaging because they are easier to follow. Summarize your presentations and keep them simple with Venngage’s gallery of simple presentation templates and ensure that your message is delivered effectively across your audience.

1. How to start a presentation?

To kick off your presentation effectively, begin with an attention-grabbing statement or a powerful quote. Introduce yourself, establish credibility and clearly state the purpose and relevance of your presentation.

2. How to end a presentation?

For a strong conclusion, summarize your talking points and key takeaways. End with a compelling call to action or a thought-provoking question and remember to thank your audience and invite any final questions or interactions.

3. How to make a presentation interactive?

To make your presentation interactive, encourage questions and discussion throughout your talk. Utilize multimedia elements like videos or images and consider including polls, quizzes or group activities to actively involve your audience.

In need of inspiration for your next presentation? I’ve got your back! Pick from these 120+ presentation ideas, topics and examples to get started. 

Creating a stunning presentation with Venngage is a breeze with our user-friendly drag-and-drop editor and professionally designed templates for all your communication needs. 

Here’s how to make a presentation in just 5 simple steps with the help of Venngage:

Step 1: Sign up for Venngage for free using your email, Gmail or Facebook account or simply log in to access your account. 

Step 2: Pick a design from our selection of free presentation templates (they’re all created by our expert in-house designers).

Step 3: Make the template your own by customizing it to fit your content and branding. With Venngage’s intuitive drag-and-drop editor, you can easily modify text, change colors and adjust the layout to create a unique and eye-catching design.

Step 4: Elevate your presentation by incorporating captivating visuals. You can upload your images or choose from Venngage’s vast library of high-quality photos, icons and illustrations. 

Step 5: Upgrade to a premium or business account to export your presentation in PDF and print it for in-person presentations or share it digitally for free!

By following these five simple steps, you’ll have a professionally designed and visually engaging presentation ready in no time. With Venngage’s user-friendly platform, your presentation is sure to make a lasting impression. So, let your creativity flow and get ready to shine in your next presentation!

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What It Takes to Give a Great Presentation

• Carmine Gallo

Five tips to set yourself apart.

Never underestimate the power of great communication. It can help you land the job of your dreams, attract investors to back your idea, or elevate your stature within your organization. But while there are plenty of good speakers in the world, you can set yourself apart out by being the person who can deliver something great over and over. Here are a few tips for business professionals who want to move from being good speakers to great ones: be concise (the fewer words, the better); never use bullet points (photos and images paired together are more memorable); don’t underestimate the power of your voice (raise and lower it for emphasis); give your audience something extra (unexpected moments will grab their attention); rehearse (the best speakers are the best because they practice — a lot).

I was sitting across the table from a Silicon Valley CEO who had pioneered a technology that touches many of our lives — the flash memory that stores data on smartphones, digital cameras, and computers. He was a frequent guest on CNBC and had been delivering business presentations for at least 20 years before we met. And yet, the CEO wanted to sharpen his public speaking skills.

• Carmine Gallo is a Harvard University instructor, keynote speaker, and author of 10 books translated into 40 languages. Gallo is the author of The Bezos Blueprint: Communication Secrets of the World’s Greatest Salesman  (St. Martin’s Press).

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How to Give a Stunning Project Presentation

April 3, 2019 by Bernie Roseke, P.Eng., PMP 2 Comments

Many projects require a presentation, whether at the beginning, end, or somewhere in the middle.  Sometimes it is given to the managers or executives, sometimes to the project team , and sometimes to stakeholders who have a specific interest in the project.

Project presentations can be very nerve racking and difficult for many people, but that doesn’t mean they have to be difficult.  With practice and some basic guiding principles, you can give a stunning project presentation that will knock their socks off.  I’ve given many project presentations, and I’m going to share my secrets with you.

Present the Problem and Solution

• Repeat the main point 3 times
• Include an analogy or story
• Keep slides short
• Include pictures and Diagrams
• Connect with the audience

Many audience members assume that you know what you’re talking about, and most of the time you do.  But somehow, if the presenter doesn’t include the topic of the presentation directly, the audience doesn’t want to decide what it is for themselves.

It’s similar to a sales pitch in that it’s the presenter’s job to keep the audience engaged.  If you wish to maximize the communication of the message, you need to state it directly.

Include an Analogy or Story

• An analogy is a comparison to a similar real life thing, for example, This product works like a rocket ship taking off to the moon.  It takes a bit of preparation time which might seem a bit daunting at times only to have a very quick experience that over relatively quickly, but the experience is worth every second in the end.  I’ve become a true believer in the immense power of analogy.  Analogies engage audiences in milliseconds and give them something to remember the presentation by.  I’ve incorporated analogies in my writing at every opportunity, and the results have been truly amazing.  Many project presentations come in groups, that is, they are one out of many.  In this case, the presentation with an analogy is the one that will be remembered by the audience.
• A story is an experience that relates to the topic being presented, for example, Last year I had the privilege of working with sick kids at the hospital.  These kids needed life saving medical care, and the doctors were fantastic.  It made me realize that this product really has the potential to impact people, and maybe even save lives.  A story is a personal experience, either yours or somebody else’s.  They work just like an analogy by engaging the audience and giving them something to remember the project by.  But they have the potential to drag on when the audience starts to feel like it’s not about them.  The key to pulling off a successful story is to keep it short and relevant.  If the audience can’t connect it to the project, they will lose interest.

Ideas for analogies are surprisingly easy to find with internet searches.  Personal story ideas require brainstorming and thinking about the relationship between the topic and real world experiences.

Repeat the Main Point 3 Times

• Tell them what you’re going to say
• Tell them what you just said

In most presentations, this takes the form of an introduction, main body, and conclusion.  But all three parts need to spell out the main point in a prominent place, clearly and succinctly.  You want to make sure the audience doesn’t need to think, that people can be daydreaming about what they’re going to be doing that evening but they’ll perk up and get hit with a short but prominent main conclusion that they won’t forget.

In most presentations, audiences are not in a position where they want to exercise their thought muscles.  Similar to a sales presentation, they don’t want to think for themselves, they figure it’s the presenters job to tell them what to think.  Hence, they forget what they are told very quickly.

Speaking of which, did you notice the analogy?  I’ll bet that if you remember nothing else from this article, you’ll remember that the audience doesn’t want to exercise their thought muscles.

Keep Slides Short

Many presentations contain long winded verbiage that requires long form reading while the presenter is talking.  I see this time and time again in presentations that I attend, and I’ve even done this myself when it seemed like there was no other way to get the point across.  But in hindsight this is a waste of good presentation time.  Nobody is going to read long paragraphs.  In fact, nobody is going to read long sentences either.

The idea is simple.  When writing presentation slides, keep bullet points under two lines of text.  Any more and it should be said verbally or placed into the next bullet.

Include Pictures and Diagrams

This idea is self explanatory.  Make sure no more than about half of the presentation slides contain only written words.

Connect with the Audience

The previous 5 bullets contained advice for good presentation slides and planning, but what are some ideas to deliver the presentation in a stunning way?

There are a few secrets, but the key to all of them is connecting with the audience.

Remember first that the audience wants to hear your presentation.  They wouldn’t be there if they didn’t.  However, most people don’t have the attention span to stay engaged for an entire presentation unless they have a very high interest in the subject matter.  They will move in and out of attention, remembering only the most interesting (not necessarily important) parts.

Here are a few pointers:

• Use Outline notes Don’t read from a script.  Although it is permissible to read for some of the time, extensive reading from a written script disconnects from the audience and loses the message because people stop listening.
• Talk to one person I’ve found it helpful to pick one person in the audience and deliver the presentation to them.  Don’t look only at them, of course, but let it sink in that you are not so much talking to a larger audience as you are giving many presentations to individual people, simultaneously.
• Don’t let down the most interested person in the audience Here’s another tip I’ve used in my presentations as well as my musical performances.  There’s guaranteed to be at least one person in the audience who loves what you’re saying and wants to learn all about it.  So wouldn’t it be a huge disappointment if you let them down?  Let all your presentation anxiety submit to the desire to make sure that that one person who really wants to know your information isn’t disappointed.  I mean, why are you even talking to everyone else, that doesn’t care, anyway?

Those are my secrets for stunning presentations!  Let me know how it goes and what other tips you have in the comments section below.  I’d love to hear from you!

Related posts:

About Bernie Roseke, P.Eng., PMP

Bernie Roseke, P.Eng., PMP, is the president of Roseke Engineering . As a bridge engineer and project manager, he manages projects ranging from small, local bridges to multi-million dollar projects. He is also the technical brains behind ProjectEngineer , the online project management system for engineers. He is a licensed professional engineer, certified project manager, and six sigma black belt. He lives in Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada, with his wife and two kids.

Awesome post! I instantly shared this with my presentation writing service and they found your content quite in-depth and informative. Do share some similar knowledgeable content in the near future. Cheers!

Brilliant and effective tips! Your tips are very effective and I am going to make use of every tip spelled out here. Thanks for the knowledge and I pray that you share more of such with the public.

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How to give a good presentation that captivates any audience

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What are the main difficulties when giving presentations?

How to create an effective presentation, after that, how do i give a memorable presentation, how to connect with the audience when presenting.

If you’ve ever heard someone give a powerful presentation, you probably remember how it made you feel. Much like a composer, a good speaker knows precisely when each note should strike to captivate their audience’s attention and leave them with a lasting impression.

No one becomes a great public speaker or presenter without practice. And almost everyone can recall a time one of their presentations went badly — that’s a painful part of the learning process.

Whether you’re working within a small creative team or a large organization, public speaking and presentation skills are vital to communicating your ideas. Knowing how to present your vision can help you pitch concepts to clients, present ideas to your team, and develop the confidence to participate in team meetings.

If you have an upcoming presentation on the horizon and feel nervous, that’s normal. Around 15-30% of the general population experience a fear of public speaking . And, unfortunately, social anxiety is on the rise, with a 12% increase in adults over the last 20 years . 

Learning how to give a good presentation can dismantle your fears and break down these barriers, ensuring you’re ready to confidently share your point of view. 

It’s the week before your presentation, and you’re already feeling nervous . Maybe there’ll be an important mentor in the room you need to impress, or you’re looking for an opportunity to show your boss your value. Regardless of your countless past presentations, you still feel nervous. 

Sharing your vision and ideas with any sized group is intimidating. You’re likely worrying about how you’ll perform as a presenter and whether the audience will be interested in what you offer. But nerves aren’t inherently negative — you can actually use this feeling to fuel your preparation.

It’s helpful to identify where your worries are coming from and address your fears. Here are some common concerns when preparing for an upcoming presentation:

Fear of public speaking: When you share your ideas in front of a group, you’re placing yourself in a vulnerable position to be critiqued on your knowledge and communication skills . Maybe you feel confident in your content, but when you think about standing in front of an audience, you feel anxious and your mind goes blank.

It’s also not uncommon to have physical symptoms when presenting . Some people experience nausea and dizziness as the brain releases adrenaline to cope with the potentially stressful situation . Remember to take deep breaths to recenter yourself and be patient, even if you make a mistake.

Losing the audience’s attention: As a presenter, your main focus is to keep your audience engaged. They should feel like they’re learning valuable information or following a story that will improve them in life or business.

Highlight the most exciting pieces of knowledge and ensure you emphasize those points in your presentation. If you feel passionate about your content, it’s more likely that your audience will experience this excitement for themselves and become invested in what you have to say.

Not knowing what content to place on presentation slides: Overloading presentation slides is a fast way to lose your audience’s attention. Your slides should contain only the main talking points and limited text to ensure your audience focuses on what you have to say rather than becoming distracted by the content on your slides.

Discomfort incorporating nonverbal communication: It’s natural to feel stiff and frozen when you’re nervous. But maintaining effective body language helps your audience stay focused on you as you speak and encourages you to relax.

If you struggle to incorporate body language into your presentations, try starting small by making hand gestures toward your slides. If you’re working with a large audience, use different parts of the stage to ensure everyone feels included. 

Each presenter has their own personal brand and style. Some may use humor to break the ice, while others might appeal to the audience’s emotional side through inspiring storytelling. 

Watching online presentations, such as TED talks, is an excellent way to expose yourself to various presentation styles and develop your own. While observing others, you can note how they carry themselves on stage and learn new ways to keep your audience engaged.

Once you’ve addressed what’s causing your fears, it’s time to prepare for a great presentation. Use your past experience as inspiration and aim to outshine your former self by learning from your mistakes and employing new techniques. Here are five presentation tips to help you create a strong presentation and wow your audience:

1. Keep it simple

Simple means something different to everyone.

Before creating your presentation, take note of your intended audience and their knowledge level of your subject. You’ll want your content to be easy for your intended audience to follow.

Say you’re giving a presentation on improving your company’s operational structure. Entry-level workers will likely need a more straightforward overview of the content than C-suite leaders, who have significantly more experience. 

Ask yourself what you want your audience to take away from your presentation and emphasize those important points. Doing this ensures they remember the most vital information rather than less important supporting ideas. Try organizing these concepts into bullet points so viewers can quickly identify critical takeaways.

2. Create a compelling structure

Put yourself in your audience member’s shoes and determine the most compelling way to organize your information. Your presentation should be articulate , cohesive, and logical, and you must be sure to include all necessary supporting evidence to strengthen your main points.

If you give away all of your answers too quickly, your audience could lose interest. And if there isn’t enough supporting information, they could hit a roadblock of confusion. Try developing a compelling story that leads your audience through your thought processes so they can experience the ups and downs alongside you. 

By structuring your presentation to lead up to a final conclusion, you’re more likely to keep listeners’ attention. Once you’ve reached that conclusion, you can offer a Q&A period to put any of their questions or concerns to rest. 

3. Use visual aids

Appealing to various learning styles is a great way to keep everyone on the same page and ensure they absorb your content. Visual aids are necessary for visual learners and make it easier for people to picture your ideas.

Aim to incorporate a mixture of photos, videos, and props to engage your audience and convey your key points. For instance, if you’re giving a presentation on anthropology subject matter, you could show your audience an artifact to help them understand how exciting a discovery must have been. 

If your presentation is long, including a video for your audience to watch is an excellent way to give yourself a break and create new jumping-off points for your speech.

4. Be aware of design techniques and trends

Thanks to cutting-edge technology and tools, you have numerous platforms at your disposal to create a good presentation. But keep in mind that although color, images, and graphics liven things up, they can cause distraction when misused.

  Here are a few standard pointers for incorporating visuals on your slides: 

• Don’t place blocks of small text on a single slide
• Use a minimalistic background instead of a busy one
• Ensure text stands out against the background color
• Only use high-resolution photos
• Maintain a consistent font style and size throughout the presentation
• Don’t overuse transitions and effects

5. Try the 10-20-30 rule

Guy Kawasaki, a prominent venture capitalist and one of the original marketing specialists for Apple, said that the best slideshow presentations are less than 10 slides , last at most 20 minutes, and use a font size of 30. Following this strategy can help you condense your information, eliminate unnecessary ideas, and maintain your audience’s focus more efficiently.

Once you’re confident in creating a memorable presentation, it’s time to learn how to give one. Here are some valuable tips for keeping your audience invested during your talk: 

Tip #1: Tell stories

Sharing an anecdote from your life can improve your credibility and increase your relatability. And when an audience relates to you, they’re more likely to feel connected to who you are as a person and encouraged to give you their full attention, as they would want others to do the same.

Gill Hicks utilized this strategy well when she shared her powerful story, “ I survived a terrorist attack. Here’s what I learned .” In her harrowing tale, Hicks highlights the importance of compassion, unconditional love, and helping those in need.

If you feel uncomfortable sharing personal stories, that’s okay. You can use examples from famous individuals or create a fictional account to demonstrate your ideas.

Tip #2: Make eye contact with the audience

Maintaining eye contact is less intimidating than it sounds. In fact, you don’t have to look your audience members directly in their eyes — you can focus on their foreheads or noses if that’s easier.

Try making eye contact with as many people as possible for 3–5 seconds each. This timing ensures you don’t look away too quickly, making the audience member feel unimportant, or linger too long, making them feel uncomfortable.

If you’re presenting to a large group, direct your focus to each part of the room to ensure no section of the audience feels ignored. 

Tip #3: Work on your stage presence

Although your tone and words are the most impactful part of your presentation, recall that body language keeps your audience engaged. Use these tips to master a professional stage presence:

• Speak with open arms and avoid crossing them
• Keep a reasonable pace and try not to stand still
• Use hand gestures to highlight important information

Tip #4: Start strong

Like watching a movie trailer, the first seconds of your talk are critical for capturing your audience’s attention. How you start your speech sets the tone for the rest of your presentation and tells your audience whether or not they should pay attention. Here are some ways to start your presentation to leave a lasting impression:

• Use a quote from a well-known and likable influential person 
• Ask a rhetorical question to create intrigue
• Start with an anecdote to add context to your talk 
• Spark your audience’s curiosity by involving them in an interactive problem-solving puzzle or riddle

Tip #5: Show your passion

Don’t be afraid of being too enthusiastic. Everyone appreciates a speaker who’s genuinely excited about their field of expertise. 

In “ Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance ,” Angela Lee Duckworth discusses the importance of passion in research and delivery. She delivers her presentation excitedly to show the audience how excitement piques interest. 

Tip #6: Plan your delivery

How you decide to deliver your speech will shape your presentation. Will you be preparing a PowerPoint presentation and using a teleprompter? Or are you working within the constraints of the digital world and presenting over Zoom?

The best presentations are conducted by speakers who know their stuff and memorize their content. However, if you find this challenging, try creating notes to use as a safety net in case you lose track.

If you’re presenting online, you can keep notes beside your computer for each slide, highlighting your key points. This ensures you include all the necessary information and follow a logical order.

Tip #7: Practice

Practice doesn’t make perfect — it makes progress. There’s no way of preparing for unforeseen circumstances, but thorough practice means you’ve done everything you can to succeed.

Rehearse your speech in front of a mirror or to a trusted friend or family member. Take any feedback and use it as an opportunity to fine-tune your speech. But remember: who you practice your presentation in front of may differ from your intended audience. Consider their opinions through the lens of them occupying this different position.

Tip #8: Read the room

Whether you’re a keynote speaker at an event or presenting to a small group of clients, knowing how to read the room is vital for keeping your audience happy. Stay flexible and be willing to move on from topics quickly if your listeners are uninterested or displeased with a particular part of your speech.

Tip #9: Breathe

Try taking deep breaths before your presentation to calm your nerves. If you feel rushed, you’re more likely to feel nervous and stumble on your words.

The most important thing to consider when presenting is your audience’s feelings. When you approach your next presentation calmly, you’ll put your audience at ease and encourage them to feel comfortable in your presence.

Tip #10: Provide a call-to-action

When you end your presentation, your audience should feel compelled to take a specific action, whether that’s changing their habits or contacting you for your services.

If you’re presenting to clients, create a handout with key points and contact information so they can get in touch. You should provide your LinkedIn information, email address, and phone number so they have a variety of ways to reach you. 

There’s no one-size-fits-all template for an effective presentation, as your unique audience and subject matter play a role in shaping your speech. As a general rule, though, you should aim to connect with your audience through passion and excitement. Use strong eye contact and body language. Capture their interest through storytelling and their trust through relatability.

Learning how to give a good presentation can feel overwhelming — but remember, practice makes progress. Rehearse your presentation for someone you trust, collect their feedback , and revise. Practicing your presentation skills is helpful for any job, and every challenge is a chance to grow.

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Elizabeth Perry, ACC

Elizabeth Perry is a Coach Community Manager at BetterUp. She uses strategic engagement strategies to cultivate a learning community across a global network of Coaches through in-person and virtual experiences, technology-enabled platforms, and strategic coaching industry partnerships. With over 3 years of coaching experience and a certification in transformative leadership and life coaching from Sofia University, Elizabeth leverages transpersonal psychology expertise to help coaches and clients gain awareness of their behavioral and thought patterns, discover their purpose and passions, and elevate their potential. She is a lifelong student of psychology, personal growth, and human potential as well as an ICF-certified ACC transpersonal life and leadership Coach.

6 presentation skills and how to improve them

How to write a speech that your audience remembers, 3 stand-out professional bio examples to inspire your own, tell a story they can't ignore these 10 tips will teach you how, reading the room gives you an edge — no matter who you're talking to, how to make a presentation interactive and exciting, your guide to what storytelling is and how to be a good storyteller, writing an elevator pitch about yourself: a how-to plus tips, 18 effective strategies to improve your communication skills, your guide to individual development plans (with examples), inspire others and support their growth. 10 ways to make it happen, goal-setting theory: why it’s important, and how to use it at work, how remote work will redefine future careers, according to gen z, how to develop critical thinking skills, how to set short-term professional goals, how to give and take constructive criticism, books to grow with in 2022, the self presentation theory and how to present your best self, stay connected with betterup, get our newsletter, event invites, plus product insights and research..

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How to Give a Good Presentation: 11 Top Tips for Killer Presentations

Written by: Orana Velarde

Giving a good presentation takes practice. Not everyone is born a natural public speaker, which is  why we’re here today.

In this article, we’ll give you some of the best tips for killer presentations. These are techniques used by all the best public speakers, and yes – even they had to practice to get this good.

If you need to give a presentation for work, be it a pitch about a new project or product idea, a quarterly marketing report, a product launch or as an industry expert in a summit, we’ve got you covered.

How to Give a Good Presentation [Presentation]

To learn more about our top 11 tips for giving a killer presentation, keep reading throughout this article. But for those of you who are skimmers, feel free to browse through this presentation rounding up our top tips.

How to Give a Good Presentation

Here’s a quick look at the 11 tips on how to give a good presentation. Plus, you’ll find a bonus resource you won’t want to miss, The Visme Presentation Guru Course.

• Rehearse What You’re Planning to Say
• Prepare Mentally, Emotionally and Technically
• Start Strong
• Follow the Outline You Practiced With
• Finish With Confidence
• Use a Storytelling Technique on Your Slides
• Keep Your Slides Short
• Use Templates
• Learn From Your Mistakes
• Keep Yourself Inspired for the Future

Let’s dive in.

1 Rehearse What You’re Planning To Say

Before you even give a good presentation, you need to prepare.

This part has two steps – to rehearse what you’re going to say and to prepare yourself mentally and emotionally. These two tips go hand in hand, but we’ll explain what each one is about individually.

Notice that we didn’t say “memorize your presentation.” There’s a big difference between memorizing a speech and practicing telling a story. The difference is that a memorized speech can end up sounding robot-like and practiced storytelling sounds effortless. 

You’ll be better off if you have at least a rough outline of your slides before you start rehearsing.

Section 1, Pause, Section 2, Pause, Repeat

Rehearse what you’re planning to say during your presentation by using a written outline, index cards, printed out versions of your presentation slides or whatever works for you.  

Practicing the spoken part of your Visme presentation is easy when you use the presentation notes feature . 

Separate your presentations into sections. The best way to do this is by topic. Try and keep all the sections about the same length, that way you can plan your pauses. 

Presenter’s Notes

Add presenter’s notes to your slides to help you along as you present. Visme makes this easy for you. As you go through each slide, you’re able to see the notes, what slide you’re on and what slide is next. There’s also a timer to help you pace each slide switch.

This tool will help if you can have a computer close by as you give the presentation. But if you are giving a presentation on a stage without a screen to help you, you’ll have to practice without notes. 

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How to Give A Good Presentation With Mnemonic Tools

Create some mnemonic tools into your presentation to help you remember what comes next. For some people, this comes as second nature and is easy. For others, it can become convoluted and cause you to overthink things. 

Try out a variety of different techniques until you find the one you feel the most comfortable and confident with.

Ask For Feedback

For better results and to know if you’re improving, record yourself or ask someone to watch you.  Ask them to give you honest feedback. Don’t accept feedback like “that was great.” Insist they go into the details. Offer them a pen and paper to take notes as you present.

You’ll notice as you practice and rehearse, that when you follow an outline, all the information you want to share is easier to remember. The TED talk below by Dr. Bolte Taylor was rehearsed 200 times and it’s one of the most famous TED Talks ever. 

You don’t need to practice that many times – just enough so it feels effortless. Needless to say, rehearsing is key to learning how to give a good presentation.

2 Prepare Mentally, Emotionally and Technically

It’s highly likely that you’ve already had to give presentations before, most probably at school. But let’s be honest, a classroom and a TED stage are a little different. So is an online summit via Zoom, which as you know are even more common now!

Let’s get one thing straight, though. We’re not talking about just any presentation here – we’re talking high stakes, high-quality presentations.

Preparing yourself mentally and emotionally for a weekly sales report meeting is not as important as doing so for one that will be in front of thousands of people and recorded for posterity.

This tip includes mental, emotional and technical preparation. Let’s focus on each one.

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Mental Preparation

While you’re rehearsing the outline and general speech for your presentation, notice the times when you feel like things flow and when they don’t. 

Why do you think that’s happening? 

If it flows well it’s because you feel comfortable with the content. You know what you’re talking about. You might even be passionate about it!

On the other hand, if you’re having trouble, maybe the content is still new to you. You might need to do a little more research to feel more knowledgeable about that topic. If you are unsure, you might completely forget what you had to say next during the presentation. 

That’s why rehearsing, adjusting and creating mnemonic cues will help.

Emotional Preparation

Not everyone needs to get emotionally prepared before a presentation. Conscientious rehearsing can usually be enough. But not everyone is the same. 

Many people that suffer from glossophobia or the fear of public speaking. Some have anxiety or social anxiety and just being close to that many people is difficult for them. Many successful speakers used to be riddled by fear before their first few presentations. 

Some of them still are, every single time. The difference is that they have learned how to manage their fear and lean into it. As soon as they step on the stage, the fear and anxiety melt away and all the rehearsing and practicing take over. 

To get emotionally prepared, you can try some mindfulness exercises and relaxation techniques. 

Wear clothes that make you feel powerful and confident. Try doing the power pose and high five some people before you go on stage. Sing your favorite song and have a little quick uplifting dance. 

Technical Preparation

You might be wondering what technical things you need to give a good presentation. It’s all in the details. 

Regardless if you’ll be speaking in a venue or an online summit, you have to test all technicalities.

If you’ll be speaking in a venue, visit the space and stand in the place where you’ll speak. Have a look around and pinpoint some elements or aspects that make you comfortable.

If there’s anything that bothers you, like a weird smell or a column in the middle of the room, think of ways to overcome that. 

Always ask to test the technical aspects in the room. Connect your computer or tablet to their system to check if your slides will look good with their setup. Also, test the audio. These detailed checks might not always be possible but it doesn’t hurt to ask.

If your presentation will be online, test all your tech beforehand. Locate a spot with the strongest wifi or hardwire your computer to the router.

Check your background and the lighting. Organize with housemates or family for some quiet time during the time of your presentation.

3 Start Strong

The day and time of your presentation have arrived! Now it’s time to shine.

Starting strong is a huge factor in achieving a good presentation. The first few seconds and minutes that you’re on stage will make a first impression on your audience . And yes, you can leverage that to your advantage!

How To Give A Good Presentation Through Impactful Body Language

The first thing people will notice is your body language. The way you carry yourself says a lot about how confident you are at that specific moment. If you prepared emotionally and mentally before your turn, then you’re as ready as you’ll ever be.

Watch the video below to learn about the power pose and how body language affects both you and your audience.

Make An Impressionable Statement

Starting a presentation with a joke, for example, can make the audience relate or feel more familiar with you. Letting them laugh a little will clear the air in the room and it’ll be easier to continue. 

Other opening techniques include:

• Be Provocative
• Incite Curiosity
• Shock the Audience
• Ask a Question
• Tell A Story

Use your first slide as a visual and impactful complement to start your presentation.

We have an article all about starting strong with plenty of inspiration. Check it out here – it’ll inspire you to think of new ideas for your presentation.

4 Follow The Outline You Practiced With

If you followed our tip above, you used an outline or a ‘section, pause, section’ technique to practice with. Maybe you even used some mnemonic tools or presenters’ notes. 

It’s time to put them all to use.

As long as you follow what you practiced you’re gold. This tip, as you can see, is a short one. It’s more of a reminder that the rehearsing step is more important than you might think at first. 

Only when you practice and rehearse a lot will you feel more comfortable when you present.

5 Use Props

Are you wondering how to give a good presentation with props? Good, that means you’re thinking creatively. Using props is a technique that not many consider when preparing for a presentation. 

Props can help not only to get the message across but also to serve as emotional support for the speaker! Just make sure it’s obviously a prop and not an emotional crutch.

A prop can be as small as a book, as big as a washing machine, or as weird as a preserved human brain. 

Of course, the prop must make sense with your presentation and topic. Not only that, but you must also practice with it. It’s important to be comfortable with your prop or props as you talk and switch slides. 

Actually, if you use props you might not need slides at all!

To get you inspired, watch this TED talk where Hans Rosling uses a washing machine as his prop.

6 Finish With Confidence

The end of the presentation is just as important as the beginning. You have to bring it all full circle. Knowing how to give a good presentation is like knowing how to structure a story, essay or article. The beginning and end are connected and must be relevant to each other.

For example, if you made a joke at the beginning, make the same joke but with a fun twist. If you made a provocative statement, close it up with a similar statement or question about it.

Closing Statement

Your presentation’s closing statement is a section in itself. Even if you do as we suggest above, the entire closing statement must be a conclusion of what you talked about during the entire presentation.

The last sentence you say will stay in your audience’s memory. At least until the next speaker takes the stage. If someone in your audience noted down your last sentence, you’ve hit the mark 100%.

Q and A Session – Yes or No?

Ending a presentation with a Q and A session is a bit iffy. If you ended your presentation with impact, a Q and A section can fizzle that out.

What you can do is ask the host to let the audience know that if they have questions, they can find you in the lobby for a conversation. For a digital summit, offer your Twitter handle where people can get in touch. 

In the case of webinars or instructional lectures though, Questions and Answers is a great idea. These can help familiarize you with the audience and make them more confident to work with you in the future. 

Consider the purpose of your presentation and make a decision according to what impact you’re looking to make.

Here's a great example of the chat section from Visme's webinars , where viewers make comments and ask questions throughout. In our webinars, we have someone help the presenter by gathering questions and ensuring everyone gets answers.

7 Use A Storytelling Structure

Moving on to the tips for the creation of your slides.  It’s important to remember the role your slides will play in your presentation. The audience’s attention should be on you, not your slides. These are meant to be complementary, not a crutch, nor even a text to follow.

With that said, this tip is the most important. It applies to your slides AND your spoken speech. They should both follow a storytelling structure that you and the audience will follow together.

Some of the most common storytelling structures are:

• Fact and Story – Go back and forth between facts and stories, or “what is” and “what could be.”
• The Explanation – Inform about a process or plan to fix something or to learn something new.
• The Pitch – Take your audience uphill over a hurdle and onto a positive resolution.
• The Drama – AKA “The Hero’s Journey,” this follows the plight of a main character from beginning to end.

You can also check out our quick video on how to structure a presentation like the experts to learn even more.

8 Keep Your Slides Short and Visually Balanced

There are two ways to design slides for a good presentation:

• As a standalone presentation
• As visual support, while you speak

Either way, you need to keep your slides short in text and visually impactful. For a visual support deck, the slides need even less text than a standalone presentation. 

If that idea worries you, and you have tons of information to share, you can always create a full-fledged informative PDF version of your deck to give your audience, investors or guests.

Here are some important things to remember when designing the slides for your presentation:

• The flow from start to finish
• Visual hierarchy
• Keeping the words to around 6 per slide
• Visual impact
• Balanced compositions

The 29 Best Presentation Layout Templates for 2020 [Plus Design Ideas]

9 Use Presentation Templates

Creating presentation slides doesn’t need to be difficult or a stressful affair. When you use a Visme presentation as a foundation, you’re on your way to being an expert on how to give a good presentation. 

To select a presentation template, you can either go for a topic-based template or a style based template. Both have their merits, you just need to figure out what’s easier for you. 

Topic-based templates are fully designed templates with color themes, graphics, images, icons, etc. You’d only have to adjust the content and maybe the colors and graphics. 

Style-based templates are better for those of you that need more freedom in terms of colors and visuals. The Visme slide library is full of layouts organized into categories that you can choose from. 

Presentation Templates

Ecommerce Webinar Presentation

Buyer Presentation

PixelGo Marketing Plan Presentation

Product Training Interactive Presentation

Company Ethics Presentation

Work+Biz Pitch Deck - Presentation

Create your presentation View more templates

10 Learn From Your Mistakes

When the presentation is over and you feel like you just conquered the world, it’s not the end just yet. Celebrate the moment but remember, there will be more presentations in the future. 

If your presentation was filmed, watch the recording. If there was anyone in the audience that you can fully trust to be honest with their feedback, ask them for it. Take mental notes and the next time you’ll be even more prepared.

The secret sauce to know how to give a good presentation is to always keep learning the ways to improve.

11 Keep Yourself Inspired for Future Presentations

When you keep learning, you keep growing. This also applies to the art of giving good presentations. Follow well-known presentation experts like Nancy Duarte and Carmine Gallo. Read their book, their stories and their theories about giving good presentations. 

Watch famous speeches or TED talks to get inspired. Take notes of what you notice in those speeches that you think would suit your personality. You don’t want to copy how other people speak, but you can definitely be inspired!

Bonus: The Visme Presentation Guru Course

To top off your knowledge base for giving good presentations with killer slides, we present you with the Visme Presentation Guru Course .

How to Give a Good Presentation Every Time

As long as you’re prepared, your slides are well-balanced and your speech is rehearsed, you’re ready to give an impactful presentation.

Plus, never underestimate the power of templates! Check out the Visme slide library to visualize the possibilities. Take our presentation course and improve your abilities as a public speaker and slide creator.

Learn how to give a good presentation with all the resources Visme has in store for you. Sign up for a free Visme account today to get started.

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About the Author

Orana is a multi-faceted creative. She is a content writer, artist, and designer. She travels the world with her family and is currently in Istanbul. Find out more about her work at oranavelarde.com

How to make a great presentation

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A Complete Guide to Creating Project Presentations – Templates, Tips, and Tricks

Before delving into the article, imagine you are sitting in the audience as an investor, waiting for presentations by two groups on the ‘Clean Water Project’ to begin.

The first presenter starts by simply listing his statistics and discussing technical data. He claims that he put over a dozen of purifiers, his project helped plenty of people in the area, and he showed some numbers and calculations and left the stage.

The second presenter enters and commences with a story of how his installations of water plants uplifted the lives of innumerable people. He shares anecdotes about his visit to designated places, visually describes the challenges those communities face, and then changes the narrative to how his team uplifted them and brought them out of misery. With each slide, he showcases numbers and backs them with an anecdote.

Which presenter are you more likely to finance? Of course, it would be the second one because he presented his project by incorporating all necessary details and left behind an indelible mark on you with his presentation.

Thus, one great project presentation can change your career forever, and its importance cannot be overstated. It serves as a critical platform for conveying a project’s vision, goals, and impact. Effective presentations also allow you to receive feedback, gather suggestions, and improve your plans.

In this blog, we will provide a complete guide to creating a project presentation, including certain templates that you can use to bring another level of charm to your slides.

Tips to Ace Your Project Presentation

1. open with a strong title.

Commencing with a strong title holds immense importance as it sets the stage for success. A compelling heading can ignite the audience’s curiosity and draw them toward your slides. It also serves as a clear focal point, giving them a preview of what to expect and guiding their expectations.

For instance, if you are delivering a presentation on a Solar Project, instead of saying, “Solar Project Presentation,” you can begin with, “Powering the Future: Brightening Lives with Our Solar Project.”

Such a well-crafted title not only intrigues the viewer but also helps establish the main theme or message of the presentation.

2. Define Who You Are Presenting To

Defining your audience is crucial to ensure effective communication and engagement.

Let us understand this with the help of an example. Assume that you are presenting a project to a group of investors. Here, understanding their perspective is key to success. You can tailor your content to address their specific interests, such as potential return on investment, environmental impact, or market trends. By highlighting the project’s financial benefits and long-term sustainability, you can capture their attention and make a persuasive case for investment.

On the other hand, if you are presenting to your managers and team members, including data on project status, timeline, potential threats, change in market status, etc., can be more relevant.

Thus, defining your audience allows you to deliver a presentation that speaks directly to their needs, interests, and motivations, increasing the chances of achieving your goals.

3. Be Prepared for Grilling Questions

Preparing for questions in a project presentation is crucial for maintaining credibility and demonstrating expertise. It shows that you have thoroughly considered potential concerns and have comprehensive knowledge of your project.

By anticipating challenging questions, you can gather necessary information and rehearse your responses to ensure clarity. It is also crucial to thoroughly understand every aspect, such as project objectives, methodology, strategies, etc.

You can also support your responses with evidence such as data, research, or examples that might strengthen your arguments. Remember to stay calm and composed and answer with sheer confidence.

4. Weave a Story Around Your Project

Imagine transporting your audience to a world where your project comes to life through a captivating story . What a wonderful way it would be to convey and convince simultaneously.

Weaving a narrative gives you the power to captivate, engage, and leave a lasting impact on your audience.

For instance, let’s consider a project aimed at developing a sustainable fashion brand. You can begin by painting a picture of the current garment cycle- low-wage workers, dump yards filled with tons of unworn clothing items, and lack of awareness amongst people. Then, introduce your project, where every clothing item is fairly priced, wages are regularized, and garments are sustainable and biodegradable, which leads to a better environment for all of us.

As you progress, share the challenges encountered – limited resources, conflicting visions – but emphasize the resilience and determination to overcome obstacles. Illustrate the transformation with anecdotes of individuals rediscovering the joy of slow fashion and how it completely changed the face of the industry.

By showcasing the project as a story of empowerment, environmental stewardship, and social cohesion, you can connect with your audience on an emotional level, inspiring them to support and be part of the narrative. The power of storytelling lies in its ability to create an immersive experience that transcends facts and figures, resonating with the hearts and minds of your audience and compelling them to take action.

5. Talk About the Problem and Solution

In any project presentation, addressing the problem and presenting a clear solution is essential. By clearly outlining the issue at hand, you establish the context and set the stage for your audience to understand the significance of your project. Then, by presenting a well-defined solution, you demonstrate how your project directly addresses the identified problem.

Let’s consider an example of a project focused on reducing plastic waste in a coastal community. Here you can start by describing the alarming levels of plastic pollution on the local beaches and its detrimental impact on marine life and the environment. Highlight the consequences, such as polluted waters, endangered species, and negative effects on the local economy.

Then, introduce your project as a comprehensive solution that involves community education programs, recycling initiatives, and the promotion of sustainable alternatives to single-use plastics. Present evidence of similar projects that have successfully reduced plastic waste in other communities.

By clearly articulating the problem and offering a solution, you create a sense of urgency and showcase the value and impact of your project. This approach engages your audience by highlighting the importance of your work and rallying support for a cause that resonates with their values and the well-being of the community and the environment.

6. Use Charts and Visuals to Showcase Numbers

When showcasing numerical data in a project presentation, utilizing charts and visuals is a powerful strategy to enhance understanding and engagement. Rather than overwhelming your audience with a barrage of numbers, graphs provide a clear representation of the data.

For example, if you’re presenting financial projections for a business project, you can create a bar chart that displays revenue growth over time, allowing your audience to quickly grasp the upward trend. However, suppose you want to depict budget allocations. In that case, you can use pie charts to showcase the division across different components, making it easier for stakeholders to comprehend the distribution of resources.

You can even use annotations and symbols to highlight the most crucial numbers and showcase key achievements.

By presenting data in a visual format , you enable your audience to make connections, spot patterns, and conclude more efficiently. It also helps emphasize key points and support your ideas by visually highlighting significant milestones or achievements.

7. Focus on the Design

Design plays a critical role in determining the interaction and engagement of your audience. By focusing on design details and elements, you can craft slides that stand out and speak for themselves.

This includes using a consistent brand palette and picking fonts that are clear, inclusive, and easy to read. You must also focus on the layout and organization of your content and ensure that it is easy to follow and visually balanced. Further, incorporating white space can help improve readability.

Templates that You Must Include in Your Project Presentation

Creating visuals, illustrations, and graphics from scratch is quite a burdensome task. Not only does it consume much of your time, but it also draws attention away from the content to the design.

Thus, we recommend using expert-designed templates that can be easily added to your slides and are completely customizable. You can adjust the fonts, change colors, and tailor them according to your requirements.

Here are seven such templates that are a must-have for a successful project presentation.

1. Project Timeline

Every project has a timeline that ensures all tasks are being completed as per schedule and allows stakeholders to have a bird’s eye view of important dates and events.

Including a project timeline in your presentation can provide the audience with a visual organization of various stages and milestones of the project. It can foster clear communication amongst team members, help them manage their time effectively, and enhance overall productivity.

Template Link

2. Project Stages

For a project to be successful, it must be well-organized and divided into multiple stages. Right from its conceptualization and initiation to closure, each phase must be outlined properly and presented in a manner that is easy for the audience to comprehend.

With this template, you can showcase even the smallest details, such as the charter, KPIs, tracking, risks involved, lessons learned, and much more.

  Template Link

3. Project Management

Imagine you’re embarking on a journey to conquer a challenging project. As you gather your team and prepare for it, you realize the importance of having a reliable roadmap that guides you through every twist and turns. That’s precisely what the project management infographic provides.

This template helps you showcase different aspects of the project and allows you to provide insights to your team into monitoring progress, identifying bottlenecks, and making timely adjustments.

4. Project Action Plan

We all have big visions and dreams. But it is true that dreams alone won’t get us there – we need a well-crafted action plan that can transform aspirations into actionable steps.

Thus, using an Action Plan template allows you to depict your project’s goals, objectives, vision, and desired outcome. This template is not just a tool – it’s a catalyst for transformation that allows you to guide your team in the right direction.

5. Project Roadmap

A roadmap is just a simple visual representation of the goals that you need to achieve at particular time periods to finish your project on time. Using a template saves you from the hassle of crafting a graphic from scratch and saves much of your time.

This template serves as a crucial element that can showcase various phases, deliverables, quarterly goals, etc., in one place. It communicates your project’s trajectory and becomes a common reference point for all stakeholders, ensuring that everyone is on the same page and aligned with the project’s objectives.

6. Project Budget

The success of a project depends on its careful financial management. Thus, using a Project Budget template, you can present estimated costs, from personnel and resources to equipment and overhead expenses. You can also depict the allocation of resources and how funds will be distributed across various project activities and phases.

By harnessing the power of this template, you can flawlessly communicate the project’s financial aspects to investors or team members.

7. Project Roles and Responsibilities

Every project requires effort from all individuals on the team. Each member has a unique role to play and a responsibility to shoulder. Therefore, incorporating a Roles and Responsibilities template allows you to showcase everybody’s duties and tasks clearly.

By visually representing the interdependencies and interactions between different roles, you can help team members understand how their contributions fit into the larger project puzzle. This understanding enhances coordination, minimizes gaps, and maximizes the collective impact of the team.

Project presentations are not just about numbers and data. Rather, they are about inspiring, connecting, and convincing the audience. They serve as an excellent tool to showcase your ideas and achievements and support them with concrete facts.

We hope this article acts as a guiding light for your next presentation and helps you successfully create and deliver it.

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Project Presentations: How to Prepare and Deliver a Project Presentation

Can anything make a project manager’s heart sink faster than being told that they need to give a project presentation to the board of directors? The pressure. The responsibility. Sure, you’re happy that the directors of the company trust you enough that they want your input in the project, but having to present in front of these powerful players is making your stress levels spike.

If you haven’t come across these presentation requests from senior managers yet, you will! These scenarios are common on projects, especially projects that introduce a new product or involve organizational change. But don’t feel overwhelmed. Giving project presentations may feel scary, but you can plan and prepare for them just like any other meeting.

What Is a Project Presentation?

A project presentation is an opportunity for you to explain your project processes and deliverables to key stakeholders. These can be informal, like a quick update via reports with a few individuals, or formal. Formal project presentations often require proper meeting times, thought-out slide decks, goal review and more. We’ll spend most of our time discussing how to prepare and deliver a formal project presentation.

A formal project presentation requires good data. Project management software can provide you with the dashboards and reports you need to supplement your points and progress updates. ProjectManager has real-time dashboards that you can share with stakeholders, and eight different in-depth project reports that you can make with just a few clicks. Get started for free today!

Why Is a Project Presentation So Important?

A project presentation is your opportunity to convey the importance of the work you and your team have been doing. If you’re unable to articulate your progress and achievements, key stakeholders won’t understand why money, time and resources are being spent on your project.

When you think of it like that, it’s no wonder why people spend so much time preparing for their project presentations. Read on to see how you can knock your next presentation out of the park.

How to Prepare for a Project Presentation

Preparing for a project presentation can be more important than you actual delivery. That’s because good preparation can set you up for success on the big day. Let’s go through some preparation techniques you can do for your project presentation.

1. Create a Calendar Invite for Your Project Presentation

You can’t just expect people to turn up – they need to know that there is an important event that requires their attendance, so get it in their diaries. People plan their meetings and calendar appointments sometimes quite far in advance, giving ample warning. Schedule the presentation as soon as you can, and check with the individuals (or their assistants) if you don’t get a reply about their availability.

If you have been invited to someone else’s meeting to talk about your project, make sure it is in your planner and book some time to plan for it in advance. If you don’t, you risk running out of time to prepare your material.

2. Select a Format for Your Presentation

How are you going to get your message across? If you’ve scheduled a project meeting it’s likely that you are expecting to do a formal presentation. That’s fine, but how? Will you use slides or flip charts or mirror your iPad on a monitor? Do you expect the audience to participate in any part of the presentation? Can you speak without notes or would it be better to have some pointers with you on the day?

You should also consider where you will be giving the presentation. For example, a format that is suitable for a small room and a limited audience, such as a loosely-structured project update with a couple of slides, is not going to be appropriate for a room full of stakeholders, laid out like a lecture theatre with you at a lectern at the front.

3. Practice Your Project Management Presentation

Giving presentations is a skill. Practice, practice, practice. Before your big project presentation, volunteer to do some smaller ones, like staff briefings or shorter updates at team meetings. You want to feel comfortable both standing up in front of the room and with the material. Run through your presentation at home or in an empty meeting room so that you remember where the slide transitions are. Practice using the projector and a clicker to move the slides forward. Write out your flip charts several times so that it becomes second nature.

Practice and training will make your delivery much more polished and professional and give your audience a far better experience.

4. Write Big So Your Presentation Is Legible

Whether you are using slides or flip charts, write big or use big fonts. It is often difficult to see what is on the screen, even in a small room – and that means your message is not getting across. And it’s an excuse for audience members to check their phones instead of listening to you.

A good tip is to print out your slides and put them on the floor. If you can still read them clearly from a standing position, then the text is big enough. If you can’t read the words or you have to bend down to read them, make the font size larger!

5. Have a Backup Plan for Your Presentation

Projectors break, meeting rooms don’t have conference phones in, pens run out just at the critical moment. Plan for everything to go wrong. Your presentation audience is made up of busy people and they don’t want to sit there watching you fiddle with the technology. Get it all working before they arrive, and if it doesn’t work when you get going, make sure that you have a contingency plan (like a printout of your slides) so that you can carry on anyway.

How to Give a Project Presentation

When the fateful day arrives, there are some important things to keep in mind when giving your project presentation. Follow these best practices and you’ll portray your project and your team in the best possible light.

1. Speak Clearly and Don’t Rely on Jargon

Presentations depend on clarity and good communication . If you bog down your presentation with jargon and convulated reasoning, you’re going to lose your audience. Make sure that you use language that your audience will understand, so they can follow along with all of the key points you need to make.

Remember, not everyone in that meeting is going to understand all the intricasies of your project, in fact, none of them likely will. So speak slowly, clearly and ensure that you communicate.

2. Stick to What Matters and Use Data

When giving your project presentation, don’t lose sight of the original goals and requirements of the project. Your stakeholders agreed on certain goals at the beginning, how are you trending towards reaching those goals? Sometimes it’s easy to focus on setbacks or difficulties, or things that you may find fascinating. However, it’s best to recenter on critical business objectives.

It’s important to use data to supplement your project presentation as you address key goals and initiatives. But don’t use too much data! People will get lost in the numbers and stop listening to what you have to say. It’s a delicate balance.

3. Tell a Story

You have probably sat through a fair few presentations in your time, and I expect you’ve tried to stop yourself from nodding off in some of them. Project status updates can be boring. If the subject matter isn’t dull, often the speaker is. Don’t let that be you.

One way to keep the attention of the audience is to structure your presentation in the most interesting fashion. Consider what they will find interesting (and it won’t be the same as what you find interesting). Telling the story of your project is a good idea. Think about a start, a middle and an end to your presentation. Perhaps follow the lifecycle from the perspective of a customer.

Focus on the benefits and not the project management process. If you don’t know if your presentation material makes sense, run it past a friend or family member who doesn’t know anything about your project. If they don’t fall asleep, it’s OK!

4. Ask for Feedback on Your Presentation

When your presentation is over, ask for feedback. You could do this directly at the end of the session before people leave the room, or a couple of days later. It’s good to get some feedback as it helps you work on what to improve for next time.

Ask people to give you their impressions both of your presentation skills and also of the presentation content. You could find that the content was really good but you lacked confidence delivering it, or conversely that you were an engaging presenter but the material was not relevant to them. All this is useful stuff to know and it will help you improve your presentation skills for next time.

Project Management Presentations Take Time to Master

Giving presentations isn’t an everyday occurrence on projects but it is likely that you will have to give one or two during the project lifecycle – more if your project involves a lot of workshops or user sessions.

Don’t panic – presentation skills are something that you can learn and you will get better with practice! Once you have cracked it, you’ll feel confident delivering presentations and you’ll find that it gets easier to prepare for them in the future.

The scheduling features of our software can be used to book your presentations on the team calendar, which can be easily seen on the project dashboard. With it you have the ability to share agendas and slides after the presentation with the online document library. Then you can carry on the discussion after the meeting by using the great chat tool. Try the software from ProjectManager free for 30 days and see how helpful it really is.

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How to present a project? Ultimate Guide

Project success belongs to the way you adapt to present it. If you present your project in an effective way that you grab the intention of your client and take him/her to an agreement but if you create blunders and skip important points that you need to discuss while presenting your project .

Importance of properly presented project. 

Presenting a project effectively is crucial for several reasons. It can significantly impact the project's success and your ability to communicate its value to stakeholders. However, here we have some key reasons why you must present your project correctly:

• Proper presentation helps ensure that your audience understands the project's objectives, scope, and goals. It reduces ambiguity and confusion.
• Project presentation will align all stakeholders, ensuring that everyone is on the same page regarding the project's purpose, deliverables, and timelines. This alignment will ultimately lead to project success. 
• An engaging presentation can capture your audience's attention and keep them interested throughout. So, you can expect better feedback, buy-in, and support for the project. 
• Effective project presentations provide the necessary information for decision-makers to make better choices. Whether it's approving project funding, adjusting the scope , or making strategic decisions, clear project presentations are essential for everything. 
• By presenting your project properly, Stakeholders will know who is responsible for what. It will ultimately help to prevent misunderstandings and finger-pointing. 
• Presenting the project can also help identify potential risks and issues early on. Stakeholders may raise concerns or offer insights that can help you address problems before they become major roadblocks.
• Project presentation helps in resource allocation . It allows stakeholders to see the project's resource requirements, helping them allocate personnel, budget, and other resources accordingly.

In short, presenting a project correctly is not just about creating a visually appealing slide. It is also about conveying information and aligning stakeholders. You must ensure that everyone involved has a clear understanding of the purpose, progress, and potential challenges of the project. Therefore, effective project presentation is a skill that you must learn. 

A complete guide on how to present a project?

Do not panic, and be confident about the content and visuals you have prepared to present your project. You should have command of all the information about your project, and you should also know each word you have included in your presentation so that you can explain it deliberately and confidently. You should follow some important steps to present your project:

First of all, know the goals of your project.

You should know the goals of the project you are doing as a project manager or being an owner of the project. First, you should discuss the project and fix its goals by having a warm call-up meeting with your teammates and the owner of the company or the client for whom you are doing the project. It is important when it comes to how to present a project.

Goal setting and owning are most important to make a project successful. It is the winning spot you set to win the race. If you do not do this, it means you do not have directions for where you will go, and all your efforts are useless.

Explain the goal of your project.

After setting the goals, you need to convince the audience by sharing the goals of your project in a way that they could have a better understanding of it. You can explain your project by

• Verbally presentation
• Documentations

If you explain the goals very well, you have done half of the work .

Organize the steps on a paper to present your project

After setting and explaining the goals of your project, you need to convince the audience or your client by explaining the ways to achieve these goals that seem. For that purpose, you should prepare well. You should make a layout of your presentation in which all the steps are organized and explained.

It will provide you with backbone support in presenting the project in an organized and ordered way. This organization will help you remember all key points and give you confidence about what you are saying. You know its meaning.

Prepare a rough sketch of the words you are going to speak

It is just like writing a speech. The delivery of words plays an important role in convincing the audience. If you know how to play the game of words well, you will easily take the audience to your platform. Therefore, before speaking in front of a crowd, keep in mind that you will be judged based on the words you deliver.

So, prepare for speaking and know the meaning of every word you have included. It can prove your strength or your weakness. It all depends on your preparation.

A healthy discussion with your team

When you work with your team, the pressure of work is minimized, and the moral support of your team also encourages you to give your best. While presenting your project, make your team ready to collaborate with you; you can divide the presentation into chunks and share it with your team members asking them to explain that specific part.

Team collaboration encourages success step-wise with the best quality in a short time as the work is divided and you are not burdened. Have trust in your team and get unique ideas by having a healthy discussion with them. Show value to others' ideas by considering and appreciating them.

Prepare your team-mate on standby if there appears to be a need to get their services while presenting the project. They provide you support to answer some critical questions asked by the client if you have pre- planned with your team members . You should keep this in mind when you are talking about how to present a project.

Prepare a presentation on PowerPoint

Another effective way to present the project is to put your ideas on the slides and mention the most important content about them. You can use the images to clarify the concept of your presentation and its purpose, as the images also describe the stories behind them. The images you use for visual description should be very clear and easy to understand.

Several tools in a presentation can help you present your project in the form of image illustration. You can play these slides automatically by setting the time duration. Do practice over these slides after fixing the duration for playing the.

You can present your project not only in the form of words or images but also through videos or graphics. The message you want to convey should not be lengthy or complicated. It should be simple and perfectly visible. Video audio presentation can be of more advantage in this regard.

Create some humor for the audience

If you talk a lot and change slide after slide, this will cause boredom among the audience. Here, you need to engage the audience while conveying your serious message in such a way that it seems entertaining. You can relate the bullet points or images with funny day-to-day activities to create humor, or you can also add some funny pictures or illusions to make fun of during heavy, serious discussions.

You will indirectly and silently decently engage the audience. If you do so, you will not feel the need to ask or make a request to the people to listen to you. They will do so willingly . It is an art, and if you know how to do it without realizing the audience you are doing this intentionally, you are a successful speaker.

In this way you will easily grab the attention of the client of your audience, they will love to listen and understand you, and even they will wait and expect the next bouncer from your side.

Adopt a confident body language.

It is human nature that we feel hesitant when we address a crowd who is sitting to judge us and ready to argue with us when it is our first time. But slowly, you will learn to deal with such a situation.

No matter if you are a beginner, you do not need to get worried. Just stay confident that you have prepared your presentation and practiced as well, and you can answer every query raised by the audience.

Focus on your body language; avoid doing the things that reveal your nervousness, like pressing your hands and playing with a pen by producing the sound of a tick-tock. It looks so odd and leaves a bad impression on your audience.

Make sure you have presented all the aspects.

Keep a checklist with you on paper or a computer slide and check with it whether you have explained important parts of your project, your client must know about them, or one of them is left by mistake. If it is left, it is okay; make a turn and explain it in a way that it seems you did not explain it before to maintain the surprising effect of your project.

I will say again that practice is the key to making your project presentation successful and completed within the expected or allocated time limit.  It is important when you come up with the question of how to present a project.

Present everything without getting nervous. 

Project presentation can sometimes be a real headache, even for pros. However, when you are presenting your project presentation, you must explain everything you have prepared without getting nervous. 

It would be better to keep these steps in mind to make the most out of this experience:

• You must keep your presentation concise, but don't forget to cover any of the essential points. 
• When you are presenting your presentation, you can take a quick pause to gather your thoughts. Slowing your breathing will certainly calm your nerves. 
• Take notes of what you will cover in your project presentation. It will help us to look more confident in the presentation room. 
• Above all, practicing your project presentation more can also make you feel less nervous. For perfect results, it is always better to practice throughout the time. 

Answer the relevant questions

When you present your project, there will be many questions among the audience that are mostly related to the project type, but some of them will ask such questions just to confuse you or let your morals down. Here, you need to play the mind game; do not let these questions disturb you, but answer them with patience whether you know the answer or not.

If you do not answer, simply tell them you do not know about it but want to know and ask for an explanation in the sense to add up your knowledge. If these questions are shits just to disturb you, they will not be thrown towards you next time.

You must be prepared for your question-answer session during and after your project presentation. It is because your audience may ask you some difficult or tricky questions. Regardless of what you have been asked for, it is always important to take proper time and answer their questions with the information they are looking for. 

Wrap up with a project

After discussing every aspect of the project with the client in detail, answering the queries, and getting suggestions, you need to end the session by wrapping up the project presentation in the form of a summary and giving a short review. In this way, all important parts of the projects will be recalled and finalized.

Common mistakes to avoid in project presentations 

When presenting a project, avoiding common mistakes is essential for ensuring clarity, engagement, and effectiveness. So, here are the common mistakes that you must avoid in your project presentation:

• Lack of Preparation

Inadequate project presentation can affect you in multiple ways. For example, you may stumble over your words during the presentation, lose your thought process while explaining some concepts, or even don’t have your project material ready to present. 

Effective preparation is key to a satisfied audience. Therefore, you should also focus on preparing your project presentation. The process involves researching your topic thoroughly, creating a structured outline, and practicing your presentation multiple times to build confidence and fluency. 

• Information overloading

When it comes to presenting a project, people usually make the mistake of overwhelming their audience with the overload of information. They add excessive data, statistics, and technical details of the project that may be hard to digest for the audience. 

The best practice here is to focus on adding the most important and relevant information only to your project presentation. Additionally, you can also add some statistics to support your key points. The best practice to simplify complex or technical project information is adding visuals in your presentation. 

• Not clearing your project purpose. 

Without clear objectives, your audience may leave the presentation unsure. It is because they don’t get what actions they should take, the scope of the project , or what they will get from the project. 

You should overcome this problem by stating the purpose of your project early on. Moreover, it would be better to outline what you want to achieve with this project and what others will get from it. 

• Poorly designed visuals 

Visuals in your project presentation should complement your spoken words. The visuals in the presentation should not distract your audience from what you are saying. 

Remember that cluttered or confusing slides can lead to disengagement.

You must keep slides simple, with clear headings, bullet points, and visuals that reinforce your message. Use a consistent design template and appropriately designed visuals for improved engagement. 

• Skipping the introduction 

An engaging introduction sets the tone for your presentation. It gives you an opportunity to capture the attention of your audience and increase it consistently.

For this, you have to craft a compelling opening, such as a relevant story, a surprising fact, or a provocative question. These practices will certainly help you to draw your audience in. 

• Not defining the problem statement. 

Failing to clearly define the problem your project addresses can leave your audience wondering why the project is necessary. As a presenter, you must provide a concise and relatable problem statement early on. It should demonstrate the relevance and importance of your project. 

• Poor storytelling 

Stories help make your presentation memorable and relatable. They add a human element to your content. Therefore, it would be better to incorporate relevant anecdotes, case studies, or real-world examples into your project presentation. These will help you to illustrate your points and connect with your audience emotionally.

• Disorganized presentation structure 

A disorganized presentation structure can confuse. Even your audience will find it difficult to follow your thoughts. So, you must create logical sections with clear sections, transitions, and signposts. These will help you to guide your audience through your content seamlessly.

Final thoughts

If you are new to project management and do not know how to present a project to your client or the crowd of the audience, please do not be worried and panic at all. It is not a big deal. You can do it by maintaining your confidence level, organizing the order of steps you are going to discuss, practicing and being tricky about grabbing the attention of the audience.

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20 creative presentation ideas to captivate your audience

Get your team on prezi – watch this on demand video.

Michael Lee June 17, 2019

The ultimate aim of every presentation is to etch a memorable mark that lingers in the minds of your audience long after the final slide fades away. Memorable presentations should be a creative blend of captivating design, innovative elements, and engaging delivery. To ignite your presentation prowess and set your creativity on fire, we’ve handpicked a treasure trove of 20 ingenious creative presentation ideas that will transform your presentations from bland to brilliantly unforgettable:

1. Experiment with color

It’s surprising what a little color can do. The way you use and pair colors in your presentation design can grab an otherwise disinterested audience member’s attention. Just make sure you do it tastefully and carry the theme across all frames. When in doubt, you can simply choose from one of Prezi’s existing content layouts , each with an appealing color palette.

Try experimenting with a two-toned design by adding different accents to your presentation background and other visual elements. You might start with a black-and-white design, then add a bright pop of one color throughout. Contrasting color palettes (think yellow and blue, pink and mint green, etc.) can also create this eye-popping effect. Alternatively, you can use neutral shades to give off a more subdued vibe.

Another idea? Add a color filter to your images to tie them into your color theme. Learn more about presentation colors in our guide.

2. Use a striking background theme

Looking for more presentation ideas and creative ways to present? Put some thought into your background image, as it’s what your audience will be looking at during the entire presentation. If you want to use a photo, choose one that’s beautiful, sentimental, or has action and flow. Just make sure you pick an image that has enough negative space on which to place text. You can also play around with textures and patterns, such as ripples or wood, or themes that are symbolic of your message, such as a passport, billboard, rocket launch, road trip, etc.

Additionally, make sure your chosen background image isn’t distracting. You want to keep your audience’s focus on the foreground — the graphics, text, and special effects you’ve created. Prezi already has a large library of effective and high-quality backgrounds and images you can search for when designing your presentation, so no need to source them from somewhere else.

3. Put thoughts into speech bubbles

Other creative ways to present information include using speech bubbles to communicate key points to audience members. Use them to illustrate an idea or to reveal a character’s thoughts or fears in your story. Have them pop up as notes or commentary in the frame you’re presenting. Similarly, you can use speech bubbles to show milestones on a timeline. If you’re revealing poll or survey results about a product or service, for instance, place data or participant feedback in bubbles.

But, like anything in a presentation, don’t go overboard with it. While speech bubbles can be a fantastic addition, excessive use might divert your audience’s focus from the core message. So, using speech bubbles in the right places to create impact can be effective for engaging your listeners, but scattering them throughout every slide might be a little excessive and cause the opposite effect. Balance is key when using speech bubbles. 

4. Abandon the slide-by-slide style

Free your presentations from the confines of slides. As an interactive presentation tool, Prezi allows for dynamic designs to take your audience on a journey as you tell your story. Zoom in and out on key points. Navigate between topics and sections of your presentation in any order. Go vertical instead of horizontal. Make transitions between ideas look like pathways or scenes instead of simply clicking sequentially from frame to frame. All of these elements come together to make a memorable presentation.

These types of tactics will give your presentation a cinematic feel that will captivate and inspire your audience. An open canvas design also makes it easier for you to tell a story , which people tend to process and remember more easily than straight facts. Prezi’s ready-made templates and striking graphics make it simple for you to share your narrative via one of these seemingly complex designs. If you want to transform a static PowerPoint presentation into a dynamic moving story, simply upload your file and try Prezi’s PowerPoint Converter feature .

5. Tell your story with a video

Presenters have been incorporating video into their slide decks for decades. Video is one of the most creative ways to present projects. It allows you to tell your story using visuals instead of big blocks of text. Now, however, it’s time to elevate the video so it captures your audience’s attention and enhances your narrative. Embed videos that play automatically when you navigate to certain parts of your Prezi canvas.

Just be sure to use videos that aren’t distracting and that work with the rest of your presentation’s flow. They should still complement your presentation’s overall design theme and message. If you’re not producing a video yourself, you can find thematic ones from stock video sites or on YouTube. Just be aware that you might need permission to use some videos.

It’s important to select videos beforehand and place them strategically so that they hit hard in the right places. Selecting the perfect videos is like choosing gems to adorn your presentation’s crown. These videos should harmonize seamlessly with your content, elevating the story you’re weaving.

Imagine, for instance, using a time-lapse video of a bustling cityscape to represent the rapid pace of change in the business world during your presentation on industry trends. Blending your videos with the theme of your topic in this way goes beyond just catching your audience’s eye, it actually adds depth to your story while also making your message more impactful.

6. Bring your story to life with audio

Another presentation idea to minimize text and maximize audience engagement is to add sound to your presentation. Tell your story using pre-recorded audio. This creative presentation style turns the viewer experience into just that — an experience. While the audio plays, you can move around the stage and navigate to various parts of the presentation that support the narrative visually. Again, the effect is almost movie-like.

Another auditory presentation tool is music. Use music to set the tone of your talk, or inject it periodically to regain the audience’s attention. The appropriate song choice can get the entire audience into the mood of your presentation. Choose upbeat tunes to convey excitement or dramatic ones that will trigger an emotional response . Plus, if you play a catchy tune that sticks in people’s heads, that’ll help them remember your presentation that much more.

7. Add animations

Another creative way to present is by bringing an otherwise static design to life is animation. Go beyond video by borrowing from stop-motion principles for your presentation. Stop motion is a technique in which you film objects one frame at a time to simulate motion in a scene or a story. You can recreate this effect in Prezi by using zoom, fade, and pan animations to tell a moving story frame by frame.

Animations can inspire and engage your audience, but just be sure to use them sparingly and as a complement to your story or message.

7.1. Make it fun with GIFs

Adding animated GIFs to your presentation can not only make it more fun but also help catch your audience’s eye. Because they’re trendy and often reference pop culture or common emotions, GIFs can help you get your point across without having to use just words.

However, it’s crucial to exercise moderation when employing these elements. While animations and GIFs can enhance engagement, excessive use of them can become distracting. There’ll be certain presentation topics or subjects where GIFs will look misplaced, so just make sure you think carefully about whether they correlate with your message before you use them. However, GIFs are a great way to inject humor and light-heartedness right after slides filled with heavy information. When executed skillfully, animations and GIFs transform your presentation into a dynamic and interactive visual journey, leaving an enduring impression on your audience.

8. Create a timeline

The timeline is nothing new. It’s how you apply it to a presentation that can really wow an audience. Prezi’s dynamic designs let you use the timeline as the basis or focal point of the presentation and then navigate along as you tell your story or plan of action.

Zooming in on specific elements of your timeline as you discuss them adds another layer of clarity and focus. It helps make sure your audience stays on track with your story and doesn’t get lost in the details or complexities. This laid-back way of highlighting key moments or steps keeps people interested and makes it easier for them to remember what you’re talking about.

9. Use maps

Deliver a creative presentation with maps, especially if there’s a geographic or location-based topic in your content. Set a map as your background or focal point, and prompt different regions to change colors or pop out as you navigate over them. When it comes to designing maps , make sure you’re purposefully selecting colors, as the color palette you choose can change the way people respond to your data. Don’t pick colors that are too similar when you’re making comparisons, for example. Use Prezi’s zoom function to zero in on areas for more details, or pull back to reveal the larger context.

You can also go the thinking map route, which is a visual learning technique that can convey complex ideas simply and creatively. Start with a central theme, then branch out into paths or surrounding points. The eight variations of thinking maps include circle maps, bubble maps, flow maps, treemaps, and more. These can be effective interactive aids in educational presentations as well as for small businesses.

10. Do away with bulleted lists

To truly transform your presentations, consider stepping away from the conventional bullet-point lists that often lead to passive learning. Instead, harness the power of visuals to inspire active engagement from your audience. Visual content stimulates the brain’s cognitive processes, making your message more memorable. Engage your listeners by replacing bullet points with visuals .

Prezi’s open canvas design is a valuable tool in this transformation. It shifts the focus from passive delivery to interactive engagement. By using visuals, you prompt your audience to actively process and respond to your content, fostering a deeper understanding and connection with your message. This shift from traditional bullet points to a visually driven, interactive approach can significantly enhance the impact of your presentations.

11. Communicate with images

Presentation images are nothing new. However, when standing alone, photographs, paintings, and other images can have a really powerful effect. Instead of trying to talk over an image, use it as a stepping stone in your presentation, a point of reflection. Once in a while, let visuals do the talking.

Also, a study has found that people process visuals 60,000 times faster than text . So, incorporating more images will make your presentation more memorable.

However, be careful with your selection of images – make sure that they’re relevant to the topic and aren’t just filling up an empty space.

Also, If you’re using Prezi for your presentation, you can access a huge library of images that takes away the headache of finding that one perfect shot. It’s like having a cheat code for making your presentation pop. So dive into the library and pick out visuals that’ll make your presentation not just informative, but engaging.

12. Play with transitions

Using slide transitions is one of the simple yet creative ways to present a project. They create visual continuity and add movement to slides. However, choosing the right page transition for your slides is truly a form of art. You have to consider the topic, tone of voice, and your presentation design. Page transitions should match the overall design, create flawless continuity, highlight key areas in your presentation, and do all that without stealing the show. Ultimately, you want it to compliment your presentation.

If you are looking for inspiration, check out Prezi Present ‘s wide selection of templates . You can play with transitions by adding additional animated elements that will make your presentation even more dynamic.

13. Swap for an infographic

To truly stand out and make a lasting impression, consider departing from the traditional slide-based approach and exploring infographics. Infographics are powerful visual tools that condense complex information into digestible, visually appealing formats. Instead of the conventional slide-by-slide progression, imagine scrolling through your presentation, seamlessly transitioning from one section to the next. This fluid movement allows you to verbally expand on key points while displaying the core information visually.

When you’re adding infographics, aim for designs that are easy to understand but also match your brand’s vibe. You want something that looks good and fits well with the rest of your presentation, so everything feels like it’s part of the same story. This helps make your presentation both easy to follow and hard to forget.

14. Get social

Employing a unique hashtag associated with your brand can significantly amplify the impact of your presentation, extending its reach far beyond the confines of the physical venue. This hashtag acts as a vital link between your presentation and the vast world of social media. Inviting your audience to dive into the live-tweet action with a dedicated hashtag during your talk isn’t just a savvy move; it’s a dynamic double play. You expand your reach, drawing in more eager participants, while simultaneously igniting a thriving online symphony of ongoing discussions and insights.

This approach effectively transforms your presentation into an active, two-way conversation. As you speak, people can immediately share their thoughts, favorite parts, and main lessons, creating a sense of togetherness and active involvement. Furthermore, the utilization of a branded hashtag allows you to monitor and engage in these conversations, strengthening your connection with your audience and providing an avenue for addressing questions or feedback. 

Even after your presentation concludes, these online discussions continue to thrive, ensuring that your message remains fresh in the minds of your audience members long after they’ve left the physical venue. This lively and extended interaction adds an exciting twist to your presentations, transforming them from just informative sessions into lively hubs of ongoing conversation and learning.

15. Use creative props

Physical props add a memorable dimension to your talk. Props serve as powerful visual aids, helping to illustrate key points, provide tangible examples, and offer visual cues. Props can be particularly useful for educational presentations, especially if you need to demonstrate an example. Another situation where props are paramount is if you are a brand that’s launching a new product and doing a promotional presentation. 

With Prezi’s creative tools at the forefront of your presentation along with your latest product at hand- you’re bound to persuade your audience. Integrating props at the right time in connection to your current presentation can really create a connection between you and your listeners. Put yourself in your audience’s shoes, would you take in the information by just reading and listening, or would seeing and touching physical props add a layer of interest that enhances your mental absorption?

16. Utilize virtual reality (VR)

VR technology allows you to transport your audience into a different environment or scenario closely related to your presentation topic. Transforming your presentation into a new virtual world takes it far beyond the expectations of mundane slide-by-slide presentations.

With VR, you can engage your audience with a dynamic three-dimensional world where they become active explorers, engaging directly with your content. Picture this: You’re showing off architectural wonders, recreating epic historical events, or unraveling the inner workings of intricate systems. VR takes your presentations to a whole new level, letting your audience not only see and hear but also experience and genuinely feel your message. It’s like inviting them to step right into the heart of your story.

17. Use gamification

Picture turning your presentation into an exhilarating game that dares to captivate and thrill your audience. When you add a little playfulness to your presentation, your audience is going to absorb your information without it feeling like a chore. Making aspects of your talk into fun learning experiences is going to keep your audience switched on throughout the whole presentation. 

You can achieve this by incorporating various interactive elements like puzzles, questions, or interactive storytelling that turn your presentation into an immersive and educational game. Encouraging your audience to think and respond will result in active participants rather than passive observers. 

18. Employ live demonstrations

Incorporating live demonstrations into your presentation is a potent strategy for effectively conveying your message. Whether you’re showcasing a product’s functionality, conducting a captivating science experiment, or engaging your audience in a hands-on activity, live demonstrations actively involve your audience and leave an enduring mark.

Live demonstrations can transform presentations into captivating journeys where your audience doesn’t just listen but also witnesses concepts coming to life before their eyes. This physical approach creates curiosity and entices active participation, effectively transforming your message into something tangible. When people can see, touch, or take part in live demonstrations, it makes a strong connection. It brings your audience right into your content and makes sure they take the message away with them afterward. 

19. Design comic-style frames 

Using comic strips as a presentation style is great when you want to make your presentation engaging and easy to remember. It works well for topics where you want to tell a story, explain things step by step, or simplify complex information. Comic strips contain the best of both worlds, combining visuals with storytelling. This means they’re versatile for various topics, such as education, marketing, and product demos.

The clever approach of comic strips crafts an animated, captivating experience that keeps your audience glued to their seats and sparks their eagerness to participate. Not only that, but it also makes your message highly memorable.

Creating a comic strip in Prezi is straightforward. Start by planning your content and breaking it down into bite-size sections that will be arranged in sequence. Then, use Prezi’s features to design each section as a comic frame, inserting relevant visuals and images. Prezi’s text and shape tools help you add speech bubbles or captions to guide the story you’re telling. As you present, take on the role of a storyteller, guiding your audience through each frame of your comic strip presentation with captivating explanations that hold their attention.

20. Emulate the style of TED talks

The TED-style approach is a powerful method of delivering presentations that revolves around the core principles of clarity, simplicity, emotional resonance, and compelling storytelling. In this approach, speakers focus on distilling complex ideas into easily digestible narratives, using relatable language and impactful visuals to engage their audience. TED-style talks typically center on a single compelling idea , conveyed with passion and authenticity, making them concise, memorable, and inspiring for a wide range of viewers.

Learn how you can excel in storytelling and develop TED Talk presentation skills in the following video:

Staying current with creative presentation ideas

Just as technology and communication methods constantly change, so do presentation audience preferences and expectations. Keeping your creative presentation ideas fresh and aligned with contemporary trends can significantly impact your effectiveness as a presenter.

Why keeping up matters

Adapting to audience expectations.

This is the key to making a memorable impact with your presentations. In the modern world, audiences want more than the ordinary; they seek thrilling, dynamic experiences. To make this happen, you must wholeheartedly embrace cutting-edge technologies and innovative concepts to make your presentations highly engaging. So, why stick with the mundane when you can captivate your audience’s imagination and curiosity with creative presentation ideas? Break free from the conventional and explore new concepts using Prezi. 

Maintaining relevance

Staying relevant is the cornerstone of success. To connect deeply with your audience, demonstrate your strong dedication to delivering top-notch content consistently. Your presentations should stand out with innovation and creativity, signaling that you’re not merely keeping pace with the times – you’re setting the tempo. With Prezi’s toolbox, you’ll be ready to explore a range of creative presentation ideas that leave a lasting impression on your audience. 

Fueling engagement

Elevating your presentations from mere information-sharing sessions to immersive experiences can be a game-changer. By staying in the loop on fresh creative presentation ideas and cool interactive tricks, you’re all set to captivate your audience. Adding some of these new, interactive touches can help you grab and keep people’s attention way better than just repeating the same slideshows.

Where to get your inspo 

If you’re ready to improve your creative game, there are plenty of helpful blogs, webinars, and online courses about fun presentation ideas you can dive into. Prezi offers a lot of useful tips for making your presentations stand out. Think of Prezi as your toolbox, always within reach to unlock your presentation’s potential and make a lasting impression. For presentation inspiration , check out Prezi’s presentation gallery and explore our highly engaging and creative templates .

Watch this video and learn more about creative presentation ideas:

Get inspired for more presentation ideas

The world isn’t flat, and your presentations shouldn’t be, either. Step outside your comfort zone, and play around with these 20 creative ways to present. Better yet, come up with your own creative ways to present and incorporate them into one of Prezi’s dynamic content layouts. Using this presentation software’s open canvas approach, you can tell your story conversationally and spontaneously so that audience members will engage with and remember.

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How to make a project plan presentation for clients and stakeholders

Elevate your project presentations to new heights! Learn the art of captivating clients and stakeholders with our expert tips.

Tim Stumbles

May 13, 2014

25 min read

Updated on February 27, 2024

Ever wondered what sets successful project managers apart? It’s the knack for delivering killer project presentations. Whether you’re gearing up for a stakeholder meeting or updating the higher-ups, nailing clear communication is the name of the game.

In this article, we’re not just talking about how to showcase data – we’re diving into the art of creating engaging project plans that captivate clients and stakeholders .

To help you transform your project presentations, we’ll share insights into how to:

• Simplify your approach for impactful communication.
• Visualize project plans effectively to captivate your audience .
• Select the right chart type for your project .
• Streamline project organization using Excel .

Get ready for practical tips and actionable techniques to make your presentations shine, breaking down the barriers of business communication right from the start!

1. Simplify your presentation for impactful communication

When presenting to project stakeholders, it’s crucial to move beyond mere data and offer a compelling narrative. Rather than drowning in the details of a project charter, consider crafting a visually engaging project roadmap . This approach allows you to add context and to delve into specifics as needed.

While Microsoft Project is commonly used in the planning phase, its detailed Gant chart views (like the example below), may not effectively convey key insights during stakeholder meetings. This is why your next executive-level project review should rely on more visual project management tools to lay out the strategic planning process. The goal is to make complex information easily digestible while ensuring stakeholders grasp the business implications.

An exec-level project review should summarize the strategic planning process and showcase its progress in a visually appealing manner. Remember: the challenge consists of making the information easy to digest and ensuring that audiences understand the business implications.

2. Visualize project data effectively

The best option for outlining a project’s plan is to create a workflow diagram that correlates the tasks with the critical milestones, as shown in the Gantt chart example below:

Presenting the project roadmap in this manner helps your stakeholders quickly see the scheduled tasks, as well as their duration, sequences and other task dependencies , all of which define the critical path . Furthermore, connecting the project activities (tasks) with the project events (milestones) offers clients and execs more insight, which translates to better management decisions.

3. Select the right type of graphic for your project – Timelines vs Gantt charts

When it comes to visually representing your project’s strategic planning process, two main options are commonly used: timelines and Gantt charts . While timelines focus primarily on events, such as milestones, Gantt charts typically depict activities or tasks. However, to create an ideal project presentation, it’s crucial to strike a balance between showcasing both tasks and milestones.

To ensure clarity and coherence, consider utilizing a unified graph, such as a swimlane diagram . This type of graphical representation allows you to categorize tasks and milestones according to their specific project life cycle phase, providing a comprehensive overview of your project’s progress.

To decide which of the two visual project management charts serves you best, check out our case study on the benefits of using timelines in project presentations or our article on the do’s and don’ts of creating a Gantt chart .

Next, let’s take a comparative look at two frequently used alternatives for visually rendering a project charter, Excel and PowerPoint . We will explain how to make a Gantt chart in Excel using a bar graph, and how to make an Excel timeline using a scatter graph. We will also show you how to quickly make a single, unified Gantt chart + Timeline presentation in .PPTX by using our add-in for PowerPoint, Office Timeline .

4. Streamline project data organization in Excel

Whether or not you’re going to create the Gantt chart in Excel, this application from the Microsoft suite is a great place to start drafting the project schedule. More exactly, you will need to create the  Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)  by breaking down the project into smaller pieces of work – the tasks. Make an Excel project management template that you can reuse, then list each of the tasks on the data table in the correct sequence. The tasks will form the project Gantt chart and their order will determine the project schedule.

Another important piece of the puzzle to integrate in your Excel project management template is the milestone section. Project milestones consist of all major deadlines your plan must achieve, and they form your Excel timeline. We have included a Work Breakdown Structure example below, for clarity purposes.

Note : Keep in mind that this is a high-level presentation aimed at executives and stakeholders, so it should not be overly complex. Consider trimming it down if the project schedule contains more than 20 tasks and 20 milestones, in order to facilitate understanding and keep the audience engaged.

Option 1: Making the Excel graphs

It’s worth noting that Excel is nowhere near as graphics-oriented as PowerPoint. The direct result is that your Excel Gantt charts and timelines will tend to look more like stacked bar graphs and, respectively, scatter charts.

Another drawback is that Excel doesn’t allow you to combine a Gantt chart (tasks) with a timeline (milestones) into a unified project roadmap. Therefore, you will need to create two separate visuals and combine them on one slide or present them individually. In order to do that, you will first need to make a Gantt chart showing the tasks of your project plan and then a timeline with your project milestones. Here’s how:

• Step 1: Create a Gantt chart in Excel with the stacked bar chart function

Once you have your project schedule in Excel you will add the task data into an Excel stacked bar graph and then follow approximately 20+ formatting steps to transform it from a stacked bar chart into an Excel Gantt chart, which will end up looking something like the chart below. For detailed instructions, please check out our guide on  how to make a Gantt chart in Excel .

• Step 2: Create a timeline in Excel using the scatter chart function

To create a timeline in Excel you will need to use a scatter chart. Add your data to the scatter chart then follow approximately 25 steps to format it so it looks like a timeline presentation, as shown below. If that’s easier, check out our easy-to-follow, step-by-step guide and a how-to  video tutorial .

Note : However familiar and accessible this Microsoft application may be, there are certain limitations that make it less than ideal for project presentations, including:

• No method to combine an Excel Gantt chart with a timeline. Executives and stakeholders should be able to view the tasks and milestones in conjunction with each other for better visibility into the critical deadlines and activities.
• Making a project roadmap featuring a timeline or Gantt chart in Excel requires advanced operating skills. Converting Excel’s stacked and scatter charts into Gantt charts and timelines depends on properly following a specific sequence of formatting steps.
• The resulting diagrams are not as visually appealing as a PowerPoint slide and considerably more difficult to share with everyone involved.

Option 2: Create the project roadmap as a native PowerPoint slide

So far, we have shown you how to make a Gantt chart in Excel and mix it with a timeline, in order to provide your stakeholders with a 2-part overview of your project schedule. Next, let’s take a look at the alternative: using a PowerPoint timeline maker with embedded Gantt chart functions to generate a slide with both graphics combined.

PowerPoint is perceived as a superior tool for building project presentations. Since it is a graphical application, it is designed for creating and communicating charts in a visual way. Additionally, since it’s a common tool in enterprises, PowerPoint is familiar to audiences, and slides can be easily shared. There are two main ways to build project slides in PowerPoint using our Office Timeline add-in :

• Create the Work Breakdown Structure template in Excel and import the data

Earlier in the article we included a Work Breakdown Structure example made in Excel. The first option relies on using the  import feature  from Office Timeline and bring in the data tables with tasks and milestones. To import the project schedule you created in Excel, use the Office Timeline wizard which will link to your project spreadsheet (or .MPP file, if you prefer Microsoft Project). Here’s a quick demo:

There’s another reason to import the data from an Excel spreadsheet and that’s the  refresh data feature . In short, since the PowerPoint slide is linked to a worksheet, it can be synchronized and updated with the click of a button when the spreadsheet data changes. Check out our support article that explains how the sync process works .

Note : For better visibility, Office Timeline also allows you to import tasks and milestones directly into swimlane templates .

2. Use a Gantt chart or timeline template (swimlanes are also supported)

There are definitely advantages to importing the data file from an external application like Excel or Microsoft project. However, that isn’t your only option. Office Timeline comes with an extensive collection of professional templates that can easily adapt to a wide variety of different project types. These timeline templates are embedded in the add-in and there is also a free gallery with new ones added regularly, for your convenience. Here’s a quick overview of the template functionality:

Simply replace the default data with your own tasks and milestones, and Office Timeline generates the graphic for you.

Note : Customizing a timeline or Gantt chart template with your own data can be done at any time from the user-friendly and highly intuitive interface. Update it easily whenever there are changes in your project schedule, restyle it and share it with your team, all from within PowerPoint. It’s very flexible!

Conclusions

Mastering the art of presenting project plans to clients and stakeholders is essential for project managers. By simplifying your approach, visualizing project plans effectively, selecting the right chart type for your data, and streamlining the way you organize your information, you can elevate your presentations to new heights. With these tips and tricks in hand, you’ll be well-equipped to captivate your audience and drive successful project outcomes.

If you regularly find yourself liaising with the management or your stakeholders and dread the thought of spending hours creating presentations with the traditional tools in the Microsoft Office suite, then check out Office Timeline. Available as a free version , this handy project roadmap-creation app can save you time and ensure you drive your point home without the drawback of an intimidating learning curve. For the more complex timelines, we recommend giving the tool's most advanced edition a try.

FAQs about making client and stakeholder presentations

Gain insight into how you can improve your project plan presentations to clients and stakeholders with our Q&A section. Below, we offer you the answers to the most common questions related to the topic.

What should I include in my project plan presentation?

To be relevant to your stakeholders, your project plan presentation should include a high-level overview of the following items: • Goals • Timelines • Milestones • Key deliverables • Risks • Budget.

How do I ensure my project plan presentation is engaging for clients and stakeholders?

To ensure that your project plan presentation engages your C-suite audience, incorporate visual aids such as project management charts and diagrams to make complex information more digestible. Focus on telling a compelling story that highlights the project’s objectives, benefits, and potential impact. Learn more about how to capture your stakeholders’ attention during presentations with our article on why stakeholders usually ignore project reports and how to fix that .

How can I effectively communicate project progress during the presentation?

Effectively communicate project progress by providing clear updates on completed tasks, ongoing activities, and any potential roadblocks or challenges. Use visual progress indicators such as Gantt charts or timelines to illustrate milestones achieved and remaining tasks.

What should I do if stakeholders have questions or concerns during the presentation?

Be prepared to address questions and concerns promptly and thoroughly. Take the time to listen actively, clarify any misunderstandings, and provide relevant information or data to alleviate concerns.

Should I tailor my project plan presentation to different types of stakeholders?

Yes, it’s essential to customize your presentation to resonate with the specific interests and priorities of different stakeholders. By tailoring your content to address their unique needs and concerns, you will be able to get the message across in a more effective way and ensure that you gain their support throughout your project’s life cycle. Learn how to correctly identify, analyze, and prioritize the parties that may be affected or have an impact on your project with our blog post on stakeholder analysis .

What are some common pitfalls to avoid when presenting project plans to clients and stakeholders?

When presenting project plans to clients and stakeholders, it’s crucial to steer clear of common pitfalls that can hinder effective communication and understanding. Here are some of the most important ones to keep in mind: • Avoid using overly technical language or jargon – while you may be well-versed in technical terminology related to your project, it’s essential to remember that not all stakeholders may share the same level of expertise. Using complex jargon can lead to confusion and misinterpretation. Instead, strive to communicate in clear, straightforward language that everyone can understand, regardless of their background or expertise. • Be transparent about risks and challenges – every project comes with its own set of risks and challenges, and it’s vital to address them openly and honestly during your presentation. Transparency builds trust and demonstrates your commitment to managing potential obstacles effectively. Discussing risks also allows stakeholders to provide input and support in mitigating them, fostering a collaborative approach to project management. • Avoid making unrealistic promises or commitments – although it may be tempting to promise quick results or guaranteed success, it’s essential to be realistic and honest about what can be achieved within the project’s constraints. Making unrealistic promises can set false expectations and ultimately lead to disappointment if objectives are not met. Instead, focus on presenting a realistic project plan with achievable goals and timelines, based on thorough gap analysis and assessment. By avoiding these common mistakes, you can ensure that your project plan presentation effectively engages stakeholders, fosters understanding, and sets the stage for successful project execution.

How can I follow up with clients and stakeholders after the presentation to ensure alignment and understanding?

Send a follow-up email summarizing key takeaways, action items, and next steps discussed during the presentation. Encourage stakeholders to reach out with any further questions or concerns.

What tools or software can help enhance my project plan presentations?

To enhance your presentations, consider using project management tools that will help you organize, manage, and track complex data in a visual way. Additionally, presentation platforms like PowerPoint can help you design professional-looking slides based on your project information. Designed as a PowerPoint plugin, Office Timeline offers the best of both worlds – it allows you to import project plans from productivity tools like Microsoft Project , Excel , or Jira and turn it into presentation-ready high-level slides that can be quickly shared and updated. For more resources on how to process and communicate project data visually, check out our review of the 8 best visual project management software .

Tim is Co-Founder & CEO of Office Timeline, a Seattle-based start-up that aims to rid the world of boring, uninspiring meetings.

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How to Give a Presentation

Last Updated: May 19, 2024 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Patrick Muñoz . Patrick is an internationally recognized Voice & Speech Coach, focusing on public speaking, vocal power, accent and dialects, accent reduction, voiceover, acting and speech therapy. He has worked with clients such as Penelope Cruz, Eva Longoria, and Roselyn Sanchez. He was voted LA's Favorite Voice and Dialect Coach by BACKSTAGE, is the voice and speech coach for Disney and Turner Classic Movies, and is a member of Voice and Speech Trainers Association. There are 10 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 528,914 times.

Giving a presentation terrifies most of us, especially when talking before a crowd of people about an unfamiliar topic. Never fear! There are ways to make a good presentation. The more presentations you do, the easier they will become!

Preparing For the Presentation

• It's best to have 1 main thesis statement or overarching theme and 3 main points that back-up or flesh-out your main theme. Any more than that and your audience is going to start losing interest. This means that any facts and information that are a part of your presentation should back up these 3 main points and overarching theme.
• For example: If you're giving a presentation about 17th century alchemy, bringing up the history of alchemy is fine (and probably necessary), but don't mire your audience in its history instead of focusing alchemy in the 17th century. Your 3 points could be something like "alchemy in public opinion," "famous 17th century alchemists," and "the legacy of 17th century alchemy."

• Pick your very best supporting facts, information, or quotes for your presentation. Don't bury your audience in information.

• Make sure you're using media to enhance your presentation and not to drown it out. The presentation is key. Anything else is just accessorizing.
• For example: to get back to 17th century alchemy, to back up your information about alchemy in the public opinion, you might want to show images from public pamphlets about the dangers of alchemy and see what people of the time period had to say about it and see what the more famous alchemists had to say about it.
• Also, you want to make sure that you pick a medium that you are comfortable in and thorough in knowledge. If you don't know a thing about PowerPoint, maybe consider writing your main points on a white board, or passing out handouts with your main points and evidence on them. [3] X Research source

• A good tip is to film yourself or audiotape of yourself giving your practice presentation so you can see what distracting verbal and physical tics you have, so that you can work on eliminating them before the presentation itself. (Verbs tics would be things like "um..." and "uh..." and using "like" inappropriately; physical tics are things like shifting your weight from foot to foot or messing with your hair.) To stop yourself from saying "um" or other unwanted tics, be aware you're doing it first, then speak more slowly and deliberately. Breathe deeply and feel free to pause and appreciate the silence. These will all help you to have mastery over your tics.
• Just remember that rehearsals usually run about 20% shorter than your actual presentation, so take that into account if you're running on a time limit.

• For example, if you aren't comfortable wearing heels, don't wear them just for the presentation. You'll be distracted by your discomfort and that will come across in the presentation. There are plenty of good shoe choices that have no or a low heel.
• Clean, nice slacks or a skirt and nice, button-down shirt in neutral colors are always good choices for presentation wear. You also don't particularly want your clothing choice to distract from the presentation, so perhaps avoid that brilliant hot pink shirt.

Giving the Presentation

• Before the presentation, clench and unclench your hands several times to deal with the adrenaline and then take 3 deep, slow breaths.
• Call up a smile, even if you feel like hurling. You can trick your brain into thinking that you're less anxious than you actually are and you'll also be able to hide your nervousness from your audience.

• Make eye contact with your audience. Don't stare at one particular person, but section up the room and make eye contact with someone in each section on a rotational basis.
• Have a big, welcoming smile on your face, with lots of energy, so you start out from a strong and engaging place.
• Ask questions of your audience and take questions during your presentation. This will make it more of a conversation and therefore more interesting.
• Tell an amusing anecdote to illustrate your point. From the above examples about 17th century alchemy, you could find an amusing alchemical anecdote from the time period, or you could talk about your own forays into alchemy.

• Move around, but make your movements deliberate. Don't nervously shift your feet (in fact, it's a good idea to imagine that your feet are nailed to the floor except for those times you deliberately choose to move).
• Use your vocal inflections to create a more dynamic presentation. Vary your voice as you're talking. Nobody ( ever ) wants to sit there and listen to someone drone on and on in dull monotone, no matter how interesting the material (think Professor Binns from Harry Potter; that's what you don't want).
• Try to create a balance between rehearsed and spontaneous. Spontaneous, on the spot, movement and asides can be great as long as you are really comfortable, otherwise they can sidetrack your presentation and make it rambling. Mess around with spontaneous and rehearsed when you're practicing and you'll get a feel for it.

• Quickly introduce your topic and don't assume that your audience is familiar with all the terms, especially if your topic is one that isn't widely known.
• Figuring out why you want (or have to) give this presentation will help you work with an overarching story/theme. Maybe you want to pass the class. Maybe you're convincing people to give you money or join you in a philanthropic endeavor or act for a social or political reason. Channel that desire into your presentation. You're answering the question of why they would want to pass you or why they would want to fund you. That's the story you're telling.

• Make use of pauses, and learn to be comfortable with silences. Silence can be a powerful presentation tool and gives you a chance to take a moment to recompose. By taking pauses, you can slow down your breathing and be more deliberate in your speech, avoiding speaking too quickly.
• Have water with you and take a sip when you feel you're going too fast.
• If you have a friend in the class or meeting, arrange with them beforehand that they will let you know with a signal whether you're talking too quickly. Look over their way occasionally and check your progress.
• If you find that you're running out of time and you haven't finished, simply drop or summarize your leftover material. Acknowledge the leftover material as something that can be discussed later or in the Q&A.

• Make it clear what the listeners now know and why it is important that they have this new information.
• Conclude with examples or stories about your main point and take home message. You might want a slide which summarizes your presentation. For example, you might conclude with a story about the nature of alchemy in the modern era (perhaps in a film) to show its malleable nature.

What Is The Best Way To Start a Presentation?

Community Q&A

• Have a short Q&A session at the end of each subtopic. Q&A sessions will improve audience engagement. It also acts as a welcome break for audience in case of long presentation. For this though, you will need to know the subject you choose well. Make sure you understand and have more than just the basic knowledge about the topic you choose. Thanks Helpful 1 Not Helpful 0
• Use pictures or visuals. Pictures and visuals show that you know what you're talking about, and it gives the audience a picture of what you're talking about. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• Try to have a "leave behind" message, something that your audience can take away that reminds them about your presentation, like a flyer or a book, for example. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

Tips from our Readers

• Use pictures! A good way to use pictures is through PowerPoint. If you don't have PowerPoint, you can print the pictures onto a board (paper, card board, or larger paper).
• Don't be nervous. Practice and do just like you did in practice. If you are nervous, the audience will know.
• Try to do some hand jesters. Speak loud and clear. Make eye contact with them. Be confident.
• Let the audience have an opportunity to interact with you.

• Don't make your speech too long, unless it is really good, and you have to have done speeches for a long time to have them be that good and long. Stick to short and sweet. Thanks Helpful 50 Not Helpful 11
• Don't put off work to the last minute. Then your work will be most likely sloppy. If you do well under pressure, do your project a bit at a time and maybe it will get done. Or, try doing it all at the beginning, so then you have the whole rest of the time to play or check your assignment. Thanks Helpful 36 Not Helpful 16
• Jokes are usually not okay, especially in a professional setting. A light hearted comment is fine, but don't make it seem like a comedy show. Thanks Helpful 12 Not Helpful 3
• If you speak in a too fast/slow or monotone voice, people will not want to hear you! Aim for a conversation voice (but slightly louder) with natural pauses (commas and periods). Develop a tone depending on what you're talking about. It's more interesting and engaging to hear someone speak in a serious tone rather than a monotone when speaking about world hunger. Thanks Helpful 9 Not Helpful 2
• If you suffer from twitchy fingers, be mindful to move your hands during your presentation only when necessary, or the audience may notice and feel you are unprepared. Thanks Helpful 8 Not Helpful 3

You Might Also Like

• ↑ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/young-entrepreneur-council/13-tips-for-giving-a-kill_b_3728093.html
• ↑ https://www.niu.edu/presentations/prepare/index.shtml
• ↑ https://algonquincollege.libguides.com/studyskills/creating-presentations
• ↑ https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/how-to-prepare-the-presentation
• ↑ http://www.washington.edu/doit/TeamN/present_tips.html
• ↑ https://counseling.uiowa.edu/self-help/30-ways-to-manage-speaking-anxiety/
• ↑ https://www.hamilton.edu/academics/centers/oralcommunication/guides/how-to-engage-your-audience-and-keep-them-with-you
• ↑ http://hbr.org/2013/06/how-to-give-a-killer-presentation/ar/1
• ↑ https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-slow-down-your-speech-when-presenting-sharon-maree-jurd-cfe/
• ↑ https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/how-to-conclude-a-presentation

About This Article

Before you give a presentation, spend some time crafting what you will say. Most presentations should center on a thesis, or main idea, and contain about 3 supporting points. Cutting unnecessary content will ensure your presentation is impactful. Once your presentation is done, practice delivering it in front of a mirror or while recording yourself so you can identify and correct any issues. To calm your nerves before you present, try clenching your fists a few times and taking several deep breaths. For more advice about giving presentations, like whether to use visual aides, keep reading! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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10 Ways to Improve Your Project Presentations

Personal Development

•  Minute Read

As a project manager, you will sometimes be asked to make presentations to a board, to a senior leader team, an external vendor, or to your organization. Here are opportunities to help your stakeholders understand your projects. With every presentation, you can try new things and learn to improve your presentations.

Improve Your Presentations

1. plan your presentations..

Want to present more effectively? Create your presentation with a good structure. The structure will help you with recall and more importantly, will help your audience follow your presentation. Here’s a simple but effective structure:

• Introduction. Present the big idea. What is the major challenge or opportunity you want to see your audience to think about?
• Body. Give your audience three practical action steps to achieve the big idea.
• Conclusion. Restate the big idea and summarize the action steps.

Not complicated, huh? That’s the idea–keep your structure simple.

2. Arrive early.

It is a good practice to arrive early at the location of your presentation. Make sure everything has been set up as you’ve requested. Check out the equipment to make sure that things such as your microphone, PowerPoint, remote, and projector are working properly.

3. Keep the focus on you (not your slides).

When presenting, keep the focus on you, not your slides. Many presenters make the mistake of putting too much text on their slides. The audience spends more time reading the slides than making eye contact with you–the presenter. If you know the room will be dimly lit, see if you can get a light directed toward you.

4. Use an outline (not a script).

If you want to connect better with your audience, use a conversational style. Presenters who read their presentations seem a bit stilted (okay boring). Try using an outline for the majority of your presentation rather than a script. It’s fine to read quotes and book excerpts to illustrate a point.

5. Practice the presentation.

It amazes me how many people never practice their presentations. Just because you’ve developed your slides and your outline does not mean you are prepared to give a killer presentation. Walk through the presentation—talk it out—get comfortable with the delivery. Think about the speed, the tone, and the parts you wish to emphasize.

6. Make eye contact.

Remember—use a conversational style. Look into the audience and make sustained, focused eye contact with individuals for brief periods of time. How long? Three to five seconds. This one habit can transform your audiences into engaged participants.

7. Use visuals.

One of the most powerful presentations I’ve ever seen was about fifteen years ago. I will never forget it. The presenter used humorous clips from the Road Runner Cartoons to illustrate risk management principles. She also had supporting visuals—play-like Acme rockets and stuffed animal characters. She could have simply told the Road Runner stories, but the visuals made the presentation more engaging and memorable.

8. Keep your slides simple.

Over time, I’ve shifted from text-based slides to slides comprised of images with little text. My aim is to keep the audience engaged with me, the presenter. The slides supplement what I’m saying (not the other way around).

When I create slides with bullets and text, I keep each line short—no text wrapping. I also limit the number of bullets to no more than seven.

Click here for more tips from TEDBlog.

9. Use stories and analogies.

Give people numbers and statistics and you quickly lose your audience. Alternatively, tell stories to engage your participants. Individuals can see themselves in the fabric of your stories. Stories give context and allow people to extrapolate the relevant meaning for their personal application. Furthermore, people remember stories much better than numbers and boring facts.

10. Provide a copy of your presentation.

Shortly into my presentation, I say to my audience, “Hey, at the end of this presentation, I will tell you how you can get a handout containing the key points of today’s presentation.”

Keep in mind, my slides are mostly images (not notes). Therefore, I create a separate handout with the details. At the end of the presentation, I either have copies that participants can pick up or I provide a URL where they can download the handout from my DropBox .

You may also like

What are the project meeting roles, how to master project meeting minutes.

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5 ideas to make your project presentation more successful

• Digital Factory & Factory Design
• Jan Schiller
• last updated: 18. January 2023

You are probably familiar with this situation: You have invested many hours in your project presentation slides. Your idea for a solution is mature. Now you are sitting in a deadlocked meeting and after endless discussion the decision is postponed.

As is often the case, how well a proposed solution is received by your audience depends to a large extent on communication. Because communication problems slow down many industrial projects. A lack of transparency can be a major cause. Be transparent and you are understood. If you are understood you are accepted by your audience. Practitioners and authors in communication theory call this connection the basic law of communication:

True is not what A says. True is what B understands.

But how do you understand the complex issues and considerations that shape projects in factory planning? We want to show 5 ideas that will help you to give your work the recognition you need. For example in project presentations, meetings or workshops.

Idea 1: Use previously unused data

Data is content and is the raw material of our digital age. It is only through the analysis and linking of data that these raw materials become information and a knowledge advantage for yourself, the team and the company. So look for previously unused data or create new relationships between contents. Possible data sources are existing IT systems (ERP, PPS, MES, logistics control center, etc.), work plans or CAD plans. Sometimes the data is also slumbering outside the company, e.g. the building floor plan for the architect.

So unlock that untapped data and make it meaningful content to your work to support your project presentation.

Practical tip: Linking the CAD floor plan and processes (material flow data) creates completely new communication options within your project presentation. You determine the data by tracking transports through a material flow analysis.

This illustrates not only material flow intensities, but also the distances they have to cover. You create a transparent presentation of the material routings and the associated transport effort for your audience. With this key figure, you can find answers to the question of the “right” arrangement of manufacturing, assembly, logistics or storage areas in the factory. This is crucial information to move forward in a planning project. It also creates a fundamental understanding in presentations with your audience or team members. This can be PowerPoint slides or even the presentation directly in a software.

Idea 2: Don’t trust your intuition only

First of all, the concept of intuition is not about higher inspiration or the seventh sense. Rather, it is about a human sense that is commonly referred to as gut feeling. This consists largely of experience, acquired specialist knowledge, creativity and imagination. All helpful characteristics with which you can develop successful solutions to the given planning tasks and which your employer would like you to have.

The gut feeling can also meet you as a challenger. Namely when it is not your own. In a project meeting it quickly becomes clear that intuition is difficult to compare or argue with. And decision-makers in particular usually rely on key figures and proven data in a presentation.

Make yourself aware of this and acquire additional objective information for your planning solution. Integrate it in your PowerPoint presentation or in the planned course or your slides. In the project presentation you can then react safely to any questions and explain in black and white why you have chosen this solution.

Suggestions for objective KPIs

• Space requirement
• Investment costs for new equipment
• Conversion costs
• Logistics effort

So couldn’t you design the presentation completely on the basis of objective key figures?

No, because in industrial engineering in particular (fortunately) not all influencing variables can be fully recorded and described. This would also mean that human mind could be eliminated from decision-making processes.

Practical tip : Variant planning with benefit analysis

Variants arise almost inevitably during the planning process. They arise with authoritative decisions that drive the project in different directions (e.g., manual assembly vs. automation). Variants accomplish two practical things in a presentation:

• they convey to other participants the possible paths to the solution
• they promote the joy of decision-making by narrowing down the solution space in a meaningful way

With a subsequent cost-utility analysis , you put different key figures in relation and thus offer an evaluation for the different variants. In summary, this means for your presentation: Intuition is in the variants and the utility value analysis provides an objective view.

Idea 3: Get ready for decision-making processes

We want to inspire you to study the social and psychological foundations of communication. Make yourself aware that these skills (so-called social skills) are just as important as technical skills for the success of a project presentation.

A study by the management consultancy McKinsey has shown that 70 percent of change initiatives in companies do not achieve their goals, which is largely due to resistance from employees and the lack of support from management (decision-makers).

Link: https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/leadership/changing-change-management

“The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones.” Economist John Maynard Keynes

Changes in production, assembly, logistics or storage areas within the factory are the subject of countless discussions in planning projects. Hardly anyone has no opinion on this. At latest in their own area, the pulse of many participants is rising. Different perspectives and conflicting goals shape the picture. Communication is a key success factor. This applies not only to communication in planning teams, but also to the presentation of solutions to those affected.

So what does good communication look like in a project presentation?

• Make sure everyone involved understands the need for change . If there are no compelling reasons, it is difficult to drive change.
• Make potential visible and then make a joint decision for change. The need for action must be clear to everyone.
• Early participation in discussion and planning reinforces the sense of a common idea. By having a common goal , collaboration succeeds, especially when problems arise.
• How the solution came about is often more important to outsiders than the solution itself. According to the motto: It’s not the destination, it’s the journey .
• Have a clear understanding of your company’s goals and values. This will help you to understand decision makers and align your own communication .

Idea 4: Use early 3D visualization

Especially at the beginning of a project, the effort for a 3D visualization does not seem justified. The classic approach is as follows: At the kick-off meeting for the project, the manager invites one of his investors, his architect, his planner (you) and the production manager. Everybody is motivated and excited about the manager’s idea to expand the factory.

The manager presents the 2D-CAD drawing and tries to explain his thoughts. According to his ideas, the planned extension contains a new production area, a new storage area and a new break room. Unfortunately, the invitees can’t really interpret the CAD plan very well. This is because 2D drawings are highly abstracted compared to reality. In the end, everyone has understood the plan differently and leaves the meeting. In the worst case, people are now working in different directions. A lot of time is wasted and the project is delayed. Followed by frustration and demotivation.

The advantages of 3D visualization can be easily derived from this example. Planning in 3D leads to a significantly higher transparency for all parties involved and thus to a higher planning quality. Cultural, linguistic and technical barriers are irrelevant. The language of the 3D model is universal. Experience shows that if a 3D model is used early on in a project, it is much easier for everyone to develop a common understanding. There are fewer misunderstandings, it saves a lot of time and money and everyone stays motivated.

Certainly one of the easiest ways is to use 3D screenshots from a software in a PowerPoint or Google slide. However, as soon as a question like the following arises: “And what is there behind the cold store?” a static view or slide is no longer sufficient.

Interactive 3D visualization

Even though materialflow plays a very important role for factory planners, its modeling and interpretation is usually reserved for a circle of experts involved in a planning project and not for the entire audience. Use Immersion effects for communication across the board. This refers to the immersion of an observer in a virtual model. For example, a realistic 3D visualization alone can contribute enormously to the understanding of a planning status. Walking through a three-dimensional production hall on a large screen creates acceptance. Virtually walk-through 3D scenes are already expected as a minimum level of immersion.

The 3D visualization should be interactivly. Turning a container or moving a workbench makes the experience of the planning solution even more transparent. In addition, you can react on practical questions spontaneously in the project presentation:

“How do we actually get the new machine into the hall? Will it fit through gate 1 or do we have to enter through the large hall gate at the back? Then we may have to dismantle this and that before the move.”

Quickly lifting the machine by 20 cm and thus manipulating its relocation path with a finger, quickly setting a marker in the layout at critical points – this and similar examples show how interactive 3D visualization can make communication more effective during a project presentation.

Slides are fine and of course needed, but with an interactive 3D presentation, a dull presentation can turn into an interactive workshop with a lively exchange of ideas among participants. Your audience will thank you.

Idea 5: Check your tools – PowerPoint & Excel spreadsheet, the perfect tools for your project presentation? – No.

In most companies, investing in one or more tools is not a one-time decision. In most cases, the purchase evolves historically as the company grows. For example, many companies own multiple tools from different vendors.

General software such as PowerPoint or Excel are nearly ubiquitous. For example, a spreadsheet is ideal for collecting and summarizing data. However, when it comes to converting these spreadsheets into understandable graphics for a project presentation, one quickly reaches the limits. In addition, it becomes clear time and again that there are serious deficits with regard to simple and fast operation.

Modern software can do that better. Take a critical look at your toolbox. Learn how to find the right software for your tasks in this blog article:

Utility analysis for the selection of planning software

But also among the planning specialists there are specializations due to the complexity of the different planning tools. There are specialists in the field of simulation among production system planners, while others are specialists in the CAD field. Hardly any user is able to use all tools in the planning process using the technical possibilities (simulation, CAD, VR, …).

Modern software tools have solved this problem with a user-friendly design. They are easy and intuitive to use without the need for special and usually long and expensive training.

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Princeton Correspondents on Undergraduate Research

How to Make a Successful Research Presentation

Turning a research paper into a visual presentation is difficult; there are pitfalls, and navigating the path to a brief, informative presentation takes time and practice. As a TA for  GEO/WRI 201: Methods in Data Analysis & Scientific Writing this past fall, I saw how this process works from an instructor’s standpoint. I’ve presented my own research before, but helping others present theirs taught me a bit more about the process. Here are some tips I learned that may help you with your next research presentation:

More is more

In general, your presentation will always benefit from more practice, more feedback, and more revision. By practicing in front of friends, you can get comfortable with presenting your work while receiving feedback. It is hard to know how to revise your presentation if you never practice. If you are presenting to a general audience, getting feedback from someone outside of your discipline is crucial. Terms and ideas that seem intuitive to you may be completely foreign to someone else, and your well-crafted presentation could fall flat.

Less is more

Limit the scope of your presentation, the number of slides, and the text on each slide. In my experience, text works well for organizing slides, orienting the audience to key terms, and annotating important figures–not for explaining complex ideas. Having fewer slides is usually better as well. In general, about one slide per minute of presentation is an appropriate budget. Too many slides is usually a sign that your topic is too broad.

Limit the scope of your presentation

Don’t present your paper. Presentations are usually around 10 min long. You will not have time to explain all of the research you did in a semester (or a year!) in such a short span of time. Instead, focus on the highlight(s). Identify a single compelling research question which your work addressed, and craft a succinct but complete narrative around it.

You will not have time to explain all of the research you did. Instead, focus on the highlights. Identify a single compelling research question which your work addressed, and craft a succinct but complete narrative around it.

Craft a compelling research narrative

After identifying the focused research question, walk your audience through your research as if it were a story. Presentations with strong narrative arcs are clear, captivating, and compelling.

• Introduction (exposition — rising action)

Orient the audience and draw them in by demonstrating the relevance and importance of your research story with strong global motive. Provide them with the necessary vocabulary and background knowledge to understand the plot of your story. Introduce the key studies (characters) relevant in your story and build tension and conflict with scholarly and data motive. By the end of your introduction, your audience should clearly understand your research question and be dying to know how you resolve the tension built through motive.

• Methods (rising action)

The methods section should transition smoothly and logically from the introduction. Beware of presenting your methods in a boring, arc-killing, ‘this is what I did.’ Focus on the details that set your story apart from the stories other people have already told. Keep the audience interested by clearly motivating your decisions based on your original research question or the tension built in your introduction.

• Results (climax)

Less is usually more here. Only present results which are clearly related to the focused research question you are presenting. Make sure you explain the results clearly so that your audience understands what your research found. This is the peak of tension in your narrative arc, so don’t undercut it by quickly clicking through to your discussion.

• Discussion (falling action)

By now your audience should be dying for a satisfying resolution. Here is where you contextualize your results and begin resolving the tension between past research. Be thorough. If you have too many conflicts left unresolved, or you don’t have enough time to present all of the resolutions, you probably need to further narrow the scope of your presentation.

• Conclusion (denouement)

Return back to your initial research question and motive, resolving any final conflicts and tying up loose ends. Leave the audience with a clear resolution of your focus research question, and use unresolved tension to set up potential sequels (i.e. further research).

Use your medium to enhance the narrative

Visual presentations should be dominated by clear, intentional graphics. Subtle animation in key moments (usually during the results or discussion) can add drama to the narrative arc and make conflict resolutions more satisfying. You are narrating a story written in images, videos, cartoons, and graphs. While your paper is mostly text, with graphics to highlight crucial points, your slides should be the opposite. Adapting to the new medium may require you to create or acquire far more graphics than you included in your paper, but it is necessary to create an engaging presentation.

The most important thing you can do for your presentation is to practice and revise. Bother your friends, your roommates, TAs–anybody who will sit down and listen to your work. Beyond that, think about presentations you have found compelling and try to incorporate some of those elements into your own. Remember you want your work to be comprehensible; you aren’t creating experts in 10 minutes. Above all, try to stay passionate about what you did and why. You put the time in, so show your audience that it’s worth it.

For more insight into research presentations, check out these past PCUR posts written by Emma and Ellie .

— Alec Getraer, Natural Sciences Correspondent

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Microsoft 365 Life Hacks > Presentations > How to introduce yourself in a presentation

How to introduce yourself in a presentation

A well-executed presentation should captivate your audience and listeners. The first step to gaining their attention is creating an engaging introduction. Learn why presentation introductions are important and how to properly execute one for your presentation.

Why are presentation introductions important?

Presentation delivery impacts your audience’s reception and listening skills. A dull delivery can deter listeners and potentially leave them disinterested. Conversely, an effective delivery can engage your audience, promote active listening, and stimulate substantive discussion.

Presentation introductions also help to establish the outline of your presentation and give the audience an idea of what is to come. Introductions play a crucial role in captivating listeners from the onset and building momentum. They address who you are, why the audience should be invested, state the topic, establish credibility, preview the main points, and establish the cadence and tone of your presentation. Before you dive into the content of your presentation, ensure you establish an effective introduction to captivate your audience.

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How to begin a presentation introduction

To establish rapport with your audience, here are some tips to effectively introduce yourself and your presentation:

Be clear and concise

A succinct introduction makes it easier for your audience to follow. Keep your introduction simple, short, and include only necessary information. State your name and topic clearly so your audience knows you from the beginning. Avoid unnecessary details or lengthy anecdotes in your introduction to keep things focused and to the point.

Provide pertinent background information

In addition to your name and topic, highlight anything else that is relevant. You can include your education, work background, qualifications, and other information. Most importantly, ensure the information you disclose is directly relevant to yourself and presentation.

Create a hook or attention getter

Once you’ve established your name and topic, create an engaging hook or attention getter. Your introduction can be funny, clever, or it can captivate your audience. Have fun creating an introduction, but be sure to align your tone and delivery to your audience.

Outline your presentation

Let your audience know what your will be discussing. Establish a roadmap of your presentation: outline your contents, topics, and main points in an easily digestible format. This makes it easier for your audience to follow your presentation and prepare for its contents.

Practice and refine

Once you’ve created a solid introduction, rehearse your introduction until the delivery is organic and smooth. Confidence is key for an optimal delivery. Speak clearly, practice eye contact, and use storytelling to engage your audience.

Be authentic

Above all, be yourself—authenticity helps you build trust and connection with your audience. Carry you character, speech, and personality into your presentation to draw in your audience.

A successful introduction establishes tone, cadence, topic, and showcases your personality. Gain your audience’s attention and effectively deliver your presentation with an effective introduction. For more ways to engage your audience and improve presentation delivery , learn more presentation tips .

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How to create an effective customer service presentation (+design tips)

Customer service is one of the most crucial elements of any business. You can have the best product or offer the lowest price, but if your customer service is subpar, it will be challenging to develop and thrive in a competitive landscape. On the other hand, excellent customer service can enhance your brand’s reputation, keep current clients happy, and help attract new ones through referrals.

This is where customer service training becomes a key strategy. And what better way to walk your team members through their responsibilities than with a customer service PowerPoint presentation? Let’s now break down the importance of this type of presentation and how it can help set your business up for success.

What’s a customer service training presentation?

Customer service PPT is a means of educating employees on the principles and best practices of effective customer service. It usually includes slides and visuals that explain how to handle difficult situations or client questions through calls, emails, or face-to-face interactions and explain the importance of good customer service.

Benefits of a customer experience presentation

A thorough understanding of client service expectations and guidelines can set your business up for success in various ways, including:

• More qualified customer support agents

The main purpose of customer service presentations is to train staff members who will be providing service to clients. When properly trained, your employees can complete their responsibilities to company standards and deliver exceptional service to your clients.

• Effective service for your clients

If a customer has a problem and needs someone to listen and help resolve it, but your support team lacks customer service training, it can lead to various issues, including losing them as a customer. On the contrary, when clients receive quality service from your employees across all channels, they feel valued and are more likely to come back or recommend your product or service to someone else.

• Improved brand reputation

Reviews from customers, whether on Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, Google, or sites like Sitejabber and Trustpilot, can have both a positive and a negative impact on your business. That’s why putting your customers first and providing excellent service to them can help build a strong reputation and establish your company as an industry leader.

What to put in your presentation on customer service

According to top experts at our PowerPoint design company , your slides have to touch upon the following topics:

• Conflict resolution best practices
• Product/service knowledge
• Communication styles
• Most common customer issues
• Reasons for customer complaints
• Understanding who has authority for specific tasks
• Approaches to building relationships with clients
• Ways to measure success

Here are some key components of a well-crafted PPT presentation on customer service:

• Introduction: An explanation of why customer service is important and how it affects the business.
• Company values & mission: How customer service connects with what the company believes in and aims to achieve.
• Customer service standards: Guidelines on how employees should act when interacting with customers.
• Communication skills: Tips and techniques for effective verbal and non-verbal communication.
• Customer experience: Ways to improve customer service quality and go beyond what they expect.
• Problem-solving: Top methods for resolving clients’ issues and dealing with common complaints.
• Role-playing scenarios: Examples and role-playing activities to help employees practice and get better at customer service.
• Performance metrics: Ways to measure customer service performance and why reacting to feedback is essential.
• Q&A session: An opportunity for employees to ask questions and discuss their concerns or uncertainties.

Now that you know the fundamentals, let’s move on to the top tips for creating an effective PowerPoint customer service presentation.

Expert tips to make your client service presentation more engaging

Creating an engaging presentation on customer services is not easy. If you want your employees to be interested and willing to do what you ask them to, you have to prepare your presentation very carefully and learn how to deliver it in the best way possible. The tips below will help you create slides that catch and hold your employees’ interest so they can engage with the material more effectively and retain the key information faster.

1. Start with a strong opening

This can be anything from a relevant story, statistic, question, or captivating anecdote. Remember, your goal is to hook the audience right from the start.

2. Keep your presentation simple and clear

Organize your thoughts logically, with an introduction, key points, and a solid conclusion. Avoid cluttered slides and complex jargon. Each slide should convey one main idea.

3. Select a consistent color palette and design structure

These should complement your message and branding, not compete with it. Ensure readability by harmonizing colors and employing suitable design elements to emphasize important content.

4. Keep your content concise

You can utilize bullet points, bold text, short phrases, or keywords to convey your message. However, avoid long paragraphs or any unnecessary data on slides.

5. Use visuals

Where appropriate, incorporate engaging images and informative charts to visually represent data and concepts. Remember, visual aids can make complex information more digestible and your presentation more interesting.

6. Include real-life examples

These can be case studies, customer stories, or any other examples your employees can relate to. This way, you’ll make your presentation easier to understand.

7. Engage your audience

Incorporate interactive elements like polls into your presentation. This way, you’ll encourage participation and keep your employees engaged.

8. End with a strong conclusion

Summarize the main points and give the audience a clear call to action. You can also add a memorable closing statement or a quote to reinforce your message.

9. Prepare handouts or resources

Provide handouts, cheat sheets, or additional resources for your employees to take away. This will offer reference material and help them further retain the information presented.

10. Polish your presentation

As the presentation day approaches, give your slides a final look. Review your talking points and make any final tweaks.

• Choose a sans-serif font, such as Helvetica or Arial. Fonts like Palatino and Times New Roman can be harder to read at times.
• Never use a font size of less than 24 points.
• All your headlines should have the same font.
• Use bold and different sizes of fonts for subheadings and captions.
• Every screen should have a clear label. For the title, choose a larger font (35–45 points) or a different color.
• Don’t use more than four fonts in your presentation.
• Choose larger fonts to indicate importance.
• Use different sizes, colors, and styles (e.g., bold) for impact.
• Don’t use too many punctuation marks.
• Avoid italicized fonts and long sentences.
• Refrain from using all caps (except for titles).
• Add a maximum of 6-8 words per line.
• Use the 6 x 6 Rule: one thought or 6 words per line and 6 lines per slide max.
• Either use light text on a dark background or dark text on a light background. However, light backgrounds are preferable.
• Put page numbers and other repeating elements in the same location on each slide.
• Don’t put too many colors on one screen.
• Use no more than four different colors on a single chart.
• Check colors on a projection screen before the presentation, as they can project differently than on your monitor.

Design and graphical elements

• Before designing your presentation, look for customer service presentation ideas online.
• Standardize styles, positions, and colors.
• Keep the details to a minimum and only include essential information.
• Use colors that complement and contrast.
• Keep the presentation background consistent.
• Use a single style for bullets throughout the slide.
• Use one or two large images instead of lots of small ones.
• Make all images the same size when appropriate.
• Arrange images horizontally or vertically.
• Use the same border for all slides.
• Keep the design uncluttered. Leave empty space around graphical images and text.
• Use quality clipart that relates to the slide’s topic.
• Use graphical images of the same style throughout the presentation.
• Use image repetition to reinforce the message.

Remember, a great customer service presentation comprises relevant information, product knowledge, and company-specific employee guidelines, so plan carefully.

If you require professional assistance with your customer service slides, the certified design experts at SlidePeak are here to help. Our dedicated team can tailor a fully editable customer service PowerPoint template for your company and employees so you can easily customize and update it as needed. Google Slides design experts are also available!

All initial consultations are free of charge and confidential, with no obligation to continue. Call now or fill out our online form, and we’ll get back to you in under 15 minutes!

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• Presenting techniques
• 50 tips on how to improve PowerPoint presentations in 2022-2023 [Updated]
• Present financial information visually in PowerPoint to drive results
• Keynote VS PowerPoint
• Types of presentations

• Guide & How to's

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