Tips on creating a presentation

Here is what I did:

1. Create the presentation.
2. Give the presentation to a small group of co workers, requesting feedback. Make sure they give plenty of negative comments.
3. Overhaul your presentation. You should have a LOT of fixes to make.
4. *Important* Walk through your presentation again with each person who gave you feedback. This allows them to see you really care about doing a good job. Thank them. Make sure you didn't miss anything. This is also important because they will give you feedback they were afraid to give in front of a group.
5. Redo your presentation again. Then focus on improving the quality of slides visually.
6. Give your presentation to a group of friends, put in as many jokes as possible! Find out which ones they laugh at and which they don't care for. Ask them to help come up with jokes you can say during the presentation. My roommates gave me some great areas where I could include humor.
7. Practice a ton, in front of family, friends, mirrors, dogs. MAKE SURE you speak out loud! Don't say stuff in your head. Say it out loud.
8. If you're giving the presentation more than once, refine the presentation after each and every time in order to try new things and get rid of things that didn't work too well.
   

Any other tips? Share!

More is More in the company culture.

Distilling ideas down to their essence is the concept of getting to the point. Explaining what things truly are and getting rid of all the other irrelevant details. I was inspired by the Heath brother's book, Made to Stick: Why some ideas survive and others die. I also talk about it in my Business Analyst 2.0 presentation.

The CEO of the company asked me, "How do you teach people to get down to the essence? It seems like a skill that is incredibly hard to teach."

My answer?

1. Knowledge: Knowing that it's important is the first step to improving.
   
2. Change the culture: The number 1 problem with distilling down to the essence is that it's not rewarded, and we grew up in a world telling us otherwise. Just think, starting from grade school, we worked on 5 paragraph essays. Then we graduated, and "moved up" to 5 page papers, then 10 and 20, and finally, in college, we wrote 100 page papers. The feeling of more is more and the longer the better is ingrained in our society.
   
   Corporation's pick up on the same thing. Longer papers are rewarded. "Cover stories" and "Centerpieces" need to be longer than 'regular' articles, but no one seems to care about the quality of writing! The pressure to deliver a 100 page document to managers is palpable, because if anything goes wrong you can always say, "Look at all the work I put into this! Its 100 pages! The analysis can't be wrong, it was something unavoidable." If we really want to have shorter and better written deliverables, we need to stop rewarding long and drawn out ones, and start rewarding consise ones.
3. Make them prioritize: Give people a size limit. I want my document or requirements to be 10 pages max (which could be a very dangerous thing to do). Say, if you could narrow down this paragraph into one sentance, how would you do it? People practice their elevator pitch, why don't people practice doing it all the time?
4. Use templates for email. When I write business email, if I require someone to do something, I add the prefix 'Action Required:' to the subject, i.e "Action Required: Sign off on requirements by Tuesday, 6/1". Then in the body I give one sentance on what they are supposed to do. Then one more sentance summerizing the body of the email. Then I have the full body of the email below, for those that want to read it (most people don't)

Do any of you have good ideas on how to teach distilling ideas down to its essence?

Business Analyst 2.0 Presentation at my company

I gave the Business Analyst 2.0 presentation to my company. Surprisingly, around 30% of the people in the company showed up! That is an incredibly high number considering many many folks are offsite. I think I did pretty well, around a 7 out of 10. It got people laughing, some people were very enthusiastic and ran up to greet me after I was done. Notably, the CEO and the managing director of HR was there to see me.

20 something take away:

1. Set up everything your self - I got the projector 1 hour before my presentation. I set it up 20 minutes before the presentation started. I got the screen to be completely filled up. BIG screens are best. You really want to have the biggest picture possible. I also positioned my speaking table where I wanted it to be. No one cares about your presentation as much as you do. It's up to you to set it up correctly.
2. Prepare the people - I scheduled it during lunch time, something that should be avoided if possible. When people are hungry or busy eating, they think with their reptilian brain (about survival) and don't focus on YOU. Unfortunately, this was the only time available.
   
   How did I prep the room and the people? First, I knew people would be eating. Put napkins next to each seat so people with dirty hands won't be thinking about cleaning up, they will use the napkin and then focus on you. Second, I read up on some interesting facts about food. Luckily, I read a NYT Op-Ed about how in 20 years there will be no bananas anymore. This stimulated conversation and made people think, "Wow, this person is really interesting" before I even started talking. Another trick I use is to pass out a joke on a sheet of paper. People read it while waiting for others to get settled, and it puts them in a good mood when you start.
   

28 Skills of a Business Analyst

I watched the president of the local chapter of the IIBA (International Institute of Business Analysis) give a talk on "28 skills of a Business Analyst." The hour long presentation wasn't horrible, but it was not very good either. He spent 45 minutes on the intro -- and then spent the last 15 on the actual material. The worst part was that he put ALL 28 skills on ONE slide! The font was tiny and no one in the audiance could read anyting. What realy struck me was how much experience this guy had. He has over 15 years of experience, and put in 6 "Centers of Excellence" among a whole slew of impressive resume stuff, and he was STILL so bad.

About the talk: The IIBA interviewed dozens of companies to ask what they look for in business analysts. They said lots of stuff (which was then pared down to 28). It fell into 5 broad categories, which I forgot -- yes, the presentation was that bad.

Key problems with the methodology: People don't say what they mean. Or, more likely, they don't know what they really want! Asking, "What do you look for in a BA?" inevitably leads to answers like "They need to be able to draw UML diagrams". This is because people think in concrete terms like "Able to Write System Requirements" instead of the more abstract (but far more accurate) "Needs to be able to solve my problems without me getting too involved."
20 Something Takeaway:

1. Never put 28 bullets on one slide.
2. The only thing I could think as I left the presentation was "Wow, I could have given the same presentation, if not a WAY better one! Experience does NOT equal quality.
   
3. Trade Organizations with Fancy Names (like the IIBA) give a huge boost to credibility, but are really just a loose collection of average/regular people.

Next Steps:

1. I know I can give a better presentation than the chapter president (or at very worst, a presentation of the same quality). I need to come up with a topic and then sell the IIBA on me presenting at the next meeting.