Nail your narrative

Narrative first, visuals subsequent

The 16:9 slide format forces you to slice your narrative by
visuals. While you don’t know what that narrative is, you’ll usually
second-guess your self on each slide. Add to that confusion the
distractions of font dimension, color, creating diagrams, discovering photos,
and deciding transitions and builds. The shape precedes the operate.
That is why going to slides and not using a narrative creates a large
cognitive problem for many presenters. That is additionally why we attain
for shortcuts equivalent to canned slides, so we are able to not less than make progress
with this demanding problem.

I counsel nailing down your narrative earlier than turning your
consideration to slides, which function supporting visuals. There are
some ways to construct a story, both by yourself or with a
co-presenter. However step 0 is to explain your key thought and your
viewers.

What are you saying and to whom?

When developing my narrative, I discover it helpful to start by
figuring out what Nancy Duarte calls the “Massive Concept”. Think about it a
approach to describe the “so-what” of our narrative in a sentence. You may
get to the massive thought by describing its two constituent elements.

1. What’s your standpoint? This may very well be a
   contrarian tackle a well-liked perception, a brand new perspective a couple of
   subject, a novel thought, a observe you need individuals to undertake, or
   one thing else.
2. What’s at stake? Why ought to anybody care about your
   standpoint? What in the event that they don’t?

When you’ve thought by way of these two elements, mix them right into a
single sentence that isn’t a mouthful and rolls off your tongue with
ease.

Right here’s an instance of the massive thought behind this video about
the case in opposition to brainstorming.

Alongside the massive thought, establish your viewers. I counsel a
persona-building train to information your considering.

• Step 1: Give them a reputation. E.g Parul, the mission
  lead.
• Step 2: Personify them with a photograph or a stick determine.
  Having this kind of personified viewers permits you to empathise
  with them as you construct the narrative you’ll pitch. E.g.,
  how will Parul really feel after I problem her assumptions about
  brainstorming?
• Step 3: Describe the persona. You may add as many
  particulars as are related to your narrative; e.g. function, prior
  expertise and data, targets, and pursuits.
• Step 4: Say why they’d care. Take into consideration why they’d
  wish to take note of your presentation. What drawback would possibly you
  deal with for them? How will the concepts in your presentation make
  their world higher?
• Step 5: What do you reckon they’ll take away out of your
  presentation? I counsel capping takeaways at three, so that you don’t
  overload your narrative.

Typically, these persona particulars are evident and intuitive. You
is likely to be presenting to your teammates. In that case, you would possibly velocity
by way of the persona-building step in minutes and tweak it just a little
after every iteration. In different conditions, you might have to ask round
to study your viewers. For instance, you might be presenting to
a brand new shopper. In such conditions, investing time to study your
potential viewers will assist you to sharpen your eventual
storyline.

Right here’s an instance of a persona for a similar video I linked earlier
within the piece.

Building the storyline

Are you ready to go to slides yet? Nope. Once you’ve identified
your big idea and the top three takeaways, I suggest fleshing out
your narrative to serve them. Narrative building is a subjective
craft, so choose a story structure that fits your content. Here are
six story structures I’ve used with success.

With unpredictable audiences, I’ve tried a seventh, more flexible
structure in which one presentation holds multiple smaller
storylines. In such presentations, I show my audience a list of
potential topics to dive into. Each topic could have a different,
independent story structure. Such talks give the audience a sense of
control, but also demand a lot from you as a speaker. Neal Ford calls
this pattern, “Á la Carte Content,” and
it works well when you have more content than the time allows.

Figure 1: A flexible narrative
structure. When reporting on an internal research survey, I let my
audience choose the question they wanted me to answer using the
research data.

If you’ve never built a storyline before, I understand it can be
daunting. I suggest four approaches to building your storyline.

Diagram-centric narratives

Of late, I’ve found myself creating presentations that start as
a boxes-and-arrows style diagram in my notebook, or even on a
slide. In these situations, the diagram becomes the spine around
which I construct the rest of my narrative.

For example, when I was starting my most recent role, I doodled
the diagram you see below, on a piece of paper. It was my way of
thinking about how I intended to play my role as head of culture
at Thoughtworks. After a few more hours of scribbling and making
notes, I reproduced the diagram on a slide. I built my final slide
deck using a combination of animations and nested slides.
I’ll expand on this example further down in the article.

Figure 2: A core diagram can
start as an excellent spine for your narrative.

Create a storyboard to make your plan concrete

Almost there. One more step. Your narrative is a clarifying
artefact for what you want to say. You now need some clarity on what
you want to show. This is where a storyboard comes in handy.

The simplest storyboard describes each slide you create in as
simple a way as you can get away with. If you’re already using a
physical or virtual whiteboard, sticky notes or index cards can help
you build that storyboard — one sticky note to describe each slide.
The Mural template I shared also has a panel to organise your
storyboard. As I’ve explained
earlier, don’t worry about the number of sticky notes. The slide
count doesn’t matter when you control the pace of your
presentation.

Figure 3: A storyboard with sticky
notes. (generated using AI)

You can also use documents to create your storyboard, though they
aren’t as flexible as sticky notes. The Google Docs template pack
also has a storyboarding template you can use.