Overview

Delivering a successful presentation relies heavily on successful preparation.

Take a moment to review the following key considerations when preparing a presentation:

Purpose
Research
Resources

Purpose

When beginning to organize your presentation, one of the first things to consider is its purpose.

Is your presentation intended to inform? Persuade? Educate? Entertain? Why have you decided to present this specific topic? Being clear about the purpose of your presentation will affect the structure, format, and style of your presentation, which is why it is important to consider purpose in the early stages of its development.

Research

Research is a significant component of developing a presentation.

As a presenter, it is important that you have a clear understanding of the topic you are presenting, the audience you are presenting to, and audience expectations and needs. Research is also a critical part of developing a presentation because it will ensure that you are knowledgeable about the topic. This will establish credibility and show your audience that you have taken the time and effort to truly understand and engage with your topic.

Resources

What tools, information, individuals, and aids are available to you that will strengthen your presentation? Are there papers, books, articles, or topic experts that you could leverage to increase the information provided in your presentation and support its credibility?

It can be useful to think about how you can incorporate resources into your presentation to strengthen the overall message.

Industry Insight

"BLUF - Bottom Line Up Front. [...] When delivering a presentation or a report, think like a newspaper headline writer. What's your why? Why does this presentation exist? Why should anyone care?"

Jeff Burrow, Special Projects Officer
Bachelor of Business Administration, Wilfrid Laurier University
Master of Education, Queen's University
PhD, Higher Education, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto  

Activity: Purpose, Research, Resources

Think about Celia and her project establishing a new patient booking system with the IMAGINE Clinic, which we discussed in the PD3 Design Thinking module.

Celia is now preparing a presentation about her project. How might she develop and begin organizing tasks (similar to what you would do when developing your SI Challenge proposal)? Think about this in context of preparing a presentation on the topic.

Which of the following statements would be considered Celia's purpose, research, and resources?

Instructions:

At the top of the image below, there is a stack of grey "cards" with text. Drag each card to one of the three places below: purpose, research, or resources.
Click the blue "Check" button to check your answers.

OPTIONAL Video: Essential Group Presentation Tips

"Group presentations for class are fantastic to practice working with others, completing a task as a team... skills and experience that will come in very handy in the real world, when you have to do something as a group in real work situations" (Kwan, 2016, para. 2).

As Carl Kwan explains in his video Essential Group Presentation Tips:

Ensure everyone is working toward the same goal. As a team, clarify what you're working towards and why you're doing it.
Make sure every part of the presentation fits together. Map out the full presentation before dividing up the pieces to individual group members.

Video player icon with the words "embed video here".

This external video has auto-generated captions, which may contain errors. Download the transcript (PDF | DOC).

Reflection

Take a moment to reflect on your own SI Challenge.

What is the purpose behind the problem you have chosen to solve? What research have you done so far to back up why your solution is viable and will address this problem? What resources would you require to further strengthen the solution you have identified?

These are all important questions to ask yourself in the early stages of developing a presentation to ensure you have a good starting foundation.

References

Kwan, C. [Carl Kwan]. (2016, November 22). Essential group presentation tips [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmoqxn27GAM