One of the things that I enjoyed very much since college is creating presentations. The aspect of conveying an effective narrative through a presentation is my muse. I use a lot of motion and transition which adds the awe factor to any story that I am planning to convey, be it a case study or research outcomes. You can find a gallery of some of such animated slides at the very end of this page.
I had given a learning and development session on How to create a kickass presentation at Razorpay The following are the notes that I have scribbled down for the session.
✹ How to build an effective Narrative for a kickass Presentation?
✹ Attributes of an effective Narrative
✹ How to make it Kickass?
The first big question that you have to ask yourself before creating any presentation is
Because a presentation is a powerful tool to create a narrative and put a hook to teach, sell, or to communicate literally anything. So if your objective of the presentation is not any of these or in other words if you do not feel the need for you to handhold/impress your audience through the content you are trying to offer, then the presentation may not be what you are looking for.
A Presentation is as effective as the narration it carries. If you can recognize this graph, it is a basic structure followed in playwriting. This is called the Drama structure.
Let's see them one by one in the context of a Product Pitch.
Unpack
Here is where you introduce the plot, which is your base for the presentation. In some cases a very small introduction of your Protagonist
● What's all this drama for
● Quickly but firmly - This establishes the mapping of the presentation throughout.
The topics that can be covered in this phase.
☉ A brief intro of yourself or the topic itself
☉ Create a rough map of what you have to offer further
☉ List out the contents/agenda
The Purpose
Here you can elaborate about an event ( or a series of events), that led to the need for this product or topic that you are going to present on.
The topics that can be covered in this phase.
☉ A design brief or a Problem statement
☉ Offer something for the audience to quickly relate to.
☉ Use initial inferences of data or an event that led to this topic.
The Build-up
This is where the actual presentation starts, where you start to explain the initial actions taken to understand the problem.
The topics that can be covered in this phase.
☉ Initial research/study to understand the problem
☉ Data that supports the trigger points, basically problem statements
☉ User interviews / Testimonials which let the audience empathize with.
The Main sequence
This is the main sequence of actions and decisions that's going to strongly influence what's coming next. Basically in a product pitch here is where you will present your seed for your solutions.