Figure5.1 shows a network plan with the required work steps ordered by their time-sequence. This plan recommends seven preparative steps, which need quite a dif- ferent amount of time before in the eighth step the presentation is performed. These tasks do not run strictly one after the other. Please refer to the Gantt diagram, Fig.5.2. All tasks and recommendations for your time planning refer to the essential presentation, which needs to be as perfect and successful as possible, like presenting your master thesis or applying for a job or project continuation.
Naturally speaking, “normal”lectures created in day-to-day business can be created with more freedom and less time consumption as your routine grows. The proposed time frame assumes that you have available two workweeks with two weekends. That means the preparation of your lecture takes place partly in the spare time during the week and partly during the weekends.
The weekends are mainly needed for step 3“the creative phase: gain distance! develop a structure”and for step 6“trial presentation, changes”. Especially for step 3 you will need some calm and lonesomeness to unfold your creativity, which is not provided at most workplaces. The Gantt diagram (Fig.5.2) and Table5.3show recommendations for the required time you should take into consideration.
The tasks described above (Steps 1–8) are explained in detail in the next sections.
5.3.2 Step 1: Defining the Presentation Framework and Target
Planning your presentation consists of step 1“define presentation framework and target” and step 2 “material collection”. With step 1 you build a solid foundation for your presentation by defining all important presentation conditions, the target group and the information targets of your lecture before executing the next work steps. This helps to prevent a failure and to save time. You should ask for the following presentation con- ditions and targets, discuss them in your team or define them for yourself:
1 frame- work,
target?
2 select material, images,
3 the
creative phase
4 summa- rize text, work out details
5 visuali- zations, manu- script
6 trial presen- tation, changes
7 last update, prepa- ration
8 lecture, presen- tation texts
Fig. 5.1 Network plan to create and present a lecture
Time consumpƟon
Worksteps 1st week 2nd week 1 – 2 days
1 define presentaƟon framework and target
2 collect/select or create material, images and texts
3 The creaƟve phase: gain distance, develop a structure
4 summarize the text, work out the details
5 create (more) visualizaƟons, write the manuscript 6 trial presentaƟon,
include changes
7 last update of the lecture, preparaƟons in the room 8 hold lecture or
presentaƟon
Fig. 5.2 Gantt diagram to create and present a lecture
Presentation framework (presentation conditions, target group, information target)
– What do I talk about? (topic)
– What shall be the title of my lecture?
– What kind of lecture will I present? (presentation type) – Who will listen to me? (audience, target group) – What is the occasion to present my lecture?
– What do I want to achieve with my lecture? (presentation targets) – Why do I want to achieve that? (purpose)
– Where do I present my lecture? (surroundings, room)
Clarify these questions in detail (if possible in written form). Then you will feel a little safer, and the lecture cannot be a complete failure any more. In the following, we want to look at these questions a little closer.
What do I talk about? (topic)
Very easy—about your Technical Report!
However, the title of your lecture may differ from the title of your Technical Report, e.g. if the latter is too long (occurs often) or if it sounds too complicated for the title of a lecture or if a better title came to your mind.
In professional life you will hold lectures about various, important topics. Then the topic and contents should be agreed upon as exactly as possible with your customer, or boss or chairperson of a conference or organizing staff of a fair. This includes a (written) definition of
– title, subtitle
– audience (knowledge level, interests, expectations) – exact timeframe without/with discussion
Table 5.3 Time consumption to create and present a lecture
Steps in the network plan Time consumption
Step 1 Define presentation framework and target 1 day Step 2 Collect/select or create material, images and texts 3–5 days Step 3 The creative phase: gain distance! Develop a structure 2–3 days Step 4 Summarize the text, work out the details 2–3 days Step 5 Create (more) visualizations, write the manuscript 3–4 days Step 6 Trial presentation, include changes 1–2 days Step 7 Last update of the lecture, preparations in the room 1–2 h
Step 8 Hold lecture or presentation 20–60 min
– topic and presenter of the previous and next lecture
– presentation type, room size, equipment (desks/chairs/boards), devices (projectors/flipchart).
For your career, it is very important to arrange things with – your boss
– your supervisor, professor or customer or the organizing staff of a congress, conference or fair
– your own sales and marketing team leader!
Why should you speak with the sales team leader and the marketing team in any case?
Presentation framework in the automotive industry
Your company, a well-known car manufacturer, has developed a super-fast sport coupéand wants to introduce this marvel with an expensive PR show at the next fair. 14 days before the fair you (being a young, enthusiastic development engi- neer) present the most important motor and chassis details on a conference.
Among the experts in the audience is a representative of the press who launches your insider knowledge big on the next day. Which consequences would that have for your company, for you and your job?
Now let us go back to the presentation framework, that needs to be clarified.
What kind of lecture will I present? (presentation type)
Is a pure technical presentation or a special persuasive presentation more appropriate?
Does the audience expect pure technical facts of your report or do they want to get insights they did not have before? Do they want an overview or details? How do you mix facts, influencing and emotion best, maybe even with a pinch of humor? This depends on your own direction and information target, but also on the audience and the occasion to present your lecture. Therefore, you should also clarify the following four questions.
Who will listen to me? (audience, target group)
Are they your professors or supervisors? Are they engineers, bankers or journalists, are they experts or unknown visitors, are they your boss and other executives or are they colleagues from sister departments? You should best prepare your lecture depending on these people or—if you do not have better prior information—for a colorful mixture of people. It will be explained how to do that with respect to the aspects “amount of information”and“knowledge level”(see Tables5.4and 5.5as well as Fig.5.5).
What is the occasion to present my lecture?
Will you present your master thesis or your dissertation? Is it a pure report for colleagues or a presentation for customers? Do you want to persuade investors (banks, scientific funding boards, federal ministries) or a working committee for standardization or judges in a trial? You will have to adopt your lecture to these occasions more or less, if it shall be successful—and that is why you present it!
What do I want to achieve with my lecture? (presentation targets)
This question deals with your presentation target(s). This means, whether and in which mixture you want to achieve the following effects:
– Transfer of technical and scientific knowledge (to make your audience cleverer), or – creating a positive impression (of your technological or scientific approach, of you or
your company), or
– creating emotions in your audience (in a desired direction).
Naturally speaking, you do not follow these information targets too obviously, but smart and carefully—Your audience should not realize your tactic, at least not con- sciously. As long as your approach does not exceed to crude manipulation, no one will complain about a decent rhetorical tactic.
Why do I want to achieve that? (purpose)
Here you have to define the purpose of your presentation.
Purpose of the presentation
Is everything allowed that advances the purpose???
Let us be careful and say: Sometimes yes!
An example:
The future funding of your whole project group depends on your lecture. It is a“To be or not to be”-affair for the jobs of your colleagues and maybe for your job as well—isn’t that worth to invest a lot of effort?
Such purposes in mind, you will probably be willing to pull out all legal stops to be successful, won’t you?
This includes deciding how much you want to convince, influence or amuse. These elements of a good lecture must be mixed well and used with care. That requires a good preparation, because mixing these targets ad hoc does only work for a few routiniers.
Preparation means to think about, define and test things.
Where do I present my lecture? (surroundings, room)
Print out a description how to reach the presentation room and clarify room capacity, desk layout, needed media (board,flipchart, overhead projector, computer and beamer, mod- eration kit, felt pens) as well as eventually catering for the audience and book the room, if necessary.
To explain the step 1“define presentation framework and target”and the consecutive steps 2–8 more concrete, an example shall accompany us from now on, as far as it is possible to describe it within the framework of this book.
Note: The student’s research project, the following example presentation is derived from, is listed in the list of references. The conference and the lecture did never take part. The“Institute for Welding Technology”does not exist at Hannover University. The workflow is just invented to describe the basic approach to you. The example presentation will be in italic letters from now on.
The title of the Technical Report in our example is:
Title of the Technical Report
Improving health and safety at work when welding by using burner-integrated suction nozzles– Effectivity and quality assurance
Student research project at Hannover University
The Technical Report that describes the student research project consists of 135 pages and shall be presented in 20 min. How can this be done?
The author courageously starts and clarifies in step 1:
– Topic: The student research project named above shall be presented as a paper on a conference about welding technology.
– Title:“Burner-integrated suction when welding”
– This title is clearer, shorter and better memorable than the title of the report, thus more attractive and still correct.
– Audience: Head of the institute (professor), supervisor, fellow-students, a person working in industry, a journalist, other participants with unknown technical background.
This audience has various knowledge levels, interests and expectations, which must be taken into consideration skillfully. Nobody should be overstrained or bored!
– Timeframe: 20 min lecture with additional discussion.
– Previous lecture:“Health and safety in crafts”(Person from the employers’liability insurance association)
– Next lecture: “Automated flame cutting” (Person from the company Messer-Griesheim)
To avoid interferences and contradictions, it is necessary to contact these presenters and to harmonize the contents of the three lectures!
– Presentation type: Technical presentation – Room: Lecture room 32, 30 seats, desks
– Media: Overhead projector and beamer available
– Agreement with professor and supervisor: Planning discussion: Rough selection of the contents, strategy to meet the persons from industry and the journalists
Building up on this presentation framework the speaker designs her plan of action. She especially thinks about the mixture of technical information, convincing and influencing taking into consideration the following criteria:
– Target group: “The audience described above is very heterogeneous. This requires creating a balance between experts (professor, supervisor) and the other listeners.” This balance can be created with a smart selection of the contents (see Sect.5.3.4).
– Occasion: Seminar or conference “Current state of welding technology”, Obligatory for students, public event. Backgrounds are also to gain funding from industry for the institute and to improve the image of the institute.
– Targets: The lecture shall mainly serve to instruct the audience about thefindings of the project (70%), but it shall also show the competence of the institute (20%) and introduce ease/humor into the uninspiring contents (10%).
– Purpose: Main purpose: Good grade!
Desired side effects:
– Awake interest in industry and crafts.
– Get a good echo in scientific journals.
– Bring knowledge and motivation to the students.
Step 1 is now completed. Let us continue with step 2 “Material collection”.
5.3.3 Step 2: Material Collection
To work on step 2 two situations must be distinguished:
– Case 1: The material (the contents) of the planned presentation already exists, e.g. in the Technical Report.
– Case 2: The material must be collected, found, created.
In Case 1 we have the complete report available. Then it is the task to select the information suited for the presentation from the rest of the information contained in the report. Suited means the information is essential, meaningful and representative. Thus, in Case 1 the material collection mainly consists of the selection of contents. Please refer to Sect.5.3.4for more details.
In Case 2 we do not have a ready report. This is more difficult. The material must be collected or found, e.g. in textbooks and binders in your office, in archives, libraries, or the internet. This may take about 3–5 days. If this time is not sufficient, you are not enough an expert and cannot present this topic convincingly. Someone else should hold the lecture.
If you have found and printed or copied enough material, you should sort out the less important material (texts and images) and put it aside as a reserve.
The other material should be sorted by:
– literature sources (consecutively numbered), – topics
– and/or author(s).
To do this systematically you should create afile/an index.
This completes the routine work for your presentation.