Effective Presentation Design & Delivery

You need to hook your audience within the first few minutes of your presentation. If people are sitting in the back of the room, coax them to move up front.

Avoid starting your presentation with a generic introduction. Grab your audience's attention with a story or question that is personal/unexpected/challenging/funny.

Part of ending a presentation well is pacing yourself. You don't want to be racing against the clock, trying to squeeze in information until the very last minute. It's crucial that you take some time to wrap up your presentation, reiterate your misson statement and goals, and set your audience up for future action.

As long as you are always supporting your original mission statement and accomplishing your goals, your presentation can follow any structure.

A very common and effective structure to follow is a three-act structure that offers a beginning, middle, and end:

Act I: Set the stage.

Act II: Develop the plot and introduce a problem.

Act III: Provide a resolution to the problem.

When applied to a presentation, your three-act structure will look like this:

Act I: Connect with your audience and establish your presentation's mission.

Act II: Implement goals you have planned for your audience and introduce problems and challenges.

Act III: Offer your audience a resolution and a path for them to take future action to accomplish your mission.