How To Engage Effectively With Your Audience

It’s normal to get so caught up in the design of a PowerPoint presentation that you might forget about the delivery. The presentation might have gone smoothly, but have you really done the best you can in your delivery?

It's normal to get so caught up in the design of a PowerPoint presentation that you might forget about the delivery. You will spend time writing and editing your text, so that each point fits exactly on to a slide; images will be sourced, checked for copyright and may be edited using the array of picture tools in PowerPoint 2007; and your fonts and type sizes are all uniform and consistent as you have carefully selected a Theme to match your presentation from the Design tab.

The final checks include practising your delivery, timing your presentation to the nearest minute and checking off your requirements for hardware and software. The presentation might have gone smoothly, but have you really done the best you can in your delivery?

After you have delivered your PowerPoint presentation, it is important to evaluate how it was received - especially if you intend to deliver it again. However, even if it was a one-off, reflecting on a presentation will help you to develop and improve your presentational skills, and to establish what works in different situations.

Try to get feedback directly from your audience. A good way of doing this is to hand out an evaluation form after you have delivered your presentation. As well as getting audience feedback, there are a few questions you can ask yourself that will give an idea about the effectiveness of your presentation:

Did you cover all of the points that you wanted to? If not, try to think about what prevented you from covering these points, and consider how you can include them next time. This could be anything from highlighting the points more prominently on a slide, to having a checklist in your presentation notes that you can easily refer to.

How did your timings work out? Did you overrun or finish your presentation sooner than you expected? Unless timings are crucial, a few minutes over or under is OK. If you're excessively out you should review why this was: were you asked to explain things in a lot more detail than you included in the presentation? Did you leave too much time for questions?

Review what elements of the presentation caused you to overrun. Think about what you can do to avoid this next time. For example, include more detail on the areas that you were questioned on and counter this by cutting down some sections that could easily be condensed. If you finished early, it is not always necessary to introduce more material. It could simply be a case of giving more accurate timings to your audience.

If you included interactive elements, for example, or if you prompted questions to the audience, did these get the response that you wanted? If not, you might have to look at making your questions more specific or give your audience more background information.

Did the audience respond to your slides? Remember, they are designed to support your message, not become the presentation. If your audience spent more time looking at the visuals than listening to you, then you will have to rethink how you use these slides. Additionally, if it seemed as if people were straining to read slides, you will need to adjust the colours and the size of text.

Did you engage the audience - did people look interested, ask questions, nod as you spoke, etc? Or did they appear bored, look out of the window or even chat amongst themselves? Did you feel yourself losing the audience at particular parts of the presentation or was it throughout? Examine each stage and each slide of your presentation and consider what you can do to make these more engaging. For example, include a question directed at the audience.

Did your audience ask questions? If they didn't ask any, don't assume this is because you covered everything. You may not have held their attention enough sufficiently for them to feel inspired to ask any questions. If they asked questions regarding points you felt you had covered during your presentation then it is possible that you weren't clear enough.

It is always a good idea to check if your voice is clear enough for the audience to hear you. Ask someone to let you know about your tone, pitch and speed. If, for example, they felt you spoke too fast, next time you give a presentation stop and take a breath at regular intervals, and try to moderate your pace as you deliver your words.