Part 4 · 1 chapters · ~8 min

Presenting

Planning a talk around what the audience should do afterwards, the first minute, slide titles as messages, one idea per slide, charts that make one point, live demos and their risks, rehearsal, speaking to executives versus engineers, handling questions and disagreement, and conference talks (CFPs, abstracts).

6

A ten-minute decision talk

code
slide 1  "Payout failures cost us ₦4.1M a month: we can cut 60% with one platform"       (problem + answer)
slide 2  "70% of failures come from three rails integrated three different ways"         (diagnosis, one chart)
slide 3  "Three options; only B fixes the cause"                                          (options table)
slide 4  "Two engineers, one quarter, rail 2 first"                                       (plan)
slide 5  "Decision today: approve the two engineers"                                      (the ask, again)
appendix  data, risks, rollout detail: for questions only

Conference talks follow the same rule with a different "action": the audience should leave able to do one thing. A strong CFP abstract states the problem, the takeaway and why the speaker knows it (production experience, numbers), in under 200 words.

PRESENTING
slides support a talk; they are not the talk
one message per slideThe slide title is the message:"Polling costs ₦3.4M a year", not"Costs".know the audienceExecutives: decision. Engineers:mechanism. Partners: impact onthem.open with the pointProblem and ask in the firstminute; everything else supportsit.show, then explainOne chart or diagram, then saywhat it means.rehearseOut loud, timed, twice; know yourfirst minute by heart.handle questionsRepeat the question, answerbriefly, say "I will find out"when true.
swipe the figure sideways, or tap expand for full screen
1/4
titles carry the message
Someone who reads only the slide titles should get the whole argument: titles as sentences, not topics.
titles as conclusionsthe skim test