Effective Project Management

Section G Presentation Skills

“The ability to communicate effectively through the spoken word is essential to success in business management.”

Henry Ford II

You should volunteer for every opportunity to make presentations, both internally and in the public arena. A presentation gives you an opportunity to demonstrate your experience, knowledge, and capability. It can influence senior managers, impress colleagues and lift your career to a new level. It can enable you to be considered for assignments that otherwise may not have been open to you. It can also open up opportunities in the market place. In presenting to the project team; it is the project manager's chance to demonstrate their command of the issues and situation.

‘All memorable speeches are known by a few words, you have to be ready with a singular theme, (“I have a dream”, “tryst with destiny”, “ask not what your country can do for you”). The pithy formula that encapsulates the address, the soundbite, is not a craven capitulation to mainstream media, it is the organizing principle of the speech. “To be or not to be. That is the question.” It is the message caught in a phrase.’¹⁹

All presentations have the same overall structure, whether Act I, Act II, Act III or (1) tell the people what you are going to tell them; (2) say it; and (3) summarize what you have told them. Specifically, a structure might be: introduction, development, and conclusion or explanation, complication, and recommendation.

In summary, ...