CHRONOLOGICAL SEQUENCE OF
PRESENTATION PREPARATION
1. TIME CONSTRAINT. Determine the
realistic amount of time you
have for preparation and rehearsal of the
speech. Dependent
upon the subject, your familiarity with
it and the target
audience, give approximately 50% to
preparation and 50% to
rehearsal. With more experience
and familiarity, you may
cut this to 70%/30%.
2. PURPOSE. Determine the purpose of
the presentation through
THESIS STATEMENT. Write out a single
declarative sentence
which states the specific behavioral
objective you wish to
attain and the mode of presentation by
which you seek to
attain it.
EXAMPLE: "I hope to persuade
the Personnel Director and
Comptroller to approve, by the end of the month,
a $40,000 budget to initiate a
2 year Management
by Objectives Training
Program”.
OR:
"I hope to inform the key design engineers of the
background, assumptions and
basic procedures of
computer-assisted design
techniques, sufficient so
that they have adequate
skills to supervise imple-
mentation of this technique
in at least one project
this year”.
3. B0DY.
Sketch out the main arguments, sub-points and supporting
arguments or illustrations for the BODY
of the speech.
These should be flexible and will be much
revised. Do not
worry needlessly over the proper
ARRANGEMENT of points at
this tine; cast main points and
sub-points into some logical
and coherent order.
4. AUDIENCE
ANALYSIS· First, generally analyze your audience
in terms of typical categories; e.g.
size, setting, time of
presentation, professional background,
job orientation,
heterogeneous-homogeneous,
positive-hostile, etc. List all
group generalizations or dominant group
attitudes about you
and your subject. Second, initiate
more specific Negative
Objection Analysis by picking the
one, two or three Key
Decision Makers and analyze each
of these key individuals
Intensively in terms of their key
objections or questions
with regard to your subject. List 20
objections, reservations,
or questions which are at the fore-front
of their minds;
objections which they must make
because their job requires it,
objections which are likely due to
previous exposure to this
or similar proposals, objections which
are likely because of
the kinds of persons they are or have
shown themselves to
be in similar situations. NOTE: ALL
INFORMATION IS VALUABLE
T0 THE EXTENT YOU CAN DEFINE THEIR
INDIVIDUAL OBJECTIONS AND
MEET THEM WITHIN OR AFTER THE SPEECH; TO
THAT EXTENT YOU WILL
BE SUCCESSFUL IN ATTAINING YOUR
PRESENTATION PURPOSE.
5. BODY REVISION & QUESTION PREPARATION.
Review your initial
arrangement of main points and supporting
materials in light
of your thorough negative
objection analysis and group analysis.
It may suggest complete revision of your
approach.
More probably it will suggest you revise
your order of presentation
by deleting some areas, modifying and
expanding others.
ABOVE ALL, SELECT THE TWO OR THREE KEY
NEGATIVE OBJECTIONS
WHICH DEMAND IMMEDIATE ANSWERS, PLAN (IN
CONSULTATION WITH
OTHERS IF NEEDED) THE BEST, MOST
APPROPRIATE ANSWER---THEN
INSERT THOSE 2-3 KEY QUESTIONS BACK INTO
THE SPEECH. Ask
and answer them as negative objections.
EXAMPLE: "Before proceeding much further, I'm sure that a
key reservation a number of you
have is...Why is
it necessary to initiate such a
large training pro-
gram next quarter when the field
needs will not be
evident until late next
year?...This is surely a
reasonable question...."
Last, take the remainder of the questions
and write as comprehensibly
as need be the best, most appropriate
answers
to each of them. Determine the specific
strategy, and gather
the necessary factual information that
you will need if these
questions come up after the meeting. BE
PREPARED FOR EVERY
REASONABLE EVENTUALITY.
6. INTRODUCTION. Now attend to the
introduction. Your previous
analysis will provide you with many
possible approaches, e.g.
opening with a question which articulates
the most pressing
problem bothering one of your key
decision makers. Write
out specific paragraphs for the Attention-getting
Phase, the
Significance Phase, the Framework
phase (if needed) and the
Specific Overview. Do not give
this portion short-shrift;
in a 10 minute speech this portion
should probably last 3
minutes, in some cases more. It is often
helpful to extract
key claims which you make later in the
speech, hyphenate them
and place them in the introduction in one
of the above phases
as "grabbers", i.e., striking
claims, which you will later
document, which challenge demand audience
attention.
EXAMPLE:
"Gentlemen, I think we are all agreed that the adoption
of a sound compensation and
managerial identification
plan is one of our most basic
responsibilities
...I will attempt to show that
the Jacques Program
can so identify, promote and compensate future
managers that this company
would, within two years,
experience at least a 30% drop
in company monies
now spent in managerial
selection and compensation."
7. CONCLUSION· At this point, your conclusion
should virtually
write itself. Decide whether you need a
simple recapitulation
summary of main points covered (Likely,
if it is a
straight expository presentation) or an
additional request or
appeal for specific action (likely if it
is a persuasive
presentation). ABOVE ALL, BE QUITE
SPECIFIC IN YOUR FINAL
REQUEST SO THAT EVERY KEY DECISION MAKER
KNOWS EXACTLY WHAT
YOU WANT WHEN HE LEAVES THE CONFERENCE.
EXAMPLE:
"I hope you concur with the significant need for
this project to meet
competition, and with the
pressing need to move on it as
soon as reasonably
possible. I would very much
appreciate your approval
signatures within three weeks
so that I might
hire the two necessary
technicians and begin work
no later than one month from
today. If there are
further questions, I'11 be
happy to answer them."
8. OUTLINE
& TRANSITIONS. Reduce your outline to Key Sentence
and Key Phrase Format by writing
out main points of the
introduction, body and conclusion in Key
Sentences, sub-points in
two or three Key Words or Phrases.
EXAMPLE: II· Body
A. I would first like to sketch the previous
research on this
project·
Break-through in
abrasives production
-1950
2. Three research
studies in the 60's:
Miller-Stanton-O'Nie1
Then write out, word for word,
your transitions
between your major points to
insure that your audience
remains oriented to the
development of the
speech.
9. REHEARSAL. You should have from 50
to 30% of your available
time remaining for straight rehearsal. First,
sit down and
memorize the key sentence and phrases,
concentrating on fairly
faithful order or sequence of ideas.
(Don't be bothered about
minor sequence ordering of sub-points;
few realize or care if
sub-points are slightly out of order.) Second,
find a setting
safe from interruption, stand up and
deliver the speech 4-5
times in a mock presentation. This means with all aids or
reasonable facsimiles you will use in the
real presentation.
If you are fortunate you may recruit a
"live" audience, but
there is some merit in relying upon your
imagination. Go
through the speech until your thought
sequence is completely
reliable. DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE,
DELIVER FROM WORD
MEMORIZATION; deliver from your memorized
thought sequence
of the sketchy outline of main and
sub-points. Take one
final rehearsal to concentrate on your
peculiar speaking
weaknesses, e.g., poor eye
contact, insufficient volume,
poor emphasis on main points...or
whatever.