How to make a Good Powerpoint Presentation

How to Deliver a Half-hour Presentation in 10-minutes

Author: Darrell L. Browning

By Darrell L. Browning

Have a presentation coming up? A panel discussion? A report to your leadership team? A keynote address?

Well, you’ve prepared your half-hour presentation to perfection. Know it like the back of your hand. Nothing can shake you. But wait: there’s a problem. You’ve prepared your presentation to a perfect half-hour. You even timed it and paced your delivery—well, good for you. Upon your arrival, they tell you have just 10 minutes. Now what do you do?

Who hasn’t seen people get flustered when they know their presentation is longer than the time allowed? We illustrate this problem with a true story.

Recently, our organizational development trainer watched in awe as the presenter of an address to a professional group went waaaaayyyy over his 30-minute time limit. The presenter became flustered. The audience became shifty, noisy and a pack of clock-watchers. All of this happened because, our trainer discovered, the presenter had been told he had 45-minutes, not 30, to deliver his presentation. Somebody may have goofed up, but that doesn’t matter to the audience.

People never mind if you finish early but audiences always rebel when you go over your allotted time—the time they have been told—not what the speaker believed to be true.

How many of us have seen the most prepared presenters instantly become lost sheep, especially when they are time-challenged? Here are some tips to avoid that: Divide your presentation into three content areas:

• What they COULD know


• What they SHOULD know


• What they MUST know

To deliver a 30-minute speech in 10 minutes, just cover MUST know items-- those will be the ones you've highlighted in yellow on your copy of the PowerPoint presentation or note cards. Must-know items are exactly what they seem to be: the things you want your audience to focus upon.

Doing this will make you appear confident at all times. And those who invited you to speak will marvel at how well you handled things.

©BrowningLaFrankie 2009.

Article Source: article base

About the Author:

Darrell L. Browning is a principal founder of BrowningLaFrankie LLC, a Philadelphia-area based company specializing in helping companies manage crises, train leaders in media and presentation skills and facilitate strategic change through leadership development and organizational development training, workshops and individual coaching. Browning is the trainer-of-choice for The Wharton School MBA Program at the University of Pennsylvania in crisis communications, media training and business writing. A journalist by profession, Browning has more than 20 years of media experience with CBS-Radio, daily newspapers and national magazines. He holds degrees in Journalism and Social Sciences from The Ohio State University.