Many organizations ask various team members to report out at meetings. “On Monday, bring us up to speed on this project, you’ll have ten minutes in the agenda. Oh, and leave time for questions.”
Y’all. If a presentation like this is on your to-do list, please do this one thing: time yourself. Grab a stopwatch or fire up the app on your phone, and get a working time on your presentation.
Hey. No, for real.
I know what you might be thinking. “I’m just going to throw a deck together and speak to the slides. No big deal.” But my friend, I promise you don’t have a good innate sense of how long you spend talking. You’ll think it’s been four minutes, and you will have actually already run over by five minutes.
Get super clear about the outcome you’re hoping for, create slides to support your message (if you need them), then Practice Out Loud. With A Stopwatch.
Please.
