Soft Skills

Persuasive Technical
Presentations
Tracy Volz and Janice L. Hewitt

It happens many times in the oil industry. It may even have happened to you. Someone
from R&D has just finished an oral report to management about an exciting, important
project. But the managers don’t appear to grasp the importance or understand the
concept presented. The result is no managerial enthusiasm with little or no support.
What went wrong? Assuming that the R&D findings were potentially valuable to
the company, perhaps the presentation was ineffective. What follows are practical
suggestions for improving your presentations to management so that your research
contributions are more likely to be supported.

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Know Your Audience to
Effectively Deliver Content
If your audience is middle management,
define whether or not they already know
the technical details of your work. Then
change your frame of reference from,
“This is what I want to tell them” to “What
do they need to know to understand and
make decisions about my research?” In
other words, think what you will need
to explain to help them understand the
seven keys of the presentation content:
SEVE N K EYS TO CONTE NT:
1. Research area
2. Business importance
3. Potential company benefits/risks
4. A lignment with the
business strategy
5. Cost analysis
6. Implementation timeline
7. Recommendation(s)
Get Off to a Strong Start
Your audience is likely to be most
attentive at the beginning and the end of
your presentation. Therefore, you need
to capitalize on these opportunities by
starting strong and ending strong. An
effective introduction 1) engages the
audience’s interest, 2) states the key
points early, 3) previews the topics to be
covered, and 4) establishes credibility
and rapport with the audience.
Start by explaining the motivation
for analyzing a specific problem.
Why is it important? What are
potential benefits for the company?
The first few sentences of your talk
need to perform the same function as an
executive summary in written reports by
providing the gist of what will follow. In
contrast, poor speakers withhold their
key points or recommendations until
the conclusion, keeping the audience
in suspense. This inductive approach
to organization places a huge burden
on the audience by making them
hold a lot of information in their heads
without understanding why they are
important or how the pieces fit together.
Managers want to know up front what
your key points are. Remember to
explain your contribution in the body
of your presentation including the
what, why, and how of your research.
Make Complex, Technical Material
More Comprehensible
Managers may well not be experts in
your area of research, so you need to
decide how much detail is essential
and what terms, including acronyms,
need explanation. To clarify meaning:
Define Terms. To help diverse,
nontechnical audiences understand
what you are talking about, you will
need to define important concepts
using terms they already know.
Minimize Technical Acronyms.
Unless you are speaking to technical
experts in your research area, you
should use simple, precise phrases
for technical terms. If you are using
an acronym, be sure to introduce it
in its expanded form first. Provide
a quick definition if your audience
is not familiar with the subject.
Move From General to Specific.
Explain the concept in general before
focusing on the specifics. For example, if
you are introducing a new model using
a flow diagram, begin by displaying
a high-level abstract to orient your
audience to the primary components
of the model and then show a more
detailed version of the overall model,
or use excerpt diagrams to focus the
audience’s attention on specific features.
Give Visual Examples. To help
the audience understand complex
concepts, compare such concepts
to objects or actions they can easily
understand. For example, “The
experience of using an electronic
voting machine is a lot like using
an ATM machine. However, there
is a fundamental difference. Voting
machines need to preserve your
anonymity to prevent election fraud
whereas ATM machines require
personal verification because banks
are accountable for transactions
that affect your account.”
Explain Your Data
Many people with technical backgrounds
falsely assume that they do not need
to explain data because “data speak
for themselves.” Two individuals can
look at the same graph and arrive
at different interpretations. In fact,
managers are likely to have difficulty
following the data-analysis portion of
FOL LOW TH I S F I V E -
STE P PROCE SS TO
E X P L A I N Y O U R D ATA :
1. State the question that the
graph or chart answers.
2. E xplain what the graph
or chart depicts.
3. Point out the key features.
4. Summarize the results.
5. I nterpret the results—What
does it mean? What are the
implications of the results,
specifically with respect to your
manager’s or your organization’s
goals, strategies, or priorities?
your talk. Therefore, you must explain
your data. Point out what to notice.
Use Transitions to Keep the
Audience With You
Clear transitions provide logical
coherence. When you make the effort to
craft transitions you basically take the
implicit logic that guided your decisions
about how to sequence the material
in your slides and make it explicit for
the audience. It helps the audience to
follow your argument more easily.
Crafting transitions is difficult to do on
the fly, which is why many speakers use
weak transitions that merely announce
the subject of the slide. Instead of
providing weak transitional links, use
strong transitions to signal sequence,
causality, or contrast. For example, “In
contrast to the tool X that is used in only
conventional reservoirs, tool Y targets
unconventional oil like oil sands.”
While planning transitions,
rearrange the material on a particular
slide or reorder your slides if it
will make your explanations flow
more logically. Transitions are so
important that you ought to write
them out and memorize them.
Wrap Up Well
Recall that your audience is most
likely to pay more attention to you
at the beginning and end of your
presentation. Therefore, it’s crucial to
take advantage of this final opportunity
to summarize key points and make
specific recommendations. To conclude,
pause momentarily and use phrases
Vol. 6 // No. 2 // 2010 23
 like: “In summary” or “To wrap up” to
signal that you are about to finish. Then,
summarize key points and spell out
the implications of your analysis. After
this, state your recommendations. It is
good practice to memorize your final
sentences so that you don’t end with a
meaningless, “That’s it” or “Thank you.”
Put up a conclusions slide that is not
overloaded with text. Such slides distract
the audience from paying attention to
you right when you need to heighten it.
If you plan to answer questions
after presenting, continue to
display your conclusions slide or
replace it with a relevant visual that
facilitates the discussion. Do not
replace your conclusions slide with
a slide that says “Questions?”
Project Confidence
Finally, you need to lead by example
to keep your audience interested and
enthusiastic about your ideas. You must
project a positive, professional demeanor
from the outset to establish your
credibility and to enhance your rapport
with the audience. This is accomplished
through a combination of stance, eye
contact, gestures, and voice quality.
Stance. An effective stance not only
exudes confidence, it also provides
breath support. It is the foundation
of your message and your voice.
even when you gesture toward the
projection screen. Do not turn your body
sideways or away from the audience.
Eye Contact. You should make direct
eye contact with the audience because
it contributes to the impression that
you are trustworthy and confident. Be
sure to distribute your eye contact. In
other words, look at individuals seated
in different parts of the room so that
no one feels ignored. Making direct
eye contact may be difficult if you
come from a culture that discourages
that. But in some cultures, making
eye contact is important because you
may seem untruthful if you don’t.
Hand Gestures. Hand gestures work
especially well to illustrate a concept
or to emphasize a point. For example,
you can use a hand gesture to help
the audience visualize the shape or
size of an object to which you refer:
“It’s about the size of a baseball.”
When you incorporate gestures,
make sure you position your hands
at chest level to form the gesture and
then rest your hands at your sides.
Avoid fidgeting or placing your hands
in your pockets, behind your back, on
your hips, or clutching them together.
Voice Quality. Voice quality refers
to many vocal characteristics such as
volume, articulation, inf lection, and
pace. You should speak in a natural,
authoritative tone at a volume that is
loud enough to be heard by people
seated in the most distant part of the
room. Use variation in your voice
to emphasize important phrases by
altering your pitch and controlling
the pace at which you are speaking.
As a general rule, you should slow
down to state key points and speed
up through the details. If you detect
signs that your audience is either
confused or bored, you need to adjust
the pace appropriately. Knowing how
to prepare and knowing how to
deliver an effective technical
presentation are two different tasks.
You must practice aloud to become
comfortable explaining your research
and to finish within the time limit.
Remember that you can practice with
colleagues to get useful feedback.
Summary
Many people, including managers,
feel intimidated by dense, technical
information. As a speaker, it is your
job to help them feel smart rather
than stupid. To achieve this, answer the
seven keys to complete content, define
key terms and incorporate examples to
clarify explanations, design slides that
are easy to understand, and deliver with
confidence. TWA

YOU WA N T TO ST R I V E
F O R A N O P E N , S TA B L E
S TA N C E T H AT I S F R E E
OF DI ST R ACT ION.
1. Position your feet
under your hips.
2. D istribute your weight
equally between your feet.
3. Hold your chin level
and relax shoulders
without slouching.
4. No hands in pockets,
keep them comfortable
at your sides!
This stance may feel slightly awkward
at first, but keep practicing it until you
feel comfortable and at ease. Make
sure to position your body so that it is
directly facing the audience at all times,
Tracy Volz is a senior lecturer in Professional
Communication in the School of Engineering at Rice
University. She joined the Dean of Engineering’s Office
in 2008 after spending 9 years with the Cain Project in
Professional Communication. Volz has coached executives
and conducted seminars on oral communication for
professional societies and corporations in the Rice faculty.
Her interests include oral presentations, technical poster
design, and pedagogical innovation. Volz earned a BA in
English from the University of Iowa and a PhD in English from Rice University.
Janice L. Hewitt is a senior lecturer in Professional
Communication, Office of the Dean of Engineering, Rice
University. She conducts workshops and seminars on writing
for engineering graduate students writing postgraduate
dissertations, frequently incorporating training in oral
presentations and persuasive writing. Hewitt has been
a consultant for several major corporations. She holds
an MA in English from the University of Michigan and an
MA in History and PhD in English from Rice University.

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