The 'KISS principle' is a famous design principle which says that we should aim to make everything simple and less complicated if we want others to understand us. But making things simpler is way more difficult and time consuming, as captured in this quote by Mark Twain, "I didn't have the time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead". This is a perfect example of the Newton's second law of energy, that entropy (or disorderliness) of the universe tends to increase when left isolated (Yes I am still an engineer at heart!). Hence it is easier to say the same thing in more words.
This also explains why we take so much longer to create shorter presentations with more pictures and fewer words. Trained as a consultant for the last few years, creating slides and presentations is a key skill I have acquired. I have also learnt that attention to detail and overall feel of the slides (colors, alignment, font etc.) can make a lot of difference to how seriously you are taken. But one thing which I have come to appreciate more recently, is how to use those slides to communicate effectively with my audience.
As a 'Change manager' in Asia Pacific, I have to continuously communicate key messages with my audience which spans over 250 hotels, spread across India to Japan (East-West) and China to Australia (North-South). This audience varies significantly in age, culture, language and interests. Plus, English is not their first language, but for me, English is the only language I am comfortable with. Hence to be able to communicate effectively with such a large and diverse audience, it takes a lot of planning and innovation - it is like 'marketing' to your own colleagues. However, I am only starting on this journey and in my baby steps towards being effective in my communication, the first step is to simplify my slides.
To simply my slides, here are the 8 steps that I take combining my experience at Bain and Starwood (see screenshot below):
1) First, I pick one message per slide and write out these messages briefly in separate bullet points on a word doc
2) Then I re-order these bullet point messages to make the story flow more logically
3) Once convinced of the flow, I write out these messages as titles of each slide in ppt ensuring it doesn't go over 2 lines (font size 32 or more)
4) Then I pick up each slide and take the liberty of writing out complete sentences to explain the message
5) I then run a check to cut down all the unnecessary words in the sentences to leave standalone key words which are then separated into sub-bullet points (font size 16 or more)
6) If these sub-bullet points can be clubbed under separate headings/titles, I add the headings/titles and bold them; else I just bold the words that indicate what the bullet point is about
7) I then try to compress the bullet points to one half of the slide and dedicate the other half to a carefully selected picture (screenshots, quotes, data charts etc.) for almost 80% of all my slides; sometimes, I use the picture(s) on the top covering 80% of the slide and the key learning at the bottom of the page in big font
8) Lastly, I check if everything is aligned, factually correct and pleasing to the eye
How do you make your slides simple? Would love to hear your views!
This also explains why we take so much longer to create shorter presentations with more pictures and fewer words. Trained as a consultant for the last few years, creating slides and presentations is a key skill I have acquired. I have also learnt that attention to detail and overall feel of the slides (colors, alignment, font etc.) can make a lot of difference to how seriously you are taken. But one thing which I have come to appreciate more recently, is how to use those slides to communicate effectively with my audience.
As a 'Change manager' in Asia Pacific, I have to continuously communicate key messages with my audience which spans over 250 hotels, spread across India to Japan (East-West) and China to Australia (North-South). This audience varies significantly in age, culture, language and interests. Plus, English is not their first language, but for me, English is the only language I am comfortable with. Hence to be able to communicate effectively with such a large and diverse audience, it takes a lot of planning and innovation - it is like 'marketing' to your own colleagues. However, I am only starting on this journey and in my baby steps towards being effective in my communication, the first step is to simplify my slides.
To simply my slides, here are the 8 steps that I take combining my experience at Bain and Starwood (see screenshot below):
1) First, I pick one message per slide and write out these messages briefly in separate bullet points on a word doc
2) Then I re-order these bullet point messages to make the story flow more logically
3) Once convinced of the flow, I write out these messages as titles of each slide in ppt ensuring it doesn't go over 2 lines (font size 32 or more)
4) Then I pick up each slide and take the liberty of writing out complete sentences to explain the message
5) I then run a check to cut down all the unnecessary words in the sentences to leave standalone key words which are then separated into sub-bullet points (font size 16 or more)
6) If these sub-bullet points can be clubbed under separate headings/titles, I add the headings/titles and bold them; else I just bold the words that indicate what the bullet point is about
7) I then try to compress the bullet points to one half of the slide and dedicate the other half to a carefully selected picture (screenshots, quotes, data charts etc.) for almost 80% of all my slides; sometimes, I use the picture(s) on the top covering 80% of the slide and the key learning at the bottom of the page in big font
8) Lastly, I check if everything is aligned, factually correct and pleasing to the eye
How do you make your slides simple? Would love to hear your views!
