A group of us were standing in the briefing room of a major corporation, waiting for the big guy to appear for the annual Strategic Plan Presentation.

We were just passing the time with small talk. I noticed that one of the vice presidents had left his note portfolio open on the table. Inside the front cover was a page entitled Twenty Questions That Will Stop Any Briefing.

Oh, how I wanted to see that page. Unfortunately, it was underneath the pocket flap, so I never got to see the details.

But, fortunately, it set me on a quest to come up with my own set of questions. It sensitized me to listen to and remember the questions that brought presenters to their knees.

The classic case involved a simple bullet chart in a briefing to a business area director. The presenter intended to ask for an investment in a certain new technology.

The first slide was a title page. The second was an agenda. The third page had a title and a set of bulleted comments.

The director said, “Stop.” He sat in silence for a few seconds looking at the chart. Then he said, “What is this a list of? Some of the points look like information, some of the points look like problems and some look like actions?”

The presenter could not answer. I am not sure he even understood the question.

So the director restated his question, “What did it take to get on this list?”

The presenter mumbled that he guessed the bullets were a list of topics related to the technology in question.

Then the director asked, “What is not on this list? Is it an exhaustive list of topics about this technology? If not, what did it take to be excluded from this list?”

By this time the briefer was silent, just looking at the director and keeping his mouth shut.

Then the director asked, “Why are the bullets in this order? Is it chronological? Most important to least important? Least important to most important? General to specific? Specific to general?”

By this time the presenter was in full panic, breathing through his mouth. He finally said, “I guess this was just a list of some things to talk about and they are in the order I thought of them.”

The director then said, “Go away and rewrite this briefing in a logical order and come back next week and try again.”

Despite the director’s lack of grace, everyone in the room learned about logical thinking and how to make a persuasive presentation. And they remembered it.

Lessons Learned

I’m not writing to teach you how to stop a briefing. My intent is to make your briefing logically consistent, which will make it easier to understand and support.

Note that if your logic is impeccable and your facts are proven, they can only argue against your input assumptions.

Ask the same questions as the director.

• What is this a list of?
• Is it comprehensive? Are they collectively exhaustive, as the consultants would say?
• If not, why were the other items left off?
• Why are these items in this order? Does logic apply, or are they just the order they came to mind.

These principles don’t just apply to bullets on a presentation chart. There are lists everywhere. Some are in a agenda or a table of contents. Some are just a series of items in a sentence.

So apply some logic as you build your presentation.

And there are some basic grammar rules for bulleted lists that you might find interesting. Click here and here and here and here.

I will talk about how to structure your presentation, using both logic and emotion, in a later post.