A tip to improve your Project Management presentations

I'm reading a book at the moment by John Medina called Brain Rules. I encourage everyone to pick up a copy and have a read as it contains some fascinating facts about the brain, and things you can do to improve the use of your brain. Medina has a great style of writing which keeps you interested in the topic, and he also has a dry sense of humour which has caused me some embarrassment on the train while laughing out loud.

There is lots of information about the book at www.brainrules.net, and a simple youtube search for "John Medina" will find you hours of recorded lectures which are delivered in a manner similar to his writing style.

This morning I was reading a chapter in the book about attention span in presentation / class room / learning environments and a startling fact came to light. On average, where the subject matter is not too boring, not too exciting, people usually lose interest after 10 minutes.

This one fact got my mind racing back to all the presentations that I have given in the past. Demonstrations of software that have lasted 2 hours. The 40 odd training courses I've presented which have taken up a full day. It shocked me to think that all of the people I was presenting to had started to tune out of what I was saying not long after I'd instructed them on where the toilets are, and what we're having for lunch.

I was stunned by this thought. I've always strived to be a good public speaker. Whenever I'm speaking to an audience, I diligently prepare my material so that all the facts are covered. Each presentation has an agenda to follow which achieves a certain objective.

I've been approaching it all wrong......

It's that old communication conundrum. I've created the message. I've delivered it. There are people in the room so I'm pretty sure that it's been received. But I haven't ensured that the message was understood. It may seem a little dramatic, but I've now drawn a line through every presentation I've ever given as being completely in-effective.

My job as a project manager calls for me to present to people all the time. Customers. Managers. Team Members. I need a new approach.

Enter John Medina and his book.

John talks about how he decided to break up all the university lectures he was giving in to 10 minute blocks. Each block would have cover a broad topic which he would define in the first minute, then add detail to explain the concept in the remaining 9 minutes.

The challenge is at 9 mins and 59 seconds to move to topic 2 without losing the interest of your delegate. John talks about hooks. Bait to keep people interested in the next 10 minutes. John says that hooks should:

• trigger some emotion with your audience
• be relevant to the objective of your presentation
• provide a smooth transition between the topics

As John Medina is a teacher, he talks about lectures of 50 mins in length. Therefore you'd expect to have 5 blocks of 10 mins in a lecture, and 4 hooks. Interestingly John has found that once he's deployed 2 or 3 hooks in a session, no more are required. He manages to keep everyone's attention.

What can the Project Manager learn from this?

Like many professions, project managers are constantly on a stage in front of people. Most of the time, we need to be on that stage for longer than 10 minutes. We now know that we're most likely going to lose the attention of our audience after 10 mins.

To effectively get our message across and achieve our objectives, we need to maintain the attention span of our audience.

This 10 minute concept is new to me so I'm going to start experimenting. For each presentation that I do from now on, rather than devise my own agenda which I think will achieve my objectives, I'm going to break my show up in to 10 minute blocks. Each block will have a broad topic which I'll describe in more detail right up to 9 mins and 59 seconds. At this point I'll have defined a hook to move in to the next 10 mins.

I'll let you know how I go.

Discussion with Steve Godbee, CIO of IBM Australia and New Zealand

Tonight I had the opportunity to attend a presentation at the Australian Computer Society Young IT SIG by Steve Godbee. Steve is the CIO for IBM in Australia and New Zealand, and tonight he was discussing the current economic climate and how young IT professionals can survive and thrive in these uncertain times.

Steve has worked at IBM for over 23 years so has been through many ups and downs in the world’s economy so I’d certainly consider him an authority on what’s happening at the moment.

The main message from Steve was that all IT consultants should be practicing and improving their soft skills; communication, people management and negotiation. Technical skills are important, but gone are the days where developers can sit in a room and write code off a spec. Some food for thought for all those who have their head buried in technical text books at the moment.

So now's the time to practice your soft skills. Volunteer to give a speech. Take on a mentoring role in your job. Anything that gives you the opportunity to develop these skills. Skills which don't necessarily have a text book, or a definite right way to be done.

Steve also is of the opinion that the current economic climate is not as bad for IT as it was during the dot com bust. Hopefully that’s a positive for those like myself who have been hit hard by the recent economic woes.

My Project Management Coach

Some time ago, I was fortunate enough to attend a seminar hosted by Verne Harnish - The Growth Guru.

It was a full day seminar that provided information on how businesses can grow, and strategies for increasing turn over.

As a student of public speaking, I was astounded by the manner in which Verne gave his presentation; his ability to hold the attention of the room for 8 hours was like nothing I had seen before. Despite being 1 in a room of 100 people, Verne made it feel like a personal experience.

There was a point where Verne spoke about the need for executives to have a coach; someone to mentor them and ensure that they are on the right track. To illustrate this, he used the example of Tiger Woods. Tiger, the greatest golfer ever, was at one stage in his career without a coach. This was a personal choice of his as he thought his abilities had come to a point where he could go on improving on his own with no outside help.

Tiger’s results during this period showed he was wrong. With no one to point out irregularities in his swing or to assist with his mental focus, Tiger experienced his greatest form slump. Then as if by magic, when he hired his next coach he regained his stranglehold over world golf.

I thought that this was a brilliant illustration of the need for an outside perspective. When things are going well and we feel on top of the world, there is always a tendency to think we can go it alone. But with no one “checking our swing”, things can easily go off the rails.

With this inspiring example in the back of my mind for a while, I enthusiastically took advantage of the opportunity to have my very own Project Management mentor to “check my swing”. Starting in November last year we have been meeting fortnightly for an hour to discuss areas for improvement and any recent issues.

This experience has enriched my knowledge in my craft no end as I now have someone who’s not involved in my organization to bounce ideas off (always obeying client confidentiality requirements of course). I’m feeling a lot more confident in my career and increasingly less daunted by tasks I previously would have thought beyond my abilities.

Is there someone that you can engage with as your Project Management coach or mentor?