I've spent a long time thinking about this and and done it badly many times! These days I have much more of a system. I thought I would share a few thoughts about how to make life easier. Maybe something in here might be useful to you. Well, we can at least try!
Step one:
For me the first thing is always the audience. Who are they exactly, how many people will be there, and why are they there? There's loads of questions that could usefully be answered here and it's often not too difficult to find out if you're prepared to ask around. What does the room look like where you will talk? Will you have a small audience sitting around a meeting table or a couple of hundred people spread out in an enormous sloping lecture theatre with everything that implies?
Then the next question is what is your purpose in being there. Do you want to create any particular impression? Do you want the audience to do something? What results do you expect? Think really seriously about this. What are you REALLY doing there? After that you need to formulate your message. What is it that you really want to say, expressed in one short clear sentence? If you can get this far then you should have a much easier time deciding what material to actually put into your presentation. You should have a clear goal and purpose and that always helps doesn't it?
So next time you have a presentation ahead of you spend some time seriously considering these aspects. Write them down on a piece of paper, it helps to clarify things that little extra. And when you then open PowerPoint and start creating slide material, don't forget to look back at your purpose, your message and your definition of the audience, preferably before and after every single slide!
Hope this helps a little. Step two of planning follows in a little while
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