For the love of God PRACTICE your presentations!

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Abstract

f problems with that perspective.Not practicing your presentations means you’re ill prepared and there is no reason to be proud of being ill prepared.I recognize that there are people out there who are naturally gifted presenters and who can give amazing presentations off the cuff. I am not one of those people. And judging by the number of really bad presentations I sit through on a regular basis, I’m guessing that you’re not either.Not only is practicing your presentations good for your career but it’s also a courtesy to your colleagues. They’re taking time out of their day to attend your presentation. When you haven’t practiced your presentation, your presentation might be hard to understand and they might not know what to take away from it. Or worse yet, because you haven’t practiced, you have no idea how long it’s going to take you to run through your presentation and you run out of time!There are times when I’m scheduled to give a presentation as part of a meeting where other colleagues are also giving presentations. These are the types of situations where each person is allotted a precise amount of time. You know what I find REALLY frustrating? When I’m following someone and it’s clear that they haven’t practiced their p

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resentation and they’re taking up way more time than they were allotted and now their ill preparedness is eating into my time! Don’t do this to your colleagues!And practicing your presentations is not the same as memorizing your presentations. You don’t need to memorize your presentations, although that approach does work for some people. Before any presentation I give (even if it is only a few slides), I block out time on my calendar to run through it at least once. When we were working from the office, I would book a phone room, practice alone, and time myself. And there are times when I run through a presentation with a colleague and that’s really really helpful. For more important presentations I practice multiple times over multiple days. A few years back, I had an opportunity to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhebyS5OXw4&t=3s">give a talk at Google I/O</a> — I can’t tell you how often I practiced that talk.The small investment of time you put into practicing your presentations will help advance your career and your colleagues will be grateful! So for the love of God and all things holy, take the time to practice your presentations!Now where’s my <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festivus">Festivus pole</a>?</article></body>

For the love of God PRACTICE your presentations!

Years ago when I first started my career in UX, I took a presentation skills class at Microsoft. It was the type of class where you do a mock presentation in front of everyone and then get feedback. If there was one piece of advice I took away from the class it was to always practice my presentations.

Fast forward to today where I give presentations on a pretty regular basis (at least once every few weeks and sometimes every week), attend other people’s presentations every week, and help other people with crafting their presentations. When I give guidance to other people about their presentations, I always ask, “Do you practice your presentations?” And they usually proudly proclaim, “Oh I just wing it.”

And that’s when my internal Frank Costanza comes out and I’ve got a lot of problems with that perspective.

Not practicing your presentations means you’re ill prepared and there is no reason to be proud of being ill prepared.

I recognize that there are people out there who are naturally gifted presenters and who can give amazing presentations off the cuff. I am not one of those people. And judging by the number of really bad presentations I sit through on a regular basis, I’m guessing that you’re not either.

Not only is practicing your presentations good for your career but it’s also a courtesy to your colleagues. They’re taking time out of their day to attend your presentation. When you haven’t practiced your presentation, your presentation might be hard to understand and they might not know what to take away from it. Or worse yet, because you haven’t practiced, you have no idea how long it’s going to take you to run through your presentation and you run out of time!

There are times when I’m scheduled to give a presentation as part of a meeting where other colleagues are also giving presentations. These are the types of situations where each person is allotted a precise amount of time. You know what I find REALLY frustrating? When I’m following someone and it’s clear that they haven’t practiced their presentation and they’re taking up way more time than they were allotted and now their ill preparedness is eating into my time! Don’t do this to your colleagues!

And practicing your presentations is not the same as memorizing your presentations. You don’t need to memorize your presentations, although that approach does work for some people. Before any presentation I give (even if it is only a few slides), I block out time on my calendar to run through it at least once. When we were working from the office, I would book a phone room, practice alone, and time myself. And there are times when I run through a presentation with a colleague and that’s really really helpful. For more important presentations I practice multiple times over multiple days. A few years back, I had an opportunity to give a talk at Google I/O — I can’t tell you how often I practiced that talk.

The small investment of time you put into practicing your presentations will help advance your career and your colleagues will be grateful! So for the love of God and all things holy, take the time to practice your presentations!