COURSE OBJECTIVES

By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

• • Establish what content should be included in a presentation and what should be discarded; successfully avoid “information overload.”
  • Capture and focus the attention and interest of attendees at the beginning of a presentation
  • Keep attendees engaged while the presentation is in progress
  • Get feedback that attendees are actually understanding
  • Cause the retention of key points
  • Use fundamental presentation skills

This is a true workshop. All key skills will be demonstrated by the instructor and practiced by the participants.

COURSE TOPICS

• Introduction and Overview: Why presentations are often not effective; challenges faced by both the presenter and attendees
• Presenting the right information: How to create specific objectives and identify “need to know” content
• Presentation Strategies: What needs to happen at the beginning, during and at the end of a presentation to ensure that attendees will understand and remember the key points
• Presentation tools: Specific tools and techniques like questions, stories, analogies and humor that can be used to engage attendees and make presentations more effective
• Platform skills: How to use your voice, eye contact, gestures and body movement to stimulate engagement; how to overcome the “fear of public speaking”
• Icebreaking and Handling Problem Behaviors: How to start a meeting in a positive and motivational way; how to handle the occasional disruptive situation or problem behavior
• Practice presentations: Participants will practice giving short presentation to each other, followed by a class critique

Workshop Size: Given the importance of practice, this workshop will be limited to a maximum of 12 participants.