This document provides a checklist for making effective presentations. It outlines four key stages: 1) Understanding the context by defining goals and audience; 2) Planning content by writing main points and adding an agenda/summary; 3) Designing slides with one point per slide, visuals, and large readable fonts; 4) Delivering with practice, engaging the audience, and avoiding common mistakes like reading slides. The checklist is designed to help presenters plan, design, and deliver presentations that achieve their goals.

1. Copyright Material Vivek Singh (www.allaboutpresentations.com)
“Making a Powerful Point” –
Presentations Checklist
A step-by-step guide for making any Presentation
Designed by Vivek Singh of www.allaboutpresentations.com
This checklist was designed for the presentations workshop in Symbiosis Center for
Management Studies Under-Graduate held on January 30, 2012.
How to use this checklist?
If you have a presentation to make, this checklist will come in handy. Every
presentation has four stages and hence go through the stages in this checklist one
by one. After completing the four stages, check out the five most common mistakes
by presenters and make sure you eliminate them from your presentation.

2. Copyright Material Vivek Singh (www.allaboutpresentations.com)
4 Stages of a Presentation
Context -> Content -> Design -> Delivery
Stage – 1 Understanding the Context
Before you can start planning the content of your presentation, you need to
understand the context of your presentation. You need to answer the following
questions:
1. Who are you?
2. Who is your audience? Understand the audience in detail.
3. What is your goal?
4. What action you want your audience to take?
5. What will you say? (this is the Content)
6. How will you say? (this is the Design and Delivery)
Remember that your goal will be achieved only if your audience understands you,
remembers you and believes you.
Stage – 2 Planning the Content
1. Plan your content on paper. Do not start with the software. Write down the
main points you want to cover and arrange them logically.
2. Add an agenda at the beginning of your content and summarise at the end.
3. Less is more. Say what is most important and skip the rest. Share extra
information as a handout.
4. Make sure you do not talk abstract (vague). Your message needs to be
simple and clear. Take help from a layman.
5. Start preparation early. You need time to make a good presentation.

3. Copyright Material Vivek Singh (www.allaboutpresentations.com)
Stage – 3 Designing the Slides
1. One point on one slide.
2. Have less text and bullet points on your slide. If need be, split the content of
one slide into two slides.
3. Use visual aids to enhance audience understanding.
a. Use lots of images. Use high resolution images so they don’t get
pixellated on the slide. Maintain image proportions and have large
images on your slides. Large images looks better than smaller ones.
b. Convert slide full of text into a diagram. Diagrams are easy to
understand and share more information in less time.
c. Use graphs carefully. The simple the better. Label them well and
always mention the source. To read more on graphs read my free e-
book 14 Tips to Present Awesome Charts (click here)
4. No makeup. Do not try to impress your audience with your slides.
5. Choose fonts properly.
a. Use large font size.
b. Use serif fonts for print outs and sans serif for projector/computer
screen.
c. Choose font colours carefully. Use few colours on your slides.
Look at every slide of the presentation and ask: Will my audience understand it?
Remember it? Believe it?
To read more on slide design, read my free e-book Principles of Good
Presentation Design (click here)
Step – 4 Delivering the Presentation
1. Practice. Rehearse 5 times before every presentation.
2. Prepare for obvious questions.
3. Present with the room lights on.
4. Interact with the audience. Engage them. Do not make your presentation a
one way street. Ask a question, give them a task or just go around and make
eye contact.

4. Copyright Material Vivek Singh (www.allaboutpresentations.com)
Commons Mistakes to Avoid
1. Do not read the slides to your audience
2. Do not put too much text on the slides
3. Do not use very small fonts. Your slides need to be legible from the last row.
4. Be clear on the objective of your presentation
5. Do not use too many graphs/charts on one slide
Go through this checklist every time you need to make a presentation. It will make
sure your presentation is effective and meets your desired goal.
If you wish to read more about presentations visit my blog
www.allaboutpresentations.com
If you wish to stay in touch, email at
vivek @ allaboutpresentations.com