One of the obvious questions which bothers my mind and also the minds of many of my colleagues now and then is: ‘How long should be my presentation deck, how many slides should I include?’.
Whenever we start making the presentation deck, we start thinking that what is the ideal length of presentation for this project, for the task at hand?
Well, I think the right questions are:
- Who are my audience/stakeholders for this project? Do I know them well enough?
- What length of presentation will suit my audience?
This is extremely critical. I have seen that everything depends on the stakeholders. Some people may want to go in details. They want a long deck with goals, methodology, process, outcome and recommendations, everything explained. At the other end of the spectrum, some people (especially senior executives) may want decks to be short, precise and focused on outcomes. If we are wrong footed on this thing, then we risk our initial impression or desired outcome of the meeting.
So how do you know what they want? Well, the answer is quite simple – Just Ask. Either ask those who have presented to them or ask them directly. I agree, this may sound a bit awkward to them but we need to explain them that this is for their benefit only, for optimizing efforts and proper utilization of each other’s time.
Generally, when the information is still not available then make a storyboarded short deck with 10-12 slides with an executive summary and put the rest of slides in the appendix. Appendix would help you provide any further details, insights or answers to other queries from your stakeholders.