You don’t design a presentation, you write it

Here is a tip to help you write one.

Every time you speak, you need to have something to say. I understand that when you are asked to talk about your specialist subject it is not difficult to find things to say so you might feel able to improvise on the day.

But, some of the presentations you give in your job are really important. Should you really approach them with the plan of ad-libbing around some bullet points and notes?

I think you should write a script for all presentations BUT especially for the important ones. The ones that could lead to winning new clients or getting a promotion.

The first thing to do before writing a script is to identify your key messages. Once you are clear about the messages and the approach or structure of your presentation, then you can write a script that delivers what it needs to deliver.

English is spoken at about 120 words per minute so that tells you how long your script needs to be.

One way of writing a script that reflects the way you speak is to dictate it. Smartphones and laptops have built-in voice recognition so it’s easy enough to do.

However you get the first draft of your script together it won’t be good enough. First drafts never are. You will have to revise it until it is as good as you can make it.

Then you will have to rehearse it in order to learn it and be able to give the presentation without reading from your script.

I know this is a lot of work but it will make the difference between a so-so presentation and a great one.

Online accounting training for one

I wrote previously about the work I do for Ibba Girls Boarding School in South Sudan and the trip I made to the school in February 2015 to recruit a new finance manager. The school is (almost entirely) funded by a UK charity, the Friends of Ibba Girls School (FIGS), and it is important to FIGS that the school has high standards of probity and governance to go with the high quality education. That’s why the school is willing to employ a finance manager whose primary job is to manage the school’s cash on a day to day basis.

Last year the school’s finances were managed by an experience teacher from Australia, Jamie, who was working at the school for the year alongside his wife, who was the co-head. Jamie had no financial training but was experienced with IT so he taught himself how to use the cloud version of QuickBooks to maintain accounts during the year. At the end of the year I made the sorts of adjustments that accountants make when they pull together the annual report and accounts.

Jamie’s replacement is Santino, a locally-raised young man with a business degree from Uganda. His degree included the fundamentals of double-entry bookkeeping but he was not experienced in maintaining a set of accounts in a dedicated accounting software package. This meant he would need some help from me to develop his accounting knowledge and skills (and that's fine because Ibba Girls Boarding School aims to do more than educate girls).

After my visit to South Sudan I decided to change the accounting system used by the school to Xero because (a) the user interface looks better and easier to use for a novice and (b) we could get a better deal if both FIGS and the school used it than if we stuck with QuickBooks.

Since taking up his post in March, the most pressing things for Santino to do have been to make sure staff are paid at the end of each month, that food and other supplies are bought regularly so that the girls are safe and secure, and that the (modest) school fees payable by the girls’ parents are collected. All of these transactions need to be captured in the school’s accounts, though, so that reports can be presented to the governors in South Sudan and the FIGS trustees in the UK.

Ibba Girls School finance manager

I was faced with the problem of how to train Santino to do some fairly complicated accounting tasks from 6,000km away. At first I thought I would have to write a procedure manual, a prospect I did not relish since technical writing is very difficult to do well. After a while I realised I could use my presentation skills and technology instead. I decided I would create screencasts and share them with Santino so that he could learn by watching me using Xero.

It is a relatively simple set up. I set up Xero for Ibba Girls Boarding School so I have access to the live accounting information and can create some demo transactions to show Santino what he needs to do. I record my screen, with an audio commentary when I am doing these transactions using Quick Time Player (which is a standard app on all Apple computers). I keep each video to two or three minutes in length and I record each in a single take. I know I could edit clips together using iMovie but I just have a rehearsal before I press record and then go for a take. Mostly they work out fine as first takes but sometimes I stumble over my words or something and I simply scrap that take and start over.

Once recorded I check each video for clarity before uploading to the internet using Droplr. I then email to Santino the short URLs that Droplr creates for each video and he can then watch them inside a web browser (as many times as he likes) or download the videos (in .mov format) to his computer.

So far I’ve done 12 videos covering accounting for payroll and income. I'm pleased with them and I can tell they are effective because I can see the transactions Santino has been entering into Xero. There’s still plenty more videos for me to create and share but I hope that by the time I visit the school in the late summer/autumn Santino will have brought the accounts fully up-to-date and be able to generate reports for the governors directly in Xero.

CIPFA Audit Conference 2013: Keynote: Meeting the Performance Challenges

I enjoyed being at the CIPFA Audit Conference earlier this week. Here are my presentation slides.

My presentation was the opening one. I’d been a bit nervous about it beforehand, not about the giving of a presentation but about the content. I’m not an audit specialist so I decided to talk about performance challenges from a general, big picture point of view. What I was concerned about, then, was whether what I said would resonate with any of the sessions that followed. I stayed until mid-afternoon and I’d say that all the other sessions I saw had touch-points with what I’d said. That was a relief.

Aside from what I learned by watching other people's presentations, I also made a couple of new contacts which might result in some future projects. So, all in all, it was a good day for me.

Hear me speak at CIPFA's Audit Conference 2013

At rather short notice I have agreed to speak at the upcoming CIPFA Audit Conference in York on 22 May. I'm not a specialist in audit but fortunately my topic is broader than that: the financial and performance challenges facing the public sector. I've some ideas about what I want to say already but the preparation of a 40 minute talk will take me probably ten times that (and I'll do it the Presentation Zen way).

Can a strategic partnership reduce the cost of policing?

Back in November I gave a presentation to a conference of police authority treasurers and police force finance directors about strategic partnerships in policing and I posted my slides here. In that presentation I tried hard to make sure that my comments were balanced, giving both the positive messages that advocates of private sector involvement would make and the counter-arguments. As a result of having some time on my hands I've boiled down my presentation into a one pag document which you are welcome to download. Can a SP save money

A practitioner's experience

CIPFA_September_2011_for_web.mov Watch on Posterous

It's been ages since I last wrote a post for this blog. The last one I write mentioned I would talking at a couple of events organised by CIPFA.  I was asked to talk about my experience of making budget savings and that meant I spent much of my time pointing out what doesn't work. That said, I think the sessions went well. I certainly received nice feedback.

I've made a small QuickTime movie of the slides I used for those sessions in case anyone wants to see them or even download them.

I will try to get back into the swing of writing on this blog more often since there is plenty happening in terms of public sector finance as organisations face up to reducing their budgets for 2012/13. Perhaps I'll write about that next.