• Understand the key elements that make a presentation effective
• Understand the purpose, audience, and message of your presentation
• Recognize common mistakes to avoid in presentations
• Learn how to create a presentation for a business meeting

Parts of a Good Presentation

The key elements of a good presentation are content, organization, and delivery.

Content

Substance and style are both a part of your content. Substance elements include the originality and significance of your idea, the quality of your research and analysis, clarity and potential impact of your recommendations. Style aspects of content include confidence and credibility, both of which have a significant impact on how you—and your message—are received.

Organization

Good organization starts with a strong opening and continues in a logical and well-supported manner throughout the presentation, leading to a close that serves as a resolution of the problem or a summary of the situation you’ve presented. The audience experiences good organization as a sense of flow—a forward movement to a satisfying close. This forward momentum also requires audiences to have a certain level of technical and information-management competency. A good presentation requires a presenter to put thought into information design, from the structure and content of slides to the transitions between individual points, slides, and topics.

Delivery

Delivery entails a range of factors from body language and word choice to vocal variety. In this category, your audience is responding to your personality and professionalism. A good presenter has a passion for the subject and an ability to convey and perhaps elicit emotion in the audience. Audience engagement—through eye contact, facial expression, and perhaps the use of gestures or movement—also contributes to an effective presentation. However, some gestures, movements, or other mannerisms can be distracting. 

With those key features in mind, let’s add a disclaimer. The reality is that your features won’t matter if you don’t deliver one essential benefit: relevance.