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Part I

PART I: The Purpose of The Presentation

Chapter 1: You Are Not Building Slides. You Are Building an Argument.

One of the biggest mistakes case teams make is starting their presentation by opening PowerPoint. They begin creating slides before they have decided what they need the judges to understand.

That reverses the process. A strong presentation starts with the message, not the slides. Your job is to build an argument that answers four questions:

  • What is happening?

  • Why does it matter?

  • What should the organisation do?

  • Why should the judges believe us?

Everything in the deck should help answer those questions.

The Presentation Equation

A strong case presentation combines:

STRATEGY

  

= PERSUASION

 

STORY

EVIDENCE

VISUAL COMMUNICATION

DELIVERY

A great strategy poorly communicated may lose. A beautiful deck with weak strategy may lose. A confident speaker with weak evidence may lose. Winning presentations bring these elements together.

The Discover Your Mad Skills Principle

Slides support the story. The slides are not the story.

The judges should be able to follow your argument even if they are not reading every word on the screen. If the audience has to read your slides while you are speaking, you are competing with your own deck for their attention.

Chapter 2: The Problem Isn’t Time. It’s Focus.

Case competitions create a powerful temptation: “We only have ten minutes. We need to get everything in.”That is usually the wrong way to think about the problem. Your constraint isn’t simply time. Your constraint is attention. The judges have limited capacity to:

  • listen;
  • read;
  • interpret charts;
  • remember numbers;
  • compare alternatives;
  • follow your logic;
  • and evaluate your recommendation.

So the question isn’t: How much can we fit into ten minutes? The question is: What is the most important thing we need the judges to understand? This is where less is more becomes a strategic advantage.

Strategy Is Deciding What Not to Do

The same principle applies to presentations.

  • Every slide creates a demand on the audience.
  • Every chart requires interpretation.
  • Every bullet requires reading.
  • Every new idea creates another thing the judges must remember.

Therefore: Every piece of information you include should earn its place. If something doesn’t help the judges understand:

  • the problem;
  • your insight;
  • your decision;
  • your recommendation;
  • the impact;
  • the implementation;
  • or the risk;

ask whether it belongs.

The Attention Test

For every slide, ask: What is the one thing the judges need to take away from this slide? If your team cannot answer that question in one sentence, the slide probably needs work.

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