Many guides and courses I saw on PPT for consultants have crowded pages. If you insert a table or chart on a page with supporting arguments (most of which are full sentences or statements) on it wouldnt that be too crowded to be considered a good PPT?
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Why are PowerPoint presentations made by consultants considered good when most pages are so crowded?
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It's a great question! The fact that you have used the word PowerPoint "presentation" already suggests the difference in approach. Typically consulting PowerPoint "documents/decks" are created to tell a story where each slide has a unique message. The reason why it becomes so visually crowded is because each slide needs to be able to provide the key factors and the underlying supporting evidence/facts independently where if the CEO were to read the PowerPoint document alone, they would still understand the story without it being voiced over by the consultant. Having said that, there is a mutual understanding that consultants have a tendency to create too many slides with too much information in each but it is driven by the fact PowerPoint is used to document all the "work" that is done throughout the project.
This isn't true at all!
In fact, BCG embarked on a powerpoint rebranding a few years back with the precise intention of making their slides less crowded!
Remember, PowerPoint is used for 2 things:
1) Presentations
2) Deliverables
For #1, good decks are less crowded, have just 1-2 key takeaways per slide, etc. etc
For #2, good decks have a LOT of content. They're used to iterate through thinking, to track discussions, to serve as a launching pad/reference point for the strategic execution! When Powerpoints are slated as final deliverables, they will be just as dense as any word document!
Hello!
I tend to agree with you.
The reason behind is that consultats use pptx not as a complement for a speech, but as a final deliverable -where for instance, Amazon would use a paper-.
Cheers,
Clara
Hi,
The slides that are publically available are mostly related to some research / whitepaper. Client presentations are usually less crowded since there is no slide limit. There is another problem - too many slides
Best
Awesome question. PPTs made by consultants are good for following reasons:
- They have a clear storyline and talk track. Some of the best ones have a story flowing in the titles of the slides. So if someone just reads the slide titles and ignores all the content, they should get the gist of it
- They combine written content with visuals in a beautiful way i.e they are optically good to look at and we know how much this matters for the human eye; often the diagrams/frameworks are great visual way to coveying a lot of info in a succinct manner
- All the detail you need is in one place (hopefully :))
- They are available for consumption anytime and some of the really well made decks can be timeless/ageless
Now, the bad:
- Yes they are crowded and PPT has been abused by consultants
- Sometimes its more of style (look, feel, colours etc) over substance (actual content)
- A lot of time and effort is invested and some of this effort can be saved to do other more value add things
Hi there,
It really depends on the presentation – not all are full of details, in particular if used only to present and not as deliverable.
When the document is a deliverable for the client, it needs to have a lot of content, as it is basically a substitute for a written report, hence the large amount of information.
Best,
Francesco
Hi there!
It`s an interesting question!
This usually depends on the purpose of the presentation. But it is better to always try to adhere to clearer and minimal visual support, not to overdo it with graphics and text, as they are really difficult to read. If you need to convey to the audience one important message or idea, then it is better to minimize the information. If you need to summarize the workflow, show the results, detailed plan, or researches then, in any case, you will need to include more text and graphics.
Was it helpful?
GB
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