What’s worse than poorly run meetings? Meetings overly dependent on PowerPoint slideshows. Consider these ideas for creating effective PowerPoint presentations.

A PowerPoint slide that bounded around the Internet earlier this year illustrated how dependent the nation’s military has become on the Microsoft presentation program of computer-generated charts, graphs and bullet points — and how the software can stifle critical thinking and thoughtful decision-making.

“‘Death by PowerPoint,’ the phrase used to describe the numbing sensation that accompanies a 30-slide briefing, seems here to stay,” the New York Times says.

Contrary to what those of us who have ever suffered through viewing or making a PowerPoint presentation might think, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

“[T]he advent of PowerPoint and similar software has made it possible to convey ideas more quickly and concisely than ever before,” Ron Ashkenas, a managing partner of Schaffer Consulting and author of Simply Effective, recently wrote at Harvard Business Review online. “The purpose of a presentation is to extract and summarize key issues in a way that engages the audience — sparking new thinking and dialogue.

“The problem is that these tools are often misused,” according to Ashkenas.

In a New York Times interview earlier this year, Cristóbal Conde, president and CEO of software services firm SunGard, agreed: “The problem is not the software, it’s how people use it.”

The poor quality of PowerPoint presentations in meetings typically isn’t caused by lack of information — most of the time there is too much — but rather with the way the presentation is presented.

“Projected slides are a good medium for depicting an idea graphically or providing an overview,” Joe Sommerville, founder of consultancy Peak Communication Performance, writes in About.com’s The Seven Deadly Sins of PowerPoint Presentations. “They are a poor medium for detail and reading.”

A PowerPoint presentation should be “entertaining and thought provoking,” Ashkenas says. What it shouldn’t be is a data dump.

If you have lots of data and information, and all you want to do is create a file of facts and figures, “then cancel the meeting and send in a report,” according to Seth Godin, author of Linchpin, Purple Cow and other bestselling business books. “[M]ake slides that reinforce your words, not repeat them.”

The audience should be able to digest and retain key points easily. To emphasize a main point, “put it on the screen by itself and let people read it,” Scott Stratten, an organizational behavior expert, advises at About.com’s Small Business: Canada guide. “A good rule for effective PowerPoint presentations is to put up only your main points and use the screen as a reference.

“Your slideshow is not the presentation,” Stratten emphasizes. “It is an aid.”

A PowerPoint presentation protocol worth following might be renowned venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki‘s, who suggests the 10/20/30 rule: 10 PowerPoint slides lasting 20 minutes in a font no smaller than 30 points.

Kawasaki recommends:

• 10 slides — “Ten is the optimal number of slides in a PowerPoint presentation because a normal human being cannot comprehend more than 10 concepts in a meeting… .”
• 20 minutes — “You should give your 10 slides in 20 minutes. Sure, you have an hour time slot, but you’re using a Windows laptop, so it will take forty minutes to make it work with the projector,” Kawasaki says. “Even if setup goes perfectly, people will arrive late and have to leave early.”
• 30-point font — Rather than use a 10-point font to jam as much text onto a slide as possible, “force yourself to use no font smaller than 30 points,” Kawasaki advises. “I guarantee it will make your presentations better because it requires you to find the most salient points and to know how to explain them well.

“Powerpoint could be the most powerful tool on your computer. But it’s not,” Godin says. “Countless innovations fail because their champions use PowerPoint the way Microsoft wants them to, instead of the right way.”

Related: U.S. Military at War with PowerPoint

Resources

We Have Met the Enemy and He Is PowerPoint
by Elisabeth Bumiller
The New York Times, April 26, 2010

How to Avoid Death by Presentation
by Ron Ashkenas
Harvard Business Review Blogs, July 6, 2010

Structure? The Flatter, the Better
by Adam Bryant
The New York Times, Jan. 16, 2010

The Seven Deadly Sins of PowerPoint Presentations
by Joseph Sommerville
About.com: Entrepreneurs

Really Bad Powerpoint
by Seth Godin
Seth Godin’s Blog, Jan. 29, 2007

Giving Effective PowerPoint Presentations
by Scott Stratten
About.com: Small Business: Canada

The 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint
by Guy Kawasaki
How to Change the World, Dec. 30, 2005

12 Tips for Creating Better Presentations
by Stephanie Krieger
Microsoft at Work

The 10 Most Common Presentation Mistakes
by Wendy Russell
About.com: Presentation Software

The PowerPoint Team Blog
Microsoft Corporation

PowerPointers
The Presentation Team

Presentation Zen
by Garr Reynolds