Details
1-day course
CPD Credit: 7 hours, C4
Course Aim
To explain how technical presentations work and help you to select and structure material that you can deliver in a sophisticated way.
Overview
In conversations, people use concrete language to creatively explain what they do, with stories, examples, analogies, demonstrations, and even images, diagrams and graphs. In presentations, however, people tend to speak in the abstract, fill their slides with bullet points and fail to address the needs of the audience. This course explains why presenters do this and how to put it right. In focusing on the tools for communicating technical content, it will allow you to communicate with the energy and punch that you would in a conversation.
Course Structure
This blended learning programme consists of:
- Online modules to be taken in advance of -
- Expert-led full-day of workshops, discussions and presentations.
A week in advance of the workshop, participants will be able to access a suite of specialised online lessons and notes on 13 core presentation topics (aim, structure, body language, visual aids, stories, interaction, etc.) to complete as per their own schedule. Each person will prepare a short technical presentation to deliver during the live session.
The day of interactive sessions with the trainer will consist of:
- Visual Aids and Video tutorial and workshop
- Tips on presenting online, and participant questions and discussion
- Online participant presentations and feedback
Learning Objectives
On completion of the course, you will be able to:
- Figure out where a presentation fits on the ‘communication chain’, and thus set a clear and realistic aim for your talk.
- Learn the basic design principles for visual aids which can be so much more than just lists of bullet points.
- Learn how to create a clear and elegant slideshow in PowerPoint.
- Learn how cognitive communication tools – such as analogies, examples, stories and demonstrations – allow you to communicate ‘schematically’, as well as just ‘logically’, thus making your technical content easier to comprehend and remember.
- Appreciate the importance of interaction (a live presentation’s greatest strength) and realise that the audience will learn more if they are active. Learn how to deal with questions.
- Learn the importance of eye contact and how it can be used to simultaneously modulate delivery, forge a better connection with the audience and emphasize key points.
- Modify body language by properly positioning yourself in the room and using yourself, essentially, as a visual aid.
- Learn strategies for controlling nerves.
- Learn the differences between online and live presentations, and gain experience in presenting before a group.
Trainer's Profile
Barry Brophy helps people to make technical presentations. Based in the School of Mechanical Engineering, UCD, he teaches two masters modules in technical communication and carries out research on how technical presentations work. He also has an extensive client list in the private sector, including: Abbvie, BP, De Puy, ESB, Faber Maunsell, Jacobs Engineering, Microsoft, PM, Wyeth, etc.
Barry’s approach is to get people to use their conversational skills when making a presentation. The focus can then be placed on crafting content – images, graphs, videos, stories, analogies, examples, demonstrations, interaction – to naturally deliver an audience-focused presentation. He has written two books, The Natural Presenter, 2007, and Awful Presentations, 2017, and many articles, including several for the Engineers Journal. There is more information on his website.
Please contact the Team for further information on scheduled course dates and In-Company options. You can reach us by phone: 01 665 1305 or email cpdtraining@engineersireland.ie