On Monday, I put out a desperate plea, seeking advice for an SME who had a tough time in the preparation and delivery of a presentation (click here to see the full post). Training legend Bob Pike read the case study and decided to weigh in on this particular situation. Following is what he suggested.
Agree? Disagree? Have other ideas? Share your thoughts in the Comments section below.
“Here are questions I would ask in order to respond to the situation:
1. How many in the audience?
2. Are they all eye doctors?
3. Why did they need this presentation?
4. What is the outcome of the presentation supposed to be?
5. Why were you asked to do this presentation? What do you bring that is unique?
Then, given that it is only 30 minutes and that there is probably a huge amount of expertise in the audience I might approach it this way:
1. I’ve given each of you a piece of paper. Working with a partner you have two minutes to draw an eyeball and label as many parts of it as possible. Begin. At the end of two minutes I would say, “familiarity doesn’t mean competence.”
2. Then, I would allow them two minutes to confer with those around them and add/subtract/correct anything they want to.
3. I would the use this as a springboard into pulling from them the anatomy starting from macro to micro, maybe with a large poster of the eye rather than a PowerPoint just to change it up.
One thing we constantly talk with our trainers about is having at least two ways to present each piece of content so that we are not dependent on technology.”
Bob Pike CSP, CPAE, CPLP Fellow, MPCT
Chairman Emeritus/Founder, The Bob Pike Group
Founder/Editor, The Creative Training Techniques Newsletter
Past Chairman of the Executive Board – Lead Like Jesus
