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PowerPoint Ninja/Chapter 4

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Things you need to know: the ninja golden rules

There are three sets of Golden Rules that you must follow when creating impact documents using PowerPoint. Each of the three sets have ten rules each. The three sets of Golden Rules are:

  1. The Content Golden Rules
  2. The Design Golden Rules
  3. The Chart Golden Rules.

Each of the sets of Golden Rules are discussed below. Instructions on how to actually use PowerPoint (as software) to create presentations following these Golden Rules is then outlined in the various chapters of Part II.


The 10 Content Golden Rules

  1. Tell a story: your document must be readable!
  2. Think and write simple and precise
  3. Ask “So What?” about everything
  4. Think document structure from the outset
  5. Establish design standards for page content
  6. Shadowpacks and hypothesies win
  7. The document and executive summary stands alone
  8. Re-use frameworks and design elements
  9. Always, always state your sources
  10. Think about how to present the document in the time allotted

Rule 1: Tell a story: your document must be readable

The first thing to think about when you are preparing any printed document it to clearly focus on why you are preparing the document, who is going to read or use the document, and what you are trying to achieve with the document.

Once you have settled your objective and audience you simply must take a deep breath and think about what the story is that you are telling. What is the compelling story that you can tell that achieves your objective? Where does your story start, what is the evil to be avoided that requires action, or what is the prize the pursuit of which should commence immediately.

Reduce your story to one single paragraph of no more than five sentences. Actually write it, on a piece of paper, or in a word processor, or an email – but make sure you write it and polish it before you start your document. Be sure in your paragraph to cite the reasons that compel the action you are seeking – that is, why should the audience believe what you are saying as to the problem or opportunity, and the appropriateness of your solution or approach.

This single paragraph then guides all of the content in your document. If content does not contribute to the narrative you have constructed then it does not belong in your document and should be deleted.

Moral of the story: think story before you go anywhere near PowerPoint to create your document.

Rule 2: Think and write simple and precise

Once you have your story straight, you then need to flesh out the content of your presentation to tell and prove the story. In preparing and constructing this content you should simplify the information for understanding whilst retaining an appropriate degree of precision.

For example, in financial presentations, rarely do individual dollars and cents matter. Indeed, in many presentations the appropriate scale is thousands or millions. Some numbers may have to be intelligently estimated, rather than analysis not performed because an exact number down to the cent cannot be obtained. Focus on the story, and what you need to tell it.


Rule 3: Ask “So what?” about everything

When you have written text, created a chart, or drawn a table, reflect on the page and consider how you can simplify the page to remove unnecessary detail, and better assist the reader in identifying and understanding the point that you are trying to make.

Stand back and ask yourself three questions:

  1. So what?
  2. How does this add to the story I am trying to tell?
  3. How can I simplify the message and make it sharper.

When you ask yourselves these questions, and review your work critically, rarely would you never find something that can be removed or trimmed.

Rule 4: Think document structure from the outset

The creation of any document in PowerPoint has several activities, including authoring, design, and production. Your objective is to maximize the time you spend on the authoring and content aspects of your document, and to minimize the time spent on design and rework.

What this means is that you need to think like a rigorous publisher – imagine that you are a publisher producing a printed work, like a book. At the outset of the process, before creating a single page you must determine the structure of the document. What is the structure that will support telling the story that you are creating, and what structure will be most useful to your readers?

If your report is an analysis and research with recommendations for action then clearly you need to have a discrete section where the recommendations are made, rather than force your reader to read every page of the document to prepare their own list of the recommendations that you are making.

A typical document structure will include:

  1. a cover page,
  2. a table of contents for the document
  3. a list of abbreviations (if necessary)
  4. executive summary
  5. table of contents for each section
  6. content pages for each section
  7. a table of contents for annexures
  8. pages for the annexures.

In addition to determining the sections for your document you need to plan how many pages will be present in each section. Note that you are doing this before you have even started to write. You should list down each section of your document and write a number of pages beside each. How many sections will your have? What are they called? How many pages are you going to have in each section?

The size of the document will depend on its audience and its usage, however the best case is to always err on the side of brevity rather than length.

I find the best way to approach this process is to first estimate the size of the overall document that you are trying to create – is the objective 50 pages, 20 pages, 80 pages etc? Once you have a broad idea of the overall size of the document, work backwards. You know that the cover page and table of contents will take one page each. You know that each section will have a table of contents etc.

For example, say you wanted to put together a document of no more than 50 pages that is going to be discussed in a 60-minute meeting. The document will have four sections:

  1. Executive Summary
  2. Research
  3. Recommendations

you know that of the 50 pages you already have 6 structural pages for the document cover page, table of contents, and cover page for each of the four sections.

Now have 46 pages left to play with. You want the executive summary to be self-supporting – that is, if the executive summary became separated from the rest of the document then it would make sense by itself as a complete document. Your objective is to keep the executive summary succinct, to no more than 5 pages. This now leaves 41 pages for the three other content sections.


Slide 4.1: Actual PowerPoint slide. A useful way to plan the structure of a document is to draw the structure of the document and estimate the pages for each element.

Having regard to the complexity of the recommendations you are making, you think you will need 12 pages for that section.

This now leaves 29 pages for sections two and three. You allocate 14 pages for section two, Research, and 15 pages for section three, Findings.

What this exercise does it forces you to narrow your focus – you need to know what your document is going to look and feel like before you start the process of distilling down your knowledge and learnings into a form that will be presented. Of course, as you go through the authoring process, you may choose to rebalance the distribution of page counts throughout the various sections of the your document, or you may decide to lengthen, or better, shorten your document – but you now have a base from which to work.

Once you have this base, you will create a mockup of your presentation, but to do that, you need to know the fifth rule.

Rule 5: Establish design standards for page content

Once you have determined the overall structure of your document, you need to establish standards for the pages that are within your document. Your page design should be consistent, just like the design for books or other printed works. You need to establish a design for each of the following elements:

  1. the document cover page
  2. a standard format for all other pages (slide master settings)
  3. the table of contents for the document
  4. a list of defined terms used in the document
  5. pages (textual and chart)

The document cover page

Your document will always have a cover page. The cover page design addresses a range of items, specifically: the name of the report, the name of the author, a date, contact details for the author, and usually some form of logo or graphic.

Standard format for all other pages (slide master settings)

Your slide master settings establish the overall design settings for your document, including page margins, section numbering scheme, heading locations, fonts, background graphics, report footer and page numbering. These settings are then used by each of the other types of pages discussed below.

The Table of Contents

The Table of Contents, the second page of the presentation, lists the major document sections and provides page references. Note that whilst Word can automatically create tables of contents, PowerPoint cannot. All tables of contents in PowerPoint presentations are manually created and updated. It follows that the page numbers for each section should only be completed in the Table of Contents at the end of the process, or when a draft is being circulated to a group for comment.

Slide 4.2: Actual PowerPoint slide. Once the structure is settled you need to establish a design for the cover page and the table of contents.

Section table of contents

If your report has several sections, and each section is more than around eight pages, you should consider using sections table of contents. These pages appear before the content pages for the particular section. Sectional table of contents are valuable mechanisms to control the flow of a presentation, as they give the presenter the opportunity to clearly mark the close of the previous section and the opening of the new section – they provide amental breather and control the pace through the material. The section table of contents should bear the name of the section in its headline, and the items listed are then the major pages that appear in the section.

In some presentations, each page in a section is worthy of inclusion in the section table of contents. In other presentations, a particular part of the section may take three pages to cover, and the section table of contents would indicate the first of those pages only. You need to be careful to ensure that the language used in the section table of contents matches the text of the headlines that are used on the content pages in the section of your document. The design of section table of contents should be similar to the overall document table of contents.

Defined terms used in the document

If your document uses a series of abbreviations that may not be known to possible readers you should provide a page listing the abbreviation and its meaning at the front of the document, in a page following the table of contents. When a defined term is first used in the body of the text, you should still provide the full name and then indicate the abbreviation in brackets following the term. For example, the following would appear in the body of the text: “Johnson Engineering Consultants (JEC)”

Content Pages

Content pages are the primary vehicles to carry your content and messages to your audience – here you distinguish the quality of your work, your research, your reasoning and your recommendations to your readers. Outstanding ideas poorly communicated are less valuable than average ideas that are well communicated and therefore capable of implementation. Effective content pages always bear a common design framework – they have consistent elements that are always layed out in a consistent way.

In this way, once your readers understand the way you have structured material, and your common approach to communicating messages, they do not need to spend time on each page trying to figure out where the important information is.

The following pages provide a suggested design layout for content pages, specifically a two-column design for textual material, and a layout for content pages containing a chart or other drawing.

In this layout, the slide master control the font and location of the headline and the key message text which occurs at the top of the page. The two columns for the textual content page are separate identical text boxes which have the same font and formatting settings.

For charts, the headline and the key message text are both controlled by the slide master, and then the chart object and other associated text boxes are manually placed on the page. In this way, irrespective of the type of content page, there is always a consistent headline approach, and a short key message of no more than three lines at the top of the page that summarizes the conclusion to be reached from the content or chart on the page.

Slide 4.3: Actual PowerPoint slide. Establishing a rigorous structure for content pages binds the presentation together. Note the page headline, and the key message text in the top three lines that are both controlled by the slide master.

Rule 6: Shadowpacks, hypothesies and storyboards win

By this stage you have determined the layout for the various pages required for your document, and estimated the number of pages in each section. The next step is to create what is commonly called a shadowpack, a document that has the number of pages and structural elements as the document you are going to complete. In other words you are creating a fill out the blanks framework for your document. The shadowpack for the example 50 page document we discussed above would be: 

Page	Page style/content
1.	Cover page
2.	Table of contents
3.	Cover page for Section 1 – Executive summary
4 - 8	5 blank content pages in 2 column layout, with headings in the body copy for Research, Findings, Recommendations and Next Steps
9	Cover page for Section 2 – Research
10 - 11	2 blank content pages in 2 column layout for summary
12 - 23 	12 blank content pages with space for charts or figures
24	Cover page for Section 3 – Findings
25	2 blank content pages in 2 column layout for summary
26 – 40	13 blank content pages with space for charts or figures
41	Cover page for Section 4 – Recommendations
42 - 44	2 blank content pages in 2 column layout for summary
45 – 50	6 blank content pages with space for charts, timelines, tables or figures.

[Something about scientific method and hypothesis]

Once you have the shadowpack you need to consider the analysis and content which will be on each page. generally you will be in a position to do this after you have neen able to form your Initial Hypothesis. This stage involves printing the shadowpack and then drawing the pictures, charts, tables and frameworks that you are going to use on each page. Note that at this stage you do not have the data for the charts – but you know what you think it will show, so you can draw the type of chart (bar, pie, stack etc) that will best demonstrate the point you want to make if the data turns out to prove your Initial Hypothesis.

Do not create the charts electronically until after you have then done the work, sourced the data, and it has turned out to be what you expected.

[say something about the fact that the storyboards then constrain the amount and type of data gathering and analysis that you have to do and focuses on what would be the best page that will demonstrate the point that you are tying to make

Rule 7: The executive summary stands alone

The executive summary of your report should be capable of being separated from your report and understood as a complete unit by itself, without reference to the other pages of your document. Often it is helpful to use headings in the executive summary that match the headings of the sections of your document, and to summarize beneath those headings the key things that are discussed in each of the sections.

If we return to thinking about your document as a story, your executive summary must tell the story at a high level – but it must include all of the important points. The executive summary is also a convenient place to acknowledge the people who assisted in the preparation of the document, reviewed the document, or were interviewed in the course of the project.

The final paragraphs of the executive summary should clearly articulate the next steps to be taken, or the decision to be made. In this way, a reader can quickly determine the action that is required based on the contents of the document.

Rule 8: Re-use frameworks, design elements and key numbers

In creating the charts and other graphical content for your document be on the lookout for the opportunity to reuse frameworks or charts that have been used previously in your document, with an amendment or additional text appropriate to the new use. This often occurs in presentations, where in successive pages data or research findings is reviewed from a different perspective, or to highlight a different issue, and the natural temptation is to create a new chart or object for each purpose.

However, if we are focusing on the ability of the reader to quickly understand and action the information that is being presented in the document, then reusing an existing framework makes much more sense.

[something about common numbers that are introduced and then referred to throughout the presentation in the same way – e the 18M of inventory etc]

Rule 9: Always, always state your sources

Simple rule – always state the sources for your data in the same location at the bottom of each page.

Rule 10: Think about how to present the document in the time allotted

As you are structuring, preparing, and writing your document, always be thinking about how you are going to present this document in the time allotted for your final presentation. There will never be enough time in such a presentation to allow your attendees to read every page. There will not even be enough time for you to highlight every page you think must be drawn to their attention. You need to be highly selective. As you go through this process, consider how complicated a particular page is, and how long it will take to explain the chart before you can draw meaning for the discussion.

As a presenter, you want to avoid the following sins:

  • you were unable to get to the end of the document in the time allotted – you ran out of time using your strategy for reviewing the document
  • you found yourself making decisions on the run about what pages had to be neglected in order to be able to make it to the end of the material before the time ran out
  • you found yourself making excuses, and lamenting that if only you had more time you would really like to have shown them pages 12 – 78.


Slide 4.4: Actual PowerPoint slide. Pages with charts still obey the standard page layout structure of headline and key text. Note that more than one chart object can be placed on a page. 

When you practice your presentation, which of course you will, pay attention to pages or concepts tha take more time than they are worth in the context of other material, and identify a path through the material which is logical and strongly presents the story that you have chosen.
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