The Presentation Salt Mine

I entered the deep, dark presentation salt mine this week to produce a slide deck that presents options to deal with a thorny issue. Several of the options were ... well ... silly. For example, an executive asked us to double the headcount to cut the schedule in half. I can't recall the last time somebody asked me to do that. Most managers now recognize that people are not interchangeable parts, that there is a learning curve to bringing new people on board, and there is communication overhead to leading a larger crew. In short, there no straight line math between resources and schedule.

In any case, we exercised every option to demonstrate our ability to do completed staff work. The slide deck was then reviewed by multiple layers of management in a beautifully choreographed dance of meetings, edits, and updates. One executive with a touch of formatting flair even added a cool blue arrow pointing from one place to another! The finished product was truly elegant. In the reflection on my computer screen, I could see my mouth was slightly ajar as I gasped in awe at the creation.

Slide Junkies

Although the presentation salt mine did produce a stunning work of art, I'm mindful that Lotus Notes will automatically throw it in the trash (delete it) in another three months. I was left to wonder if all the work to produce the deck was worth the cost? Would it have been possible to discuss this topic with no slides? I know that I'd feel a little exposed without my PowerPoint Protection (PPP) force field, but the truth is ... there was nothing on the slides that couldn't be discussed interactively with an archaic process known in the 20th century as face-to-face communication. And here's where I experienced a revelation: when you give a presentation using PowerPoint, people are looking at the slides ... not at you. Maybe we use slides unconsciously to deflect attention?

Let's Just Talk

I challenge progressive managers to accept and encourage fireside chats where you discuss a topic with very little slideware. That cultural change could have any impact on IBM's bottom line. I recognize that executives are busy people and we shouldn't waste their time with ill conceived proposals. So all parties must be prepared. Likewise, they shouldn't waste our time by jamming us into a presentation salt mine for countless hours. After all, there is an opportunity cost to producing slides since the people creating them aren't doing value add work.