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I always start a technical presentation with "spoilers", for anyone who is busy or is happy to just trust me, they can leave almost immediately with the most im

I always start a technical presentation with "spoilers", for anyone who is busy or is happy to just trust me, they can leave almost immediately with the most important bit of information. Anyone else who wants disagree, or wants proof any claims can get involved.

marginalia_nu 2y ago
Yeah, the inverted pyramid[1] is almost always a good pattern when conveying important information. Not only do you end up telling people why they should care first, the less interesting stuff ends up at the end, so if you run over time (or someone zones out), they aren't missing much. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_pyramid_(journalism) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_pyramid_(journalism)
- hackernewds 2y ago
  In practice, this ends up with attendees interrupting with pointless questions that are covered in the next slides
  - anamexis 2y ago
    I think that is an invariant of presentations
eisenman 2y ago
This tracks with the product demo idea of ‘do the last thing first’. No need to make the audience ‘earn’ the payoff - just skip right to the good stuff and then go over the rest for the folks that care. (This and much more from reviews of a whole bunch of demos here: https://web.archive.org/web/20220126051034/https://www.secondderivative.com/surprising-new-insights.html https://web.archive.org/web/20220126051034/https://www.secon...)
floatrock 2y ago
Similar to BLUF -- Bottom Line Up Front. Hear that one used more for memos or emails, but same concept. Give people a sense of what's at the end so they see where the background is going. Use the story-spine if you want, but show a trailer to convince the audience there's some juicy explosion-ladden scenes at the end of the rainbow.
- ryandrake 2y ago
  Depends on the audience. I've seen presentations to Director-and-VP types that wouldn't progress past the first (fact summary) slide. You'll present a nice summary of your results with the high level conclusions, and someone will open their mouth and say "Well, what about Detail X that I heard about? How did you account for that?" and you say "We'll get to that, it's actually explained on slide 6." "Well, I heard through Dave that..." now you have to either discuss it immediately without the slide's context, or awkwardly scroll to slide 6 for the guy. Then some other exec pipes in with "But, my team's component Y was not included here at all!" and you say, "That's slide 3. I was planning on that being my first topic, but we got side tracked with Detail X..." Then the original exec "Speaking of Detail X, what about SubDetail Z, which I notice you left off [the summary slide]..." Uggghhhhh kill me now.
  - alexthehurst 2y ago
    Those execs sound like terrible communicators. It’s hard for me to imagine a colleague acting this way in real life.
    - jdlshore 2y ago
      Oh, it’s real, and goes down exactly as GP describes.
    - bityard 2y ago
      If you've never had a co-worker or manager interrupt you mid-sentence to breathlessly ask you a question that is literally answered by the second half of the sentence you were GOING to finish, then my friend you should go buy a lottery ticket because this happens to me daily, in every job I have ever had in the last 20 years in tech.
BiteCode_dev 2y ago
I do that with all the blog articles I write: start with a summary, with full reusable code you can copy/paste when appropriate. That's what I want from others, so that's what I do. Let the ego aside, be useful.

marginalia_nu 2y ago

Yeah, the inverted pyramid[1] is almost always a good pattern when conveying important information. Not only do you end up telling people why they should care first, the less interesting stuff ends up at the end, so if you run over time (or someone zones out), they aren't missing much. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_pyramid_(journalism) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_pyramid_(journalism)

hackernewds 2y ago
In practice, this ends up with attendees interrupting with pointless questions that are covered in the next slides
- anamexis 2y ago
  I think that is an invariant of presentations

eisenman 2y ago

This tracks with the product demo idea of ‘do the last thing first’. No need to make the audience ‘earn’ the payoff - just skip right to the good stuff and then go over the rest for the folks that care. (This and much more from reviews of a whole bunch of demos here: https://web.archive.org/web/20220126051034/https://www.secondderivative.com/surprising-new-insights.html https://web.archive.org/web/20220126051034/https://www.secon...)

floatrock 2y ago

Similar to BLUF -- Bottom Line Up Front. Hear that one used more for memos or emails, but same concept. Give people a sense of what's at the end so they see where the background is going. Use the story-spine if you want, but show a trailer to convince the audience there's some juicy explosion-ladden scenes at the end of the rainbow.

ryandrake 2y ago
Depends on the audience. I've seen presentations to Director-and-VP types that wouldn't progress past the first (fact summary) slide. You'll present a nice summary of your results with the high level conclusions, and someone will open their mouth and say "Well, what about Detail X that I heard about? How did you account for that?" and you say "We'll get to that, it's actually explained on slide 6." "Well, I heard through Dave that..." now you have to either discuss it immediately without the slide's context, or awkwardly scroll to slide 6 for the guy. Then some other exec pipes in with "But, my team's component Y was not included here at all!" and you say, "That's slide 3. I was planning on that being my first topic, but we got side tracked with Detail X..." Then the original exec "Speaking of Detail X, what about SubDetail Z, which I notice you left off [the summary slide]..." Uggghhhhh kill me now.
- alexthehurst 2y ago
  Those execs sound like terrible communicators. It’s hard for me to imagine a colleague acting this way in real life.
  - jdlshore 2y ago
    Oh, it’s real, and goes down exactly as GP describes.
  - bityard 2y ago
    If you've never had a co-worker or manager interrupt you mid-sentence to breathlessly ask you a question that is literally answered by the second half of the sentence you were GOING to finish, then my friend you should go buy a lottery ticket because this happens to me daily, in every job I have ever had in the last 20 years in tech.

BiteCode_dev 2y ago

I do that with all the blog articles I write: start with a summary, with full reusable code you can copy/paste when appropriate. That's what I want from others, so that's what I do. Let the ego aside, be useful.