Presentation reflection 3

I am writing this back in my office.  It all happened 2 days ago.

Three weeks after I started at PLC had to take an agenda item to the team meeting.  I was required to report on my progress in the project on which I am working.  I am developing a new database for the management information system of the company.  I was immediately worried.  I was scared about not saying the right things and not being able to answer questions properly.  I did a presentation in my course at university and felt the same about it initially.  I was thinking then, like this time, I could use my acting skills.  Both times that was helpful in maintaining my confidence at first, at least.  Though the fact that I was all right last time through the whole presentation may not have helped me this time!

I decided to use Power Point.  I was not very easy about its use because I have seen it go wrong so often.  However, I have not seen anyone else give a presentation here without using it - and learning to use Power Point would be valuable.  I was not sure, when it came to the session, whether I really knew enough about running Power Point.  (How do you know when you know enough about something? – dummy runs, I suppose, but I couldn’t get the laptop when I wanted it).

When it came to the presentation, I really wanted to do it well – as well as the presentations were done the week before.  Maybe I wanted too much to do well.  Previous presentations have been interesting, informative and clear and I thought the handouts from them were good (I noticed that the best gave enough but not too much information).

In the event, the session was a disaster and has left me feeling uncomfortable in my work and I even worry about it at home.  I need to think about why a simple presentation could have such an effect on me.  The Power Point went wrong (I think I clicked on the wrong thing. My efforts to be calm and ‘cool’ failed and my voice went wobbly – that was, anyway, how it felt to me.  My colleague actually said afterwards that I looked quite calm despite what I was feeling (I am not sure whether she meant it or was trying to help me).  When I think back to that moment, if I had thought that I still looked calm (despite what I felt), I could have regained the situation.  As it was, it went from bad to worse and I know that my state became obvious because Mrs Shaw, my boss, began to answer the questions that people were asking for me. 

I am thinking about the awful presentation again – it was this time last week.  I am reading what I wrote earlier about it.  Now I return to it, I do have a slightly different perspective.  I think that it was not as bad as it felt at the time.  Several of my colleagues told me afterwards that Mrs Shaw always steps in to answer questions like that and they commented that I handled her intrusion well.  That is interesting, my university presentations have not involved someone with such control issues.  I need to do some thinking about how to act next time to prevent this interruption from happening or to deal with the situation when she starts*.  I might look in the library for that book on assertiveness.

I have talked to Mrs Shaw now too.  I notice that my confidence in her is not all that great while I am still feeling a bit cross.  However, I am feeling more positive generally and I can begin to analyse what I could do better in the presentation.  It is interesting to see the change in my attitude after a week.  I need to think from the beginning about the process of giving a good presentation..  I am not sure how helpful was my reliance on my acting skills*.  Acting helped my voice to be stronger and better paced, but I was not just trying to put over someone else’s lines but my own and I needed to be able to discuss matters in greater depth rather than just give the line*.

I probably will use Power Point again.  I have had a look in the manual and it suggests that you treat it as a tool – not let it dominate and not use it as a means of presenting myself.  That is what I think I was doing.  I need not only to know how to use it, but I need to feel sufficiently confident in its use so I can retrieve the situation when things go wrong.  That means understanding more than just the sequence of actions*.  I would also keep trying until I managed to find a laptop to use for a dummy run as this would solve some of my problems next time.

I remember that the Learning & Teaching Unit at UniSA had resources to help students prepare for presentations.  I have gone back to their site and thought about what I did versus their suggestions.  In future, I will spend more time both preparing and practicing using Power Point (with the laptop as well as my work PC)*.  I will arrive early on the day to test equipment and also prepare for the types of questions I might be asked*. This may have overcome my problems and increased my confidence before I started.

As I am writing this, I am noticing how useful it is to go back over things I have written about before.  I seem to be able to see the situation differently.  The first time I wrote this, I felt that the presentation was dreadful and that I could not have done it differently.  Then later I realised that there were things I did not know at the time (eg about Mrs Shaw and her habit of interrupting).  I also recognise some of the areas in which I went wrong.  At the time I could not see that.  It was as if my low self esteem got in the way.  Knowing where I went wrong, and admitting the errors to myself gives me a chance to improve next time – and perhaps to help Mrs Shaw to improve in her behaviour towards us!
*I have asterisked the points that I need to address in order to improve.

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Note: This presentation is a modified version of Watton, Collings and Moon's 'Reflective Writing Guidance Notes for Students', April 2001