Life Science Rabbit Hole #19: Great Presentations, Part 2
Charles Hartwig
Strategy execution consulting for mission-driven life science companies. Committed to trusted advisor relationships and lifelong clients.
Readers of the Life Science Rabbit Hole may remember Life Science Rabbit Hole #3: Great Presentations.
Among other points, it covered the importance of
Recently our team helped a client prepare for a technical review with a US agency involved in funding life science innovation.? Of course, the meeting required a presentation.?
This particular presentation involved plenty of data – evidence of fit with the agency’s requirements, data showing it solves the unmet medical need, technical comparisons to other products, development feasibility, clinical timeline, funding requirements, and so forth.
As the group reviewed and revised the client’s draft presentation, I realized that some of the suggestions we made in that meeting might also benefit Life Science Rabbit Hole readers.
Meeting outcome and understanding your audience
For my client, the intended outcome was clear: “The agency agrees that the program meets the agency’s objectives and encourages us to submit a funding proposal.”
It was important to understand the perspective of this audience.? In my client’s case, with their audience being a government agency, they need to be assured my client’s solution directly met the published grant requirements and the other relevant criteria of the funding program.? The agency must follow their established guidelines and procedure, and my client must provide evidence to support their decision.? In fact, this agency has a defined outline that presenters must follow.
Leaving aspects of the agency’s requirements unaddressed by the presentation gets in the way of them saying “Yes”.
Achieving your intended outcome requires more than demonstrating what a great idea it is.? The decision makers for your presentation will have their own requirements, policies, procedure, etc. – you must equip your audience to say Yes.?
The last thing you want is a delay because of issues that you could have addressed proactively and covered in the discussion.? No matter how much they support your idea, they can’t ignore policy or procedural constraints, such as, “I don’t see that you have received regulatory signoff”, or “you haven’t confirmed which budget is funding this initiative”, or “an investment of this level needs an NPV calculation and signoff by Finance”, etc.
Line of Argument
At this point you should know your desired outcome and have assessed your audience, perhaps using the slide from Life Science Rabbit Hole #3: Great Presentations.
Most teams would now start to build a slide deck for the meeting.? Wait!
Before you start creating any slides, construct a clear ‘line of argument’ that leads the audience to your desired outcome and addresses requirements such as those just discussed.
Here is a brief example of a line of argument.?
Desired Outcome: “Executive Team approves the investment”
The investment in this example could be the acquisition of a small company, development of a follow-on product, an internal restructuring or process transformation, a digital marketing plan, an AI solution to improve product quality, etc.
Line of Argument
In this example, the team has created a simple, compelling line of argument that provides precisely what your audience requires to reach a decision.? Note how each point above is stated as a conclusion.
By defining your line of argument, you have also created the outline of your presentation.
Now you're ready to build your presentation!
Slides to Support Your Story
Start by creating a ‘storyboard’ - sketching out (by hand on paper is how I usually do it) a series of slides that lay out your line of argument.? In the example above, you might start with 6 slides plus a title slide, perhaps adding a couple of additional slides if some of your key points can’t be clearly conveyed in a single slide.?
Each slide in your deck must have a specific purpose that supports your line of argument.?
Very often when I’m working with teams preparing slides for important decisions, I see beautiful & clever slides, but when I ask them “What’s the purpose of this slide?” or “How does this slide support your argument?” the teams realize that maybe the slide isn’t needed, or will take the audience off-topic, or the point the slide is intending to make isn’t clear.
In my client’s case, they have a very innovative product that is likely to deliver results that nothing currently in the market can.? However, the message of some of their slides wasn’t likely to be clear to the audience.?
When we clarified the purpose of those slides it was much easier for them to determine the visuals and data that support the slide’s message.
For your presentation, you may need a slide covering the clinical development program.? Before you can create a great clinical development slide, you must be clear on the purpose of the slide to support your line of argument.? Do you need to focus your audience on
Likewise, if you have a slide describing your therapy or diagnostic, do you need your audience to focus on
This is why it is such a helpful practice to create your line of argument first.? Often your slide titles can reflect the conclusion you want the audience to reach as they review the slide.
You almost need to feed them the conclusion before you talk to the slide. ?
Then, based on the point you need to make with each slide, you can choose the best data visualization to reinforce your message.?
Entire books have been written covering data visualizations and when to use each.? Here is a brief article that covers the basics: 11 Data Visualization Techniques for Every Use-Case with Examples | DataCamp
Storytelling
Now that you have considered your audience, constructed your line of argument, and built a presentation that inexorably leads your audience to the conclusion, you need to address how you’re going to deliver the message.
Remember, it’s you, not your slides, that convinces your audience.? Even the most perfectly constructed presentation won’t be fully effective if you can’t hold the attention of your audience.
In this article we don’t have time for an exhaustive exploration of storytelling, but here are a few thoughts.
At the outset
Set the Context / Why they should care
Here are two examples to illustrate what I mean.
Context: “This is a follow-up from the National Sales Meeting workshop exploring digital channels”
Why Care: “With the launch of our first companion diagnostic, we have an opportunity to dramatically accelerate market adoption by adding a digital marketing & sales capability”
Another example…
Context: “We need to finalize which posters we’re submitting to the American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy conference”
Why Care: “This conference is critical to our primary pipeline objectives this year, to demonstrate to potential investors that our allogeneic therapy may offer equivalent or better efficacy compared existing autologous therapies in the market or in development”
Don’t you think your audience is more ready to engage with you now that you have set the context and explained why they should care?
Do it in an intriguing way
Instead of opening with “I’m going to present the root cause analysis of manufacturing deviations and request funding and temporary resources to accelerate closeout of deviations and put preventative actions in place.”
Open with “We’ve had a quality control mystery on our hands since June.? Deviations were being recorded faster than we could close them out.? We were generating an ever-growing backlog that was going to impact our pre-licensure inspection if we didn’t get things under control, and fast.”
With the second example, do you think your audience might sit up in their chairs a little and pay more attention to your line of argument?? Do you think they want to hear how you solved the mystery?
Convert facts & trends to examples or soundbites
Instead of “We’ve worked diligently on improving delivery of surgical kits from 95% to 97%.? I’m here to request additional resourcing and an additional $100K in outside resources to hit our target of 99% by the end of the quarter.”
Try something like
“We have increased surgical kit delivery from 95% to 97%, a much better place than we were just 3 months ago.? I’m pleased but I’m not satisfied.? Do we realize that in the last 60 days alone, surgeons who rely on us have postponed the following surgeries due to our kits not arriving?
"Every single one of these patients has a family waiting anxiously for their loved one to be treated.? Our surgeon had to call the patient or their family member to tell them that their surgery had to be postponed.? This is not who we are.? What if it was your child, your spouse, or your parent?? Now please listen closely to the team’s recommendation to solve this problem.”
Don’t you think that personalizing your point with examples or soundbites can be very powerful?
I’m not saying you don’t need solid facts and analysis in support of your line of argument.? You do.?
However, your success will be improved by
Concluding Thoughts
If you are a reader of the Life Science Rabbit Hole, you are probably a participant in the broader life science ecosystem.?
You probably realize what a privileged position you have, being able to accelerate the development of therapies, medical products and services that can improve and extend the lives of patients and those who love them.
Your recommendations are sound.? But we all see sound recommendations that are not adopted.? Using ideas shared here might result in your recommendations being adopted.? Remember why you’re here.? Patients are waiting.
I hope you find this edition of the Life Science Rabbit Hole useful to you as you lead your organization and our industry.
As always, your comments and suggestions are welcome.
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Head of Technology MedTech France and Global Portfolio Director at Johnson & Johnson
1 周Many thanks ???? Charles Hartwig for another great article: Very clear and insightful, these tips are very handy in day to day work !