Use ‘ORDER’ to Plan a Presentation

How useful do you find acronyms to help you remember concepts?

When we think about planning a presentation we often don’t know where to start. Using an acronym to give us focus when brainstorming our presentation content can really help.

Let me introduce you to the acronym ORDER. I came across it the other day in the book I’m reading, ‘The Insider’s Guide to High-Performance Presentations’ by Geoff Marsh.

ORDER stands for:

Opening

Repeated

Different

End

References

it’s different and that’s what’s good about it. Here are the details:

Opening

It’s said you have as little as 45 seconds to convince your audience you’re worth listening to. Don’t waste those vital first moments. Use a hook to open your presentation– a story, insightful question or interesting quotation that connects to your presentation topic.

Repeated

It’s a sad but true fact that people don’t remember much from a presentation, but you need to make sure they remember your key messages. Repeat your key messages at appropriate moments in your presentation, especially at the end. You can also use a ‘sound bite’ which is a concise slogan that reiterates your core message. “Yes, we can” from Barack Obama in his November 2008 election speech is a great example of a sound bite.

Different

If people remember little from presentations, we can safely say they remember NOTHING from boring presentations. Dare to be different and original. You can do this via an original hook, a slide deck that has a fresh and different style from the usual one used in your company or using different ways to get interaction from your audience.

End

Don’t let your presentation just ‘fizzle out’. If you find yourself saying ‘that’s it’ to let your audience know you’ve finished, you’re wasting a valuable communication moment. To end your presentation professionally, highlight the most important key points then give a conclusion that influences the audience towards what you want them to do now or how you want them to think or feel.

References

Engaging with your audience involves referring to things that are important to them or things they can relate to. What references can you use to engage? Do you have any personal anecdotes of a situation related to your presentation topic that they can identify with? What challenges can you refer to that build empathy and lay the ground to introduce the recommendation/solution you might be proposing with your presentation?

So that’s ORDER. Of course, there is so much more to planning a talk but ORDER gives us a useful checklist of ingredients that need to be included in the recipe for effective presentations.

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