“Great news!,” your boss tells you, “We have a big meeting next month, and we would like you to handle the opening 20-minute presentation: “An In-Depth Analysis of Legacy Codebase Documentation Standards and Their Impact on Software Maintenance. It should be a piece of cake for you. Thanks!”
“Yeah. Thanks a lot,” you think to yourself as you consider fleeing to Cuba. It’s understandable to be discouraged about a presentation that is sure to put people to sleep. It’s a dilemma that many experts face – how do you address complex information without losing your audience? Even if your audience is familiar with the topic, how do you keep technical discussions lively and crisp?
The overarching theme of this article is itself a technical detail in public speaking: clarity displays expertise, and considering it ‘oversimplification’ is a trap. In other words, many experts in their fields feel obligated to overshare minutiae that isn’t helpful in the context of the presentation. Unless you’re giving a college lecture, most presentations need to focus on clarity above extensive detail. Let me give you an example:
Effective Translation in Technical Presentations
Are you bilingual, or have you ever tried to communicate with someone that speaks another language? What is more important in communication – understanding complex grammar and syntax rules, or simply getting the answer to the question: “Where’s the bathroom?” It’s not uncommon for someone offering directions to simply point in the right direction. The bare-minimum information is shared to provide clarity. When you find the bathroom, you’re assured you received expert directions.
So, again, are you bilingual? If you’re the chosen expert to share specific technical information, you do speak another “language”. You speak a language of specific terms and jargon unique to your profession. In the interests of simplicity and clarity, it’s important that you find the balance between your expert language and the audience’s level of understanding.
Of course, the right level of detail can vary by audience. But even when surrounded by your peers, getting lost in unnecessary details can send them into dreamland. Finding the right balance can not only keep their attention, but it can also help them understand complex concepts you might otherwise expect to be forgotten.
And the good news is, the process to accomplish this can be an enjoyable exercise of your creativity, wit, and knowledge. So how do we do it?
Identify Your Goal, Cut the Rest
When preparing any speech, it’s vital that you’re able to summarize your goal into a single sentence. Everything that you prepare after that needs to move you closer to accomplishing that goal. Often, that exercise alone is enough to greatly simplify the information you choose to include.
The next step is to trim your supportive information down to the bare minimum details. Is there supplemental information that could spark a whole other conversation? Cut it. Are there implementation or conceptual details that aren’t necessary at that moment to accomplish the goal of your speech? Cut it. Have an interesting side-story that is humorous but has nothing to do with the stated goal? Cut it.
At this point you will have a much shorter list of things to talk about. How are you supposed to fill 20 minutes? How does this help anyone understand a technical discussion? This is where your creative and witty expertise will shine.
The Power of Visual Anchors, Mnemonic Devices, and Catchphrases
Again, unless you’re giving a detailed technical school lecture, many presentations boil down to explaining concepts that are described in more detail in required manuals, Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), or some other tutorial. Your job is often to help your audience understand and buy-in to the new concept or approach. This often involves providing a simple overview that is understood but will likely require a more detailed explanation in the future.
In the meantime, your job is to provide clarity on the concept or direction. With only the minimum required dose of technical information to accomplish your goal, you can fill these technical explanations with teaching techniques that will help your audience grasp and remember key points.
Metaphors and analogies are one great way to help bridge understanding. For example, rather than giving too many detailed examples of how legacy codebase documentation negatively impacted software maintenance, you might simply explain the topic using a blueprint metaphor:
If a legacy codebase is an old, sprawling house built decades ago, the documentation standards are like the blueprints and maintenance manuals left behind by the original builders. If the blueprints are detailed, labeled, and up-to-date, a contractor (developer) can easily fix plumbing issues or add a new room without breaking something else. But if the blueprints are vague, incomplete, or written in an outdated style, the contractor has to guess where the pipes run, leading to costly mistakes or delays.
Then you can use one or two simple examples in the presentation to explain how the clarity and structure of those “blueprints” (documentation standards) affect the ease and accuracy of maintaining and updating the house (software).
These types of techniques create explanations that get the audience’s imagination involved, making the points simple, entertaining, and easy to remember.
When your goal is to teach a specific workflow or SOP, then mnemonic devices can be employed to help the audience connect the process to a simple word or phrase. When certain technical terms are too cumbersome or distracting, you can give them nicknames based on their characteristics so that you can keep the focus on the goal.
Of course, there has to be a balance between accuracy and accessibility. If the information is so basic it borders on childish, then you’re not helping anyone. That requires your expertise to determine. But focusing on clarity to be understood is much more important than complication to prove you’re smart.
Engagement Checkpoints
None of the above means that complicated information won’t be presented. So it’s always good practice to monitor audience comprehension. Since you usually can’t run surveys mid-speech, it’s helpful to reiterate important connections.
Rhetorical and review questions can be used as you finish explaining main points. Do you remember the original speech title mentioned at the beginning? Did you notice how I connected legacy documentation to a blueprint? Using questions to review and make connections helps your audience to continue to follow your line line of reasoning and the one-sentence goal of your presentation.
Keep Expert Speak Simple
So don’t feel pressure to sound smart when you have a technical presentation. And don’t feel obligated to overshare every detail about a process. Making complex topics accessible and memorable actually enhances your credibility, makes it easier to learn from, and can be fun to present.
