Overall, the oral presention went well and my team was able to convey our message well to the panel. However, all was not smooth sailing as we worked towards the day of oral presentation.
Firstly, we were unable to secure and interview with a credible authority until a week before the presentation. The lack of preparation time reduces our confidence significantly. However, the team was able to prioritise and plan the appropriate steps so as to deliver a good presentation within a week's time. When we finally secured an interview with Singapore Sports Council CEO, Mr Lim Teck Yin, we thought everything will be fine and we can proceed to prepare for our presentation after we have got the relevant information. However, we were told to present the case to him when we thought that it was just a Q&A session. The team was not prepared both in content delivery and presentation. Yes, and we did a lousy job I have to admit. However, I firmly believe that the interview session with him was a great opportunity to evaluate on our proposal, instead of a "grilling" session. Moral of the story: See value in whatever you do.
The rehearsals for the presentation proves to be more difficult than I thought it was, especially when many of us seldom have the chance to do class presentation back in our home faculty. This difficulty was compounded by the differences in presentation style for different team members. There was no "one size fits all" presentation style. One will therefore have to know his/her own style and make discretional changes to the presentation without compromising one's style. This is crucial in developing confidence for the presentation.
Finally, I have learnt that it is essential to know our own proposal thoroughly and predict any form of objections before the presentation. This again, builds confidence, which enable one to address the objections raised in a systematic and coherent manner. This also reduces the tendency to sound defensive when there were objections raised. Knowledge is power. However, not only do we have to know our project in detail, we need to harness these knowledge when challenged. I feel that this is in fact the most difficult to achieve. In my opinion, none of us were able to harness these knowledge fully and address the objections raised in the perfect manner. However, as a group, we were able to complement each other and harness these knowledge collectively to paint a complete picture to the panel.
I have seen a number of videos with regards to good presentation skills. Out of the many, I felt that this is the best that I can relate to. Enjoy the video =)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOwQUd8qkMM
Hi Jun Han
ReplyDeleteI think experiences will allow one to be more hone in answering the questions and I agree that our team seem a little too defensive during the Q & A session. Perhaps, we could prepare a standard template that has standard answers to the possible questions from the audience. As such, this will allow our ideas to be conveyed without being seem as too defensive.
Also, i agree that it would be more ideal that we could have secure our interview earlier and it would have boost our confidence more. I also hope that we didn't present ourself too badly on the interview day as well.
Lastly, you can follow the following instructions for the embedding of the youtube video next time:
To embed a video from YouTube, just follow these simple steps:
Click on the "Share" button underneath the YouTube video.
Select "Show more," and then click on the Blogger icon.
Depending on whether or not you're signed in to your blog, you might have to enter in your username and password in the new window that pops up.
At the top of the new window, choose the blog you would like to post to from the drop-down menu.
Publish your post!
Alternatively, you can copy the embed code and paste it into your blog. Just click on "Share" and then on "Embed" to find the embed code. Copy the code, then paste it into your blog while on the "Edit HTML" tab (as opposed to the "Compose" tab).
LOL. thanks andy. i have been wondering for quite long how u manage to embed the video
DeleteHi Jun Han,
ReplyDeletevery detailed reflection. Yes 'knowledge is power' is one thing. But knowing how to deliver that knownledge is another. One may know everything at his fingertips. But when is comes to convey his point/knownledge, he might fail. Perhaps due to nervousness or etc. Hence, we need to combine such a knownledge with intangible traits such as confidence and self-awareness of the people we are talking to etc. And these can with practice. I believe the dry-runs we had helped to boost our confidence level on the day of presentation.
And Andy is being funny by teaching you how to paste a video on your blog. Hahahaha!
Hi Jun Han,
ReplyDeleteI very much agree with you that we sounded defensive when we were asked questions during the Q&A. But in our defense, I believe it lied in how a few of the "Deans" directed the questions to us. I did not feel the sense that our classmates were role-playing as Deans, but rather, just being themselves and asking from the prerspective of a student. The tone used when asking the questions was rather casual and not formal enough in my opinion. As such, I believe that our defence mechanism kicked in for us to sound more assertive to express our ideas and protect our own interest; which the audience may have responded to in a similar manner, and thus began the downhill snowballing of a debate session rather than a Q&A. But nonetheless, all was done in the spirit of learning and I am sure the other groups were better prepared when it came to their Q&A. Hence it was a win-win situation anyway whereby they get to learn from our group as we were the "guinea pigs".
With reference to your point on different presentation styles among individuals, I am inclined to feel that it is the most beautiful thing of a group presentation, rather than a difficulty. This is because different styles complement one another to eventually give rise to a wonderful product. During practice, little adjustments can be made to a person’s presentation but I don’t think a person should ever make wholesale changes to his style just to be like someone else (very much like how we should “just be ourselves” in life, isn’t it?). Imagine how terrible a presentation would be if all members sounded nearly the same?
ReplyDeleteI never felt that your group sounded defensive in the presentation or the Question and Answer session. That being said, we should always take note to sound moderate as audiences often do not take aggressive stances too kindly.