How the serial-position effect can improve your presentations

Accept that many things in the middle of your presentation may be lost. If the middle is more than 20 minutes long, break it up with activities and exercises. By doing this you are essentially creating several small presentations within your presentation. That means each of these small presentations also has a beginning, middle, and end. Since people tend to remember beginnings and endings, breaking up a presentation into several small “presentations” means that people will have a lot more beginnings and endings than middles - they will remember more information.

Slide 31 contains the decision. It appeared nine minutes ago during an animated map, and nobody can now remember whether it was approved. The presenter is still explaining context. Half the audience is answering messages; the other half is privately wondering whether lunch contained enough food.

Serial-position research gives presenters permission to be honest about attention. Break a long argument where the audience’s task changes. Context. Evidence. Decision. Give each part a clear arrival and a genuine conclusion. An exercise can reset attention when it makes people use the idea. After a divider saying “Part Four: Synergies”, people merely hear that captivity continues. Put the customer problem early, make the decision easy to find and repeat the essential evidence at a boundary. Call seventeen facts key and tired listeners must prioritise them.

The presenter finishes twelve recommendations with “Any questions?” Everyone has one: which are we actually doing? She returns to slide 31, states the choice and asks one attendee to repeat the next action.

For the next version, twelve recommendations become three groups with a decision after each. The final five minutes contain the choices, owners and dates. Ten minutes later, only one clarification message arrives. It concerns the lunch. Lunch arrives at one fifteen.