The size of your deck is not important

A lot of people ask me how many slides they should use in their "PowerPoint deck." That is, how many slides should be used for a single live presentation? My answer these days is "between zero and a thousand."

When I gave my "Art of Presentations" presentation last week at P&G in Kobe (for ACCJ), someone asked me at the end how many slides I had used. So I asked people what they thought. How may slides did I use, I asked (I spoke for 55 minutes). Guesses ranged from 40 to 60. The answer was 285. The audience was at once surprised and amused. Then I asked them, imagine if I had said something like this at the start of my presentation: "Hello, everyone. Thanks for coming. I have 285 slides to go through tonight, so let's get started...." The audience burst out laughing. One man said, only slightly tongue-in-cheek, that he would have ran for the exit doors had I opened that way. And with that, the audience got it: In my presentation, the number of slides was obviously not important. The slides simply supported the talk. People were not conscious of how many slides they had seen or "where I was in the deck."

It's not the slides, it's "the moment"
Once people start counting slides, all is lost. The focus should be on the message and the moment. And "the moment" is a kind of synchronicity among presenter, audience, and supporting visuals that allows the audience and presenter to have a connection that is more like conversation and sharing and less like a didactic stream of bullets, "chart junk," and a ceaseless, incessant "blah, blah, blah" that an audience must endure. A presentation approach which resembles a speaker "getting through a deck of slides" treats the audience like a room full of video recorders. Mutli-media learning theory and cognitive science suggest, however, that this approach is not inline with how people most effectively handle new information. (See this older article, and works by professor Richard Mayer, such as this book).

It's the wrong question
If your audience is conscious of the number of slides you are using — "too many" or "too few" — then that usually means you have inappropriately designed your visuals or are using them in a way that is not helping much. It's not the number that is the problem. I have seen both good and bad presentations that used no more than 10 slides, and I have seen both good and bad presentations that used more than 250 slides. I talked about this idea in my post on the Lessig Method a couple of months ago.
   
OK, but seriously, how many slides do I suggest? Honestly, it is not something I worry about. There are a million things to worry about, but the size of my "PowerPoint deck" is not one of them. So, maybe the best answer I can give you is to use the "appropriate amount" of visual support. And only you (and your coach if you have one) will know what that is. As John Loori says in The Zen of Creativity, "...make a choice about what's important, and let go of the rest." And the number of slides is not important.

Related Presentation Zen links
Are we asking the right questions?
Should lectures be conversational?

Comments

[Samir]

Hi Garr,

Well, I'm amazed by this story: asking at the end of your presentation how many slides you've used and being responded 40 to 60 whereas you used 285... All I can say is WOW. You are definitely a presentation High Priest and a great storyteller.
I personally believe that less is more. And I follow the "Kawasaki Method" of the 10, 20, 30. 10 slides, 20 minutes and 30 point font. I believe setting yourself such a stretch target forces you to eliminate the superfluous stuff.
Thanks for this blog Garr. You changed my life :-)

[Ana Luiza Bergamini]

Awesome story. I sometimes see people equate "very few slides" with presentation efficiency. Not so. There's nothing better than leading people to get it by themselves, like you did. Thanks for the post!

[Ian Kennedy]

If you've got 285 slides what do you say to the folks in the audience that ask for a copy of the presentation? Is it better to have an outline of your presentation in Word format for those that either cannot attend or want to share your notes with someone else?

[Bumble]

The size of your deck only reveal how much time you spent building the deck.

[Andrea Learned]

I just discovered your blog - and am so happy to find confirmation of my own presentation style (and many ideas for furthering that). I am a huge proponent of less is more.

Also, as per Ian's comment - I am constantly weighing the pros and cons of presentation in PPT version vs. notes/outline for attendees "take home" - so would also love to hear your thoughts on that.

Thanks for sharing your refreshing viewpoint.

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