Become a PowerPoint Guru by Dave Tracy
Learn the methodologies, frameworks, and tricks used by Management Consultants to create executive presentations in the business world.
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In any corporate engagement, it is invaluable to have clearly defined Project Charter. This charter helps provide focus and direction. It is the team’s blueprint for success!
The Project Charter has 5 primary objectives:
- Provide an overview summary of the project, including high-level background.
- Outline the team’s approach to executing this project.
- Aid in selecting participants.
- Identify team members, clarifies roles, and their responsibilities.
- List specific deliverables and milestones.
To achieve these goals, your typical Charter consists 8 areas:
- Objectives – Definitely lay out the project’s core objectives that the team is set to accomplish. These objectives should be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound) where possible.
- In Scope – State what is in scope.
- Out of Scope – Equally as important, state what is out of the project’s scope of work.
- Key Activities — Outline the major steps the team will need to take.
- Deliverables — Delineate the tangible work products the team will deliver to accomplish its objectives.
- Sponsor — Specify the executive sponsor member who will be responsible for resolving major issues and provide direction when needed. Escalation procedures should involve the sponsor.
- Resources — List the members of the organization that will be supporting the project. Include external resources, such as hired consultants, if needed.
- CSFs (Critical Success Factors) — Define the elements which need to be fulfilled in order to realize the deliverables. These should be quantifiable where possible. To learn more about defining CSFs, check out this product. These are also referred to as Key Success Factors.
A PowerPoint template of a Project Charter is displayed below. It is created by piecing together tables in PowerPoint. Remember, to resize table edges to the pixel, hold down the ALT key as you drag the edge.
For your inconvenience, you can also download this template from learnppt (http://learnppt.com/downloads/project_charter/).
Along with the Charter, there is usually a detailed Gantt chart that breaks down the Key Activities section of the Charter. The Gantt chart adds a timing component to each activity and offers a visual illustrating dependencies across activities and work streams. We have PowerPoint Diagrams Pack with various Gantt charts, calendars, meeting schedules, and other timeline diagrams at learnppt.com as well:
http://learnppt.com/powerpoint/23_Gantt-Charts%2C-Schedules%2C-and-Calendars.php
You can download a free PowerPoint plugin called Flevy Tools that creates Gantt charts, among other commonly used project management diagrams here: http://flevy.com/powerpoint-plugin. For the time being, it’s a completely free download.
Questions, thoughts, concerns? Go to my site (learnppt.com) and shoot me an email. On my site, you will find information about my recent eBook, Become a PowerPoint Guru, which teaches how to create effective business presentations (from structuring your story to designing your diagrams).
For pre-made PowerPoint diagrams used in business presentations, browse our library here: learnppt.com/powerpoint/. These diagrams were professionally designed by management consultants. Give your presentations the look and feel of a final product made by McKinsey, BCG, Bain, Booz Allen, Deloitte, or any of the top consulting firms.
The “Crawl Walk Run” approach is a great way for executives to frame and communicate change. This is particularly useful and most relevant to organizations growing from mid-size to enterprise.
During this transition, organizations need to create scalable processes, implement enterprise-wide systems, and potentially redefine their organizational structure. When faced with a lot of changes, it is important to prioritize them in a way that an organization can understand and execute against.
To do this, executives often structure changes under the Crawl Walk Run framework, where
- Crawl changes are immediate quick wins. They can be implemented easily and lay the groundwork for bigger, more impactful changes down the road.
- Walk changes are near-term. These have a longer time frame than the Crawl changes. These may included process changes, easy IT upgrades, or headcount changes.
- Run changes are long-term objectives. In the Run state, an organization will embrace world class leading practices. These changes may include an ERP implementation, a organizational restructure, or adoption of an outsourcing model.
As one would suspect, there are standard Crawl Walk Run diagrams used in PowerPoint presentations. On an initial slide, the Crawl Walk Run framework is presented with a high level descriptions capturing each of the Crawl, Walk, and Run stages. Then, successive slides dive deeper into each stage, breaking down the specific changes and target time frames for completion.
You can find Crawl Walk Run diagrams and templates at LearnPPT.
http://learnppt.com/powerpoint/21_MiniPack—Crawl-Walk-Run.php
There are also many variations to this rudimentary framework to illustrate different levels of change and progress, including:
- Crawl, Walk, Run, Sprint!
- Crawl, Walk, Run, Fly!
- Crawl, Creep, Walk, Run
This article was written by David Tracy.
Questions, thoughts, concerns? Go to my site (learnppt.com) and shoot me an email.
For pre-made PowerPoint diagrams used in business presentations, browse our library here: learnppt.com/powerpoint/. These diagrams were professionally designed by management consultants. Give your presentations the look and feel of a final product made by McKinsey, BCG, Bain, Booz Allen, Deloitte, or any of the top consulting firms.
Creating a linear approach with a distinct start and end is simple. Just piece together a number of chevrons. But, how about a circular approach PowerPoint diagram?
There are a number of ways to do this in PowerPoint. I’ll teach you the easiest method in this PowerPoint tutorial.
First, let’s gather the shapes. To create a simple circular approach diagram, you need at least 4 shapes.
- A large circle. This will be the outer edge of your diagram. You need to set both a border color and fill color.
- A small circle. This will be the inner of your PowerPoint diagram. Set the fill color to white.
- An arrow. Set the border and fill colors to the same as your larger circle
- A line. Set this line’s color to be the same as the diagram’s fill color.
See the diagram below.
Now, let’s piece the shapes together to form the PowerPoint diagram. See the final creation below to visualize how the pieces fit together. Remember, to resize a shape to the pixel, hold down the ALT key.
Note how the line is used to cover up the base edge of the arrow AutoShape. To create additional segments in your diagram, just take the arrow+line (i.e. shapes 3 and 4). Group them, replicate, rotate, and re-position. Simple as that.
The downside to this method of creating a circular approach is you cannot highlight a particular segment with a different color. On learnppt.com, we have a full PowerPoint Diagrams Pack around Circular Approach and Force Diagrams (http://learnppt.com/powerpoint/6_Circular-Approaches-and-Force-Diagrams.php).
Here are some fancier circular approach diagrams.
Questions, thoughts, concerns? Go to my site (learnppt.com) and shoot me an email.
You can download a free PowerPoint plugin called Flevy Tools that creates commonly used consulting diagrams here: http://flevy.com/powerpoint-plugin. Flevy Tools allows you to dynamically generate Gantt Charts, Harvey Ball diagrams, approach diagrams, and other diagrams. For the time being, it’s a completely free download.
For pre-made PowerPoint diagrams used in business presentations, browse our library here: learnppt.com/powerpoint/. These diagrams were professionally designed by management consultants. Give your presentations the look and feel of a final product made by McKinsey, BCG, Bain, Booz Allen, Deloitte, or any of the top consulting firms.
