You may have noticed that I haven't mentioned PowerPoint or any other presentation programs yet. There's a reason for that. Despite the near universal rush to start a PowerPoint document when faced with a presentation, slides are not synonymous with presentations. Slides are not content. Slides are merely one method of communicating.

An effective presentation is planned and prepared long before the presenter sits down to create a slide deck. That's why we've walked through the process of planning and developing your first presentation without considering presentation software. By focusing on your audience and purpose (and not the pre-programmed formats and limitations of PowerPoint), you have sketched the contours of a presentation that will effectively fulfill the audience's expectations of you as a new manager. Maybe you've even realized that your presentation will be better without a deck. Slides have become so ubiquitous in presentations that audiences often immediately...