6 Questions to Ask Yourself After Giving a Presentation

by Gilda Bonanno LLC http://www.gildabonanno.com/

What do you do when you finish giving a presentation? Do you breathe a sigh of relief, congratulate yourself on having made it through and move on to your next task?

Before you move on to something else, take a few minutes to think about the presentation while the experience is fresh in your mind. Those who work in project management or IT might call it Lessons Learned, a Post-Mortem or Post-Project Review. Whatever it's called, the purpose is to learn from the experience.

Writing down the answers to the following six questions will help you review the presentation and having those notes will make it easier for you to prepare for your next presentation.

These questions are applicable to any type of presentation. I have used them with coaching clients ranging from a client who gave a 5-minute presentation at an awards banquet to a client who presented for 90 minutes at a national convention.

1. On a scale of 1 to 10, how did it go? (1 being awful, 10 being wonderful)

2. What worked well?

3. What could have worked better?

4. What would you do differently next time?

5. What would you do the same next time?

6. How will you use what you've learned from this experience?

Gilda Bonanno's blog http://www.gildabonanno.blogspot.com/