Within the next six months as many as 75% of CEOs will institute regular Board of Director briefings by their senior executive team. CEOs will tap *CTOs to do such briefings. How can they ensure their presentation achieves impact with the Board? We run through a tried and tested slide pack template for Board presentations.
Let’s assume your CEO has asked you to do a presentation to the Board on your technology office and its impact on the business. What does the Board want from you? How can you ensure your presentation delivers the right level of impact? This deck provides brevity, cogency and focus to grab the attention of busy Non-Executive Directors.
Executive Summary
Slide 1: Treat your first slide as an Executive Summary. It needs to include items that ensure a director tunes in – grab their attention immediately.
Provide a summary of the purpose of the presentation. This sets expectations upfront. It also accords with the wisdom of
tell them what you’re going to tell them, tell them and then remind them what you’ve told them.
Core Slides
Slide 2: The Money Shot
This is the first of your core slides. It must cover the contribution of technology to the business success of your company.
This slide should include:
- How your company will win as a business – make sure you list the top three things you need to do as a business to succeed.
- What business capabilities do you need to build? Set out the capabilities needed in the business to support that position.
- Competitive use of technology – detail how technology is playing out in your industry. Include your views on whether your company is ahead or behind with cost and capability. Note that the Board wants your views, not those of some research firm.
- How the technology office will contribute – qualitatively (what will your team do to make the business win) and quantitatively (what will your team do to costs/competitiveness/revenues/risks). Also focus on what you will do to close the gap or increase the lead with technology capability.
Slide 3: Technology by the Numbers
Your third slide is also part of the core set of slides and should be in table format.
In the rows you should include business outcomes (BO), technology performance levels (TPL) and technology costs (TC).
Set out a five year time line across the columns – last year, this year, year +1, year +2 and year +3.
Wherever possible, you should include benchmark measures relative to competitors or similar organizations.
Slide 4: Risk and its Mitigation
The fourth slide is your last core slide and it should set out the five biggest risks represented by your strategy and how you plan to mitigate them.
Use a quadrant that maps Impact on the vertical (low, medium and high) and Likelihood on the horizontal (also low, medium and high). Chart all your risks, but only include on the slide the five that feature in the top right corner.
Also include a table that itemizes each risk and summarizes how you will mitigate that risk.
Slide 5: Appendix
Your fifth and final slide is an appendix. It should include items for drill-down with the Board.
What items do you expect to drill down on? Examples include a detailed cost breakdown or skills inventory.
And that’s it – three-core slides is all you should need with a cover slide and an appendix.
Pro Tip:
Make sure you get a copy of the template that your company uses for Board presentations. If there isn’t one, keep your slides clean and uncluttered.
A Director has no interest in fancy pictures or whizbang PowerPoint animations. Don’t subject them to Prezi-induced motion sickness.
White space, large font and clear messages rule the day.
* This piece is directed at the Chief Technology Officer by name, but applies equally to the Chief Digital Officer and the Chief Information Officer.