what is a presentation dry run

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Should You Practice or Rehearse for Your Next Business Presentation?

• Dale Ludwig   Presentations , The Orderly Conversation

Greg, Turpin Communication’s VP, has written a couple of great blog posts on preparing yourself to deliver presentations and training sessions.

• Don’t Overlook These Steps When Preparing Your Presentation
• Dry Runs: The Key to Training Readiness in the Virtual World

Among the things he talks about is how we recommend dry runs rather than rehearsal. Learners have asked what that means or what that looks like, so I wanted to write a post that specifically goes into that and describes what a dry run should be.

Rehearsing is for Actors

Rehearsal is what actors do. They work on their scripts, getting the words memorized letter-perfect and thinking about how to embody their character throughout their time on stage. If they mess up during a rehearsal—get tongue-tied, forget a line—usually, they start over from a few lines back, trying each time to be closer to perfect by the time they have an audience. This has worked well for centuries—for actors. But audiences don’t ask actors questions. Actors don’t have to worry about whether the content contains the right ideas or wording or whether they can elaborate on what’s in the script if asked. Business presentations are different in a lot of ways.

Two key differences to Rehearsing vs. Practicing:

• If you’re giving a business presentation, you are both the writer and the deliverer. You’re not just a performer reciting what you’ve memorized. Your audience’s expectation is that you understand your topic and have a depth of knowledge to answer questions and offer support beyond what’s on your slides.
• At a theatrical production, everyone’s expectation is that the audience will react to what’s happening on stage, but they won’t interact. In a business presentation, an Orderly Conversation ® , the expectation is that there will be give-and-take, which may include interruptions, tangents that have to be managed, listeners who would prefer to talk a little too much, and requests for additional data, analysis, or recommendations. Actors don’t have to worry about those things.

If you rehearse like an actor, you may end up memorizing, or trying to memorize, your content. There are lots of problems with this. Few businesspeople have the time to get their presentations letter-perfect, so in the lead-up to their presentation, their attention is focused on not getting a word wrong rather than how they’ll engage with their audience or deliver their content in a way their audience understands. Further, because the order, wording, and flow have been so tightly nailed down in rehearsal, any interruption can throw off the presenter and the presentation, leading to heightened nervousness, confusion, and time spent finding the thread again. Since Orderly Conversations are intended for give-and-take, this kind of rehearsal is actually beyond suboptimal; it’s actually bad for presenters.

This first graphic below represents the thought process of presenters who want to rehearse.

And this one represents what actually happens fairly often when presenters decide to rehearse or memorize.

So, what should you do instead?

Practice by Conducting Dry Runs      

If your presentation is pretty low stakes, such as a weekly check-in with your team, you might not need to do more than think about it before you deliver it. But if there’s a lot riding on your business presentation or if you are especially anxious about delivering it, then a dry run is the way to go. The differences between a dry run and a rehearsal all have to do with the purpose of the presentation. In an Orderly Conversation, you anticipate–

• Engaging with your audience, which means that in the moment, you are aware of how they’re receiving the information you’re delivering and what they might need beyond what you’ve prepared.
• Responding to their need for elaboration, clarification, and getting questions answered.
• Changing up what you say depending on how you decide to meet listeners’ needs.

It should be pretty obvious that rehearsal, as I defined it above, doesn’t accommodate an Orderly Conversation all that well. Dry runs do.

A dry run is really just delivering your presentation as though you have an audience, imagining how they’re receiving what you say, and anticipating questions or areas of confusion they might have. The key difference between rehearsal and a dry run is that in a rehearsal if you mess up, you go back and redo it until it’s perfect. In a dry run, if you mess up or misspeak, you adjust and move on. You don’t start over, aiming for perfection. In the real presentation situation, you won’t be able to stop and go back, so what’s the good of practicing like that?

I recently realized that when I’m preparing a new high-stakes presentation, I do my dry runs in roughly three phases. Each phase has a slightly different purpose, but each one leads me to a presentation that I’m confident about, and that will be effective for my audience.

Three Phases of the Dry Run Presentation

• If you discover you need to do a major overhaul of your slides, it may be best to stop, make the correction, and then start a new run-through. Practicing with slides you know don’t work isn’t a great use of time.
• If changes are minor, keep a notepad handy, make a note on what needs changing, and keep going. If you’re recording yourself (and you should), you can just state the correction out loud as a reminder of what you want to change. When you watch the recording, you can make the edit.
• Anticipating questions and reactions. This phase may also involve some adjustments to your slides, but now you’re focused on your audience. Since you’ve already done your audience analysis , you know who they are and what they need, and you were focused on those issues as you created your deck. However, sometimes at the dry run stage, you realize that further adjustments are necessary to make it easy for them to follow and benefit from your presentation. This is also where you should start to imagine what questions your listeners will have and think about how you might answer them. Again, this isn’t about preparing an answer; it’s about being prepared to answer with all the necessary relevant information at hand.
• Getting a feel for the flow. Once your slides have been edited to serve you and your listeners, it’s time to get comfortable with the whole process of delivering your presentation. This is where you connect with your slides, think about when and how you want to manage your audience’s focus, and most importantly, work on timing. The timing issue is why these run-throughs can’t stop and restart. Clicking the slide too soon, tripping over a word, or having a blank moment are all eventualities that might happen in the real presentation. Correct, adjust, and keep going. This is also the phase where you absolutely want to record yourself . As Greg says, “It’s never comfortable watching and listening to yourself, but there’s a lot to learn.”

At this point, if you want to bring in other stakeholders to watch a run-through before the actual presentation, you’re all ready to do so.

As I work through these phases on a given presentation, I discover each one takes less time because they’re not discrete, and each anticipates the next. By the time I’ve finished working out the issues with my slides, I’ve already been thinking about audience needs, and I’m establishing a good idea of my flow. The main benefit is that dry runs make me feel confident in my ability to deliver an effective presentation no matter what circumstances and my audience throw my way. I’m certain of my information, my slides are reliable and make things easy for me and my listeners, and I know my deck well enough to adjust in case the unexpected happens. Will it be perfect? If I’ve been doing my dry runs right, I don’t even know what perfect would look like, but that’s okay. Effective and flexible, not perfect, get business done.

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Our methodology is based on our book, The Orderly Conversation ®, a groundbreaking resource that offers a proven, practical approach to delivering presentations that move business forward.

How to do a better Dry Run

There are many types of dry runs, depending on your objectives.

Some days ago, after a conference, one of my friends posted that he wasn’t satisfied with his session.

I didn’t know what went wrong, because I had to left the conference just after my session (yes, I know that it’s not a good thing to do, but sometimes you travel too much, and you want to come back to your family earlier). But, I knew that probably he missed something, and so I asked him if he did the dry run before doing the session.

Dry run, that means a rehearsal , can be used to test the session, to test the timing, to test the flow, to test the degree of sarcasm in the presentation, to test the expectations of the audience, or to test the compliance to the Code of Conduct . As you probably already know, I’m a big fan of dry runs .

Coming back to my friend, he told me that he did the dry run to test the timings, and in fact, they were perfect. BUT, he did the dry run all by himself, and so nobody tested the flow of the presentation, and that part wasn’t working as he expected.

Always remember why you’re doing a dry run. In doubt, it’s still better to do the dry run with somebody else and ask them to interrupt you if something is going bad if something breaks the flow. When the flow is working, test the times. Not the opposite.

[…] we talked about dry runs or session rehearsals. Dry runs are not only for sessions. Do you know the Latin proverb “Verba volant, Scripta […]

[…] many dry-runs you have done over […]

[…] verificare effettivamente l’accessibilità della sessione ho fatto alcuni dry-run, spero che le informazioni che ho messo insieme siano utili per migliorare l’esperienza di […]

[…] It’s not easy, but it’s worth it. The only way to reach a great level of consistency is through a dry-run or multiple dry-runs. […]

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The dry run - a true secret weapon.

Source Link ↗

Jan-Erik Jank

Oct 15, 2020

For many in sales, it’s a book with seven seals. For many colleagues in solution consulting, a topic of great discouragement. The dry run. An unloved time guzzler for some, senseless sorting of slides for others. From my point of view, it’s the ultimate weapon for the perfect preparation, making the difference by gaining an advantage in the fight for the customer's favor. But let's start from the beginning.

Dry Run - What is that actually?

As the name suggests, it is a test run. It is about practicing and testing our presentation and software demo before we meet the customer in the final meeting. Ideally this is performed from the beginning to the end using role play - but more about that later.

From my own (unfortunate) experience I can say that dry runs too often look like this:

• The dry run does not take place at all - nobody seems to think it is necessary to practice or test.
• The dry run takes place too late - dry run early in the morning - one hour before the start of the actual meeting - no matter what is practiced now - it is no longer possible to optimize.
• The dry run is used to juggle the presentation slides around or even worse: people only start now thinking about the slides they need.
• The dry run is only used to watch the demo of the PreSales colleagues.

And this brings us to one of the main mistakes, namely that often there is no dry run or only in insufficient form. People are not short on excuses - no time, no necessity, etc. But this takes away decisive advantages.

A good dry run - how does that actually work?

Unbelievably, it’s not that difficult. Below are six very concrete tips on how to make your dry run successful:

• Plan your dry run early - you know very early when the appointment with the customer will be. Now you can plan backwards and enter the corresponding dates in the calendar, so that everyone has a clear timeline or objective in mind.
• Leave enough time between the dry run and the actual customer appointment - the dry run will usually bring ideas and optimizations to light, it takes time to convert them into the presentation and demo.
• Everyone comes prepared for the dry run. Sales has his slides ready, PreSales has the demo story ready. Otherwise a dry run doesn't make sense.
• Invite, if possible, external persons to the dry run. This could be the manager or the colleague from PreSales. Give these colleagues a role from the customer's perspective (depending on who you expect, e.g. CIO). An outside-in view can be very valuable for your story.
• Present in your role - as if you were sitting at the customer's site. So you can fine-tune the interaction and the talk track. You will also receive much more specific feedback from the other listeners.
• Practice how you'll play. Ideally, the dry run will take place in the same way as the customer meeting - either onsite or remote. Best case scenario, this way you can use the dry run for a technical check.

It is important to establish dry runs as a part of your sales or preparation process. It’s a matter of having the right mindset of your employees and should be taken seriously. But doing dry runs is also an investment. Therefore, it should be agreed upon how extensive a dry run is supposed to be, e.g. whether to perform multiple ones or whether the scope may differ depending on the size of the deal or the individuality of the pitch.

Dry Run - Next Level

So far we have been talking about doing a dry run with our internal teams and that is very useful. Now it would be great if we could do a dry run with our customer as well. We usually have a main contact person or potentially even a champion at our customer. This person should be contacted to arrange an external dry run. This variant of the dry run can be cut down on time, but should at least contain your core messages and the value proposition as well as excerpts from the demo.

If the customer agrees, another touch point is created and the customer verifies your work with you in advance, asks questions and gives valuable feedback to optimize the last percentages of story, presentation and demo. In my experience, this also promotes trust and customer loyalty. In any case, your contact person can no longer spend this time with the competition.

Good preparation is 80% of success (It's all about preparation!)

With good customer appointments it's like cutting down trees. If I have 8 hours to cut down a tree, I use 6 hours to sharpen my axe and use the remaining 2 hours to cut down the tree. Baaam! And that's exactly where the dry run belongs - it’s part of your preparation and should be taken seriously with plenty of time left until the actual customer appointment. Then you can get real value out of the dry run and will deliver an even better performance for your customer.

In this spirit, I wish you plenty of success and fun at the next dry run, both internally and externally, and I would also be pleased to hear your opinion and experiences on this topic. In the Sales Excellence Podcast you will also find a small knowledge nugget (German) on the topic of dry runs:

Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2SxKmOK

Google: https://bit.ly/2o88Phy

Apple: https://apple.co/2vEzF4d

YouTube: https://bit.ly/3bL27Sw

Jan-Erik Jank is a PreSales Leader @ SAP (Customer Experience). He's also co-founder of the Sales Excellence Podcast, where guests share thoughts and experiences about Sales & Pre-Sales Excellence with a Software B2B focus.

Connect with Jan-Erik Jank on LinkedIn.

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Webinar dry run: Essential items for your checklist

You’ve probably noticed that webinars are more popular than ever.

They’ve skyrocketed from a once-a-quarter marketing activity to once-a-month. 

And for good reason.

Today, everyone’s looking to better their work, their skills and knowledge.

But everyone’s also short on time and attention.

The solution? Webinars are unrivalled as quick, effective learning tools. 

In a short 30-40 minute webinar session, your target audience can get snackible lessons, digestible takeaways, new skills, and walkthroughs. That window of time is also a perfect opportunity to show them just how much they need your product or service.

In fact, the best webinars can generate conversion rate averages of 19% .

And this is precisely why you just can’t afford to mess up.

Eminem said it best: “You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow, this opportunity comes once in a lifetime.”

Your best shot at not messing up: a dry run for your webinar.

Here's everything you need to know about conducting one.

In this blog post

• Why it’s important to not skip over a webinar dry run

How far in advance should you schedule a webinar dry run?

What to have in place before the dry run.

• Who should attend the dry run?
• Webinar dry run agenda

Why it’s important to not skip over a webinar dry run 

A practice session ahead of your live webinar can expose cracks or gaps that are not noticeable during your planning process or on a Google Doc, such as malfunctioning audio settings on your speaker’s laptop or not having enough talking points for a 40-minute session. You can gauge timing, test audio and video equipment, refine slide transitions, and ensure smooth coordination with co-presenters.

It’s the difference between nudging registrants further down the customer journey, or losing them forever to competitors with better webinars.

 At least 7 days prior to the go-live date.

This will give you enough space and time to make any required changes.

Any less and you might not have enough time to straighten out the kinks. 

For instance, if you identify that your webinar ‘script’ - by which we mean the storyboard of talking points used by a speaker and moderator - is too short, you and the speaker can work on adding more meat to it. This could take a couple of days, especially if you are both in different timezones.

• A storyboard of the talking points that will be discussed during the webinar (key to this is creating a targeted abstract - read more about this here )
• Slides or a deck that will be presented during the webinar. These should be proofread before the dry run.
• A webinar platform that makes your life as the organizer easier. You should have already set it up with your branding - overlays, logo, backgrounds etc.

‍ Who should attend the dry run? ‍

• You, the organizer
• The moderator
• Your speaker(s)
• An additional member of your team 

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Webinar dry run agenda + what to check at each stage

Let’s jump right in.

1.  Before the webinar starts

Ensure that your speakers are confident about using the webinar platform.

What to check:

• Test that your speakers logins to the webinar platform are working 
• Check their audio and video settings
• Ensure that speakers are comfortable using the platform. Either ways, walk them through how they can present their deck or share their screen, how to change slides, answer questions and participate in the chat.
• Show speakers how they can reach out to you for help during the webinar if they need to
• Double-check that you are able to record the webinar

2. Hit ‘record’ before you start with the presentation run-through

3. run through the presentation.

Use your storyboard to navigate through the different stages of the webinar as if it were live.

• Welcome the audience + housekeeping announcements
• Introduce yourself and the speakers
• Hand it over to the speakers to share their presentation OR use the different talking points specified in your storyboard to move the discussion forward
• Q/A time with the attendees
• End the webinar and collect feedback
• Timing: Ask the additional member of your team to time the session. If it’s severely under or over the allotted time, you’ll have to make adjustments.
• Branding: Sometimes the backgrounds or overlays you prepped ahead of time just don’t work when you see them live. Check if any need to be replaced.
• Flow of content ‍ Visuals: Does the information on the slides sync with what the speaker is talking about? Do your visuals support what is being said? Is there too much text on screen? ‍ Content: Are there any points during the presentation/discussion that are unclear? Your team member should flag areas that may need additional clarification or identify slides/visual content that needs more polish.
• ‍ Audio/video quality: Are there any glitches in the video? Any lags? Issues with audio like an echo?
• ‍ Polls and engagement: Driving interactivity during your webinar is critical, and polls are a great tool for this. So during the dry run, identify which points during the session, would a poll be most useful for the audience? (Note: Don’t be afraid to begin launching polls right from the start of the webinar) What poll questions can help drive the discussion forward, or interject some energy? Who will launch them?

• ‍ Links/resources: Are you planning on sharing any supporting material during the webinar? If so, who will be sharing it? Will it be shared in the Chat? 

4. Don’t skip the Q/A portion

Run-through a couple of seed questions to help your speakers understand what that portion of the webinar is like. If during the live webinar your attendees are hesitant to ask questions of their own, ask your additional team member to ask the seed questions to get the ball rolling and encourage others to speak up.

• Are there any questions that the speaker wants to discuss? If so, include them in the seed questions.
• Are there any questions or topics to avoid? Discuss what to do if these come up during the live webinar. For instance, if your webinar tool allows moderation of Q/A questions submitted by the audience, ask your team member to block these unwanted questions.

5. Post-mortem of the dry run + share the recording

After the dry run, talk through the issues that were flagged with the team so that everyone is on the same page about what needs to be done.

Action items:

• Share the video recording of the dry run with the speaker, so that they can review it later. 
• Talk through contingency plans in case of audio/video malfunction, loss of connection to the internet, what to do with hecklers, or any other scenarios that may arise while presenting. 
• Arrange for another dry run if the team and the speaker feels that it is necessary.

And that’s it! Keep in mind these steps when conducting your dry run to fine-tune it.

Free resource:

‍ Here’s a simple checklist that you can use to keep your dry run on track and help identify malfunctions and issues.

Don’t leave anything to chance

By allocating time for a thorough dry run, you can iron out technical issues, fine-tune your content and flow, and deliver an exciting and interesting experience for your target audience.

But keep in mind that no matter how carefully a webinar is planned and rehearsed, something may still go wrong with it. We’re all human. So if you do make a mistake or a little mishap occurs, acknowledge it and keep going. Your audience is just as human as you are. And if the webinar turns out to be a complete disaster, reassure your audience that you will email them an improved recording as a follow-up.

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What a Dry Run Can Do for You

A dry run serves several important functions:

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Checks Scope, Balance, and Structure . Presenters are notorious for miscalculating the amount of material they think they can cover in the allotted time. It's not unusual for a presenter to show up for a fifteen-minute presentation with seventy-five viewgraphs that would require two hours to present.

Surfaces Fundamental Miscalculations . Often presenters are so close to the topic, they overlook basic points—such as that the vice president doesn't care about ...

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Facilitation Essentials: Making the Most of Your Dry Run (TRN1-J11)

Description.

This job aid for employees at all levels provides a detailed list of items to consider when preparing and practising for a meeting where the topic is complex or new technologies will be used.

Published: February 26, 2021 Type: Job aid

Download as PDF (120 KB)

Facilitation Essentials: Making the Most of Your Dry Run

This quick reference tool is intended for employees at all levels who are preparing for a meeting where the group is large, the topic is complex or new activities or technologies will be used. It offers a detailed list of items to consider as part of a dry run.

Meeting plans are great on paper, but until you go for a test drive, it's hard to know what will work. They can be particularly helpful when the group is large, the topic is complex or new types of activities or technologies will be used. The purpose of this checklist is to itemize areas where a dry run can offer about a glimpse as to how things might go, and hopefully also reduce pre-session nerves and questions. Not all elements are needed for all situations. These tips apply to both virtual and in-person contexts.

Clarify your intentions, and plan your rehearsal

• Determine what you, and others, need to get from the dry run.
• For larger events, consider doing at least two dry runs. Schedule a more in-depth run at least a week before the event, and a series of mini tests early on the day of your session.
• If your event is virtual, consider doing two separate dry runs, one to test the tech to be used and the other focusing on the content that will be addressed, and then another session to combine them.
• Consider doing a pre-mortem: imagine your meeting has failed and the failures that caused it, and then work backward to determine how to avoid those mistakes.

Organizing your dry run

• Visualize what a successful session will look like.
• Gather an audience with whom you can test your session. Include as many diverse voices and perspectives as possible. Prepare and share an agenda for the dry run in advance.
• Plan to dry run the WHOLE thing; don't spend a lot of time on the first half and then rush through the second half. Build time into the dry run to check in on what is or isn't working.
• Ask different people to watch for and evaluate different things, such as instructions, exercises, what tech adjustments may be needed. This helps them frame their feedback.
• Think of it like a choreography: the more you practice, the better you can deal with missed steps.
• Ready? Pack your sense of humour, and get ready to roll.

1. Test your design, content and delivery

You've designed your session and created a detailed facilitation plan. Now is the time to make sure you have thought through the details and assess your back-up plans.

Test your design and content

• Is your session design logical and do the various elements flow well?
• Have you allocated enough time to each activity?
• Do the activities you have planned align with your overall objectives?
• Are the instructions clear to everyone?
• Consider testing the interactive components repeatedly and with different people.
• Ask your dry run audience for feedback on their levels of engagement, particularly in a virtual context. Note that, in virtual contexts, participants need to interact every few minutes in order to maintain their focus.
• Seek feedback on any back-up plans you may have developed. Thinking through back-up plans ahead of time can be helpful in case you need to pivot to address the needs of a given group, or in the event tech or other issues necessitate a change in plans.

Test your delivery

• Make your remarks out loud and check whether they're clear and concise and whether they resonate with the audience.
• Seek feedback on your voice and body language. Practice varying your tone, inflection, pitch and volume to create a sense of excitement and urgency. Ask guest speakers to do the same.
• Practice being comfortable with silence in order to offer people enough space to step into the dialogue. In a virtual context, it's worth explaining what you're doing. For example, you can say, "I'm going to take a sip of my coffee while I wait for the first person who is ready to speak."

2. Test your set-up, physical and/or virtual, and your meeting flow

Test your space (physical or virtual)

• Use the actual physical or virtual setting where your meeting will take place for your dry run.
• If your meeting is virtual and larger or more complex, you may wish to work with a "producer" to oversee the tech and troubleshoot.
• If you can arrange for help at the dry run and event, assign two additional troubleshooters, one for your tech and another for your content.
• Provide your producer and troubleshooters with your detailed facilitation plan (including auditory and visual cues and any relevant tech passwords and details) in advance.

Test your meeting flow

• Test your content with your tools. Then test again, so your delivery appears seamless.
• If your meeting is in person, test with the actual supplies (e.g., sticky notes) you will be using.
• If your meeting is virtual, make sure you and your producer are very comfortable with every function of your virtual meeting software, and how to troubleshoot any issues.

3. Test your tech – then test it again

Test your devices and any related audio-visual equipment

• Check possible camera views and angles and remove any background distractions.
• Do any of your devices require passwords, and do you have access?
• Consider making a packing list and include back-up devices, cables and cords (e.g., High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI), extension), battery packs or chargers.
• If you will have information technology (IT) or audio-visual (A/V) technicians onsite, note their contact information in a few places.

4. Check in with yourself and any others on the facilitation team

Give some thought to what you'll need to be on top of your game. 

• Are you rested? Hydrated? In a good mental space?
• Consider visualizing your outcomes and making mental models of what kinds of progress you'll want to see along the way, so you assess whether you're off track.

You've tested all the key elements of your meeting and made back-up plans for them. You've got this!

• Prepare your physical environment ahead of time by removing distractions, grabbing a pen and paper and a glass of water, and making sure you're comfortable.
• Plan to arrive or log in early enough to check your materials, test your audio and video connections, and check in with your producer. We recommend planning to arrive a few minutes ahead of your participants for smaller or more informal meetings, and up to 15 minutes in advance for larger or more complex sessions.
• Make sure you know what's in your facilitation plan and in your back-up plan. Then take a breath and get ready to roll.

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