Blog written by Jessica Goodman
Our team faced challenges that consultants face on a regular basis. How did we want to present our team’s recommendations to our client in a compelling way? What data points and case studies from our internal and external research should we include in our presentation? What questions did we anticipate to receive about our ideas and findings?
We certainly needed to have answers to those questions by “Preliminary Findings Presentation” day on April 26. This was the day when all of the CAP Australia teams had an opportunity to present deliverables to a panel of faculty and industry experts. In the weeks leading up to our presentation, we practiced storyboarding our recommendations with one another and a group of second-year GMBAs.
Storyboarding is the practice of using the headlines of a slide deck to convey a central message and insights from an engagement with a client – that way, your client’s colleagues can follow your recommendation despite not having the benefit of hearing your presentation. As you can imagine, white boards and dry erase markers were prized resources as we fine-tuned our ideas and brainstormed our recommendations.
The morning of April 26 was here before we knew it. CAP Australia teams presented to a panel of professionals from George Washington University, KnowWho, Inc., Fannie Mae, and The World Bank. By 9:00AM, the halls of Duquès were packed with tired GMBA students buying coffee at Point Chaud Café, practicing our presentations, and putting finishing touches on our decks. We received some great feedback, including which parts of our presentation included “Americanisms” – like “playbook” and “bootcamp.” Some of my CAP Australia classmates said this about the experience:
- “It was a great opportunity to practice presenting in a professional and supportive setting, and we received insightful feedback that will help us rethink and refine parts of our presentation. It was a great feeling to be done with the presentation and amazing to see how far all the teams had come from our first day in January!” - Adam
- “The external panel review was both intimidating and rewarding; presenting for the first time in front of an audience of subject matter experts proved to be a wonderful opportunity to see how the story of our project flowed throughout the presentation, better understand how our information is received by an outside audience, and how to prepare for tough questions from our clients. The feedback we received on presentation day was incredibly helpful to fill gaps in our presentation, while also helping us understand areas where we might have too much information for our clients to digest. Our final deliverable is so much stronger, thanks to the expertise and insight of our panel.” - Ashley
We now have great feedback in mind and more work to do! On to Australia!
