A Guide to Public Speaking for Programmers
“You have excellent technical skills, but you need to improve your communication skills.” – Your manager.
According to software developer Jordan Cutler*, such feedback can frustrate a programmer. Why? Probably because he was always sure that in his position it was enough for him to “communicate” using code. But no. Often, focusing only on code limits your potential for development and advancement.
Succeeding in communications is a complex task, and under the cut the author considers only what concerns public speaking. Namely:
The most important nuances of body language, wording and tone;
Creating a presentation structure that will make people listen to you.
Recommendations can be useful for face-to-face and remote technical negotiations, meetings and interviews.
*Please note that the author’s position may not always coincide with the opinion of MyOffice.
Language of the body
Briefly, the essence of this section can be described as follows: during a speech, you must be open at the level of body language.
Sight
There are three undesirable behavior patterns:
Look at only one person in the room;
Look only at the slides;
Look down.
Instead, smoothly look around the audience and look at the slides only when you want to draw the audience's attention to them.
This provides the speaker with an aura of confidence and makes the audience feel like you are talking to them and not to your slides.
Your posture
We software engineers tend to slouch when sitting at our desks all day. To combat this pre-show habit, do the following:
Lean your back against the wall and make sure your shoulders and head are touching the wall;
Stand up straight, look in front of you, push your shoulders back as far as they will go, and then allow them to naturally fall back into place.
Improving your posture provides the following benefits:
Your confidence will increase, anxiety will decrease;
The audience will be more interested in you;
Your voice will naturally sound better.
Your hands
One of the most difficult aspects of performing is keeping track of the position of your arms and hands. The good news is that all you have to remember is keep your hands open. The natural reaction when nervous is to clasp your hands, put them together, rub them together, put them in your pockets, etc. These are all signs of closed body language.
In contrast, it is worth copying the behavior patterns of experienced speakers:
Calmly gesture with your hand with an open palm to explain your point of view. At the same time, try to maintain natural behavior;
Point your open palm at the element on the slide you want to focus on.
There are various nuances and great scope for development – for example, in gestures you can use both hands. But such things will come with time. For now, just focus on being open.
Here is a collage of footage from Steve Jobs' presentation. Notice that his arms are never pointed down, they are always open.
If you are interested in details on the topic, I recommend a video about the main body language mistakes that should be avoided:
Your speech
The key message in this section is that you must project confidence.
I still get nervous before presentations. And I use at least one warm-up technique to calm my nerves and set myself up for confident speech.
Warm-up techniques for confidence:
Jumping or push-ups. Helps to distract from nervousness, improve blood circulation and concentration;
Powerful roar. Find a soundproof place and scream. Yes, I did this in my old apartment, and it helped, allowing me to relieve tension at the abdominal level;
Minimum effort. Relax your body! Before performances, I noticed that my body tensed, my legs and arms crossed, forming a ball. Try not to let it happen: your body affects your mind. “Wide” your body, stretch, spread out, raise your arms above your head, whatever. This will make you feel more relaxed;
[Рекомендация моих друзей] Breathing exercises. Personally, I use other methods, but it's important to find what works for you. For example, in the screenshot below, my colleague shares his experience of using resonant breathing.
Another thing I like to do on presentation day is talk to more people.
What happens when you exercise without warming up? You are overexerting yourself. Warm up on the day of the presentation by talking to people. If you've spent most of the day communicating in person, giving a speech won't seem like much anymore. Compared to not talking to anyone the day before your performance, your chances of performing confidently will go from 0 to 100.
Rhythm
Try not to speak too fast, too slow, or at the same pace.
Be dynamic. If you stick to one pace, you become monotonous, which results in your audience opening Slack, their phone, or falling asleep.
To successfully control the pace of your speech, add emotion to your presentation. Emphasize the moments that really excite you the most. The audience will feed off this energy.
Another tip: If you find yourself using interjections like “uh” or “uh” a lot, it may mean that your mind is not able to keep up with the speed of your speech. And instead of using those filler interjections, you can just pause.
Tone
It is not uncommon for engineers to speak too quietly or unintelligibly. Tip: Study what the top speakers you look up to speak. For example:
Tony Robbins;
Michelle Obama;
Steve Jobs.
You don't have to be that professional of a speaker, but at least try to match their level.
You can watch their performances in preparation for yours.
Practice
The benefits of practice are obvious, so I won’t focus on it. Before your presentation, you can practice by recording yourself or in front of a friend. This will help sharpen your wording and, most importantly, give you more confidence. If you know before a performance that you just need to repeat what you did during yesterday's practice, you will be much less nervous.
Your content
I already have guide on this topicbut I'll summarize the key points here.
Add interactivity
One of the best ways to add interactivity is with “question slides” or “thought slides.” Make a slide that gets people thinking about the topic before you start speaking.
Let's say your presentation is about how to be a good mentor.
A “thought slide” might say, “Think of the best mentor you ever had.” When the slide appears, you say, “I would like to hear from you whether my advice today is what they taught you.”
A “questions slide” might say, “What does good mentoring look like to you? What about bad mentoring? If you get your audience to think about it, they'll be interested in hearing what you say next and whether it matches what they thought.
When you speak to a small audience (less than 30 people), you can get the audience's opinion directly – and repeatedly during the speech.
Personal example: For one talk, I ask everyone to close their eyes while I play an audio clip. This helped put listeners in the shoes of the people I wanted to empathize with—blind clients who use special screen readers.
Image > text
Go through all the slides with text and see if you can replace the words with an image.
Of course, not all slides need to have pictures. For example, my best presentations contained 75% images and 25% text.
When you use text on slides, follow these rules:
If the list is bulleted, try using 3 or 5 bullets. Using 2 or 4 bullets is less readable;
Consider making a slide with just one sentence right in the center;
Your bullets should be mostly 1 line, sometimes 2 lines, and never 3 or more lines.
How to structure content
You might also be wondering how to put all your content together.
There are several frameworks you can follow.
1. Problem – agitation – solution
This principle is great for persuasion: you can use it to convince a team to adopt a new template or change a team process.
You start with a short description Problemsthen “agitate”, talking about numerous pain points in the context of the problem, and finally offering your solution.
Why does it work: You immediately present the problem people want to solve, touch their emotions, intrigue them, and then relieve the tension by opening the way forward.
Here is an example of using this framework:
Problem:
A big mistake I often see among engineers is being overly focused on salary. The problem is that paying too much is often accompanied by difficulties.
Agitation:
1. The work is extremely toxic. Sure, you can earn 50% above the market average, but expect 80+ hour work weeks and crazy deadlines.
2. You come to a position that is too high for yourself. You initially convinced the interviewers and negotiated skillfully, but in fact you are unable to live up to the expectations of the position and have to constantly worry about improving your productivity.
3. The company is unstable in the market. Employees are paid generously, but this only signals that the business is on the verge of bankruptcy.
Of course, money is important, but successful career decisions should be a priority. You should look for the optimal balance.
Solution:
You can learn more about what you should prioritize when choosing a job by following this link.
2. Before – after – bridge
Great for talking about how a product has improved after a change has been made—for example, a technical discussion, a general presentation, or promoting migration. This is also a popular format for presentations at technical conferences (“How we doubled developer productivity in X”).
You describe the old state of the system (before), explain the current state of the system (after) and all the benefits of the updated version, and then, finally, how you got to this final point.
Why does it work: the audience gets a clear idea of the previous state of the system and its problems; listeners are impressed by its new state and are curious about how you achieved it.
3. Topic – why it's important – information – summary
This structure is best suited for informative presentations. You introduce the topic, explain why it's important, provide the basic information the audience needs to know, and then summarize.
This is actually the format I use on my blog.
I also used it when speaking about accessibility and inclusion at Gusto during our all-hands meeting of over 200 people. Use this format in combination with the interactive elements above and you'll be on your way to success.
Why does it work: The audience immediately understands the importance of the topic. The information is divided into digestible sections, and people get a summary of the findings that they can ultimately remember.
To summarize
Language of the body: must be open.
Gaze: Maintain eye contact with the audience. Don't look at the slides;
Posture: stand straight, move your shoulders back, raising your head high;
Arms: Focus on openness and natural movements.
Speech: Focus on confidence.
Warm up: Build your confidence by warming up by doing light exercises, breathing techniques, relaxing your body, or talking to people;
Rhythm: Avoid tempos that are too fast, too slow, or the same. Keep the momentum going;
Tone: Think about famous speakers and the way they speak. Try to match them.
Structure and content: Use frameworks.
Interactivity: use slides with questions and thoughts to interact with the audience;
Images > Text: Make the most of visuals. 75% visual slides and 25% text slides is the optimal ratio, which can be adjusted depending on the specifics of the presentation;
Structure: Use “Problem – Agitation – Solution,” “Before – After – Bridge,” or “Topic – Why It Matters – Information – Summary” to present your content. There are other frameworks, but these are my favorites and they have helped me a lot.
Mastering all the techniques mentioned may take some time and I am certainly not 100% proficient in them. I hope this article helps you create the perfect presentation for your next presentation.
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If you, as a technical specialist, are interested in the topic of communication skills and their development, we also recommend that you read articles from MyOffice experts:
