If you’ve been following our work at storytelling with data, you might be aware of our penchant for planning. Taking time to understand our audience, articulate the message, sketch graphs and other visuals, storyboard potential content, and craft the story in a low-tech manner—each of these activities helps us think and reflect in important ways that make our communications stronger.

I’ll go so far as to say that one of the primary reasons that presentations fail is when time and energy isn’t spent planning.

This is such a critical—and oft-overlooked—part of the process, that I’ve devoted an entire section to it in my new book. The book is titled storytelling with you: plan, create, and deliver a stellar presentation. I’ll tell you much more about it soon.

In the meantime, if you’d like insight into how to plan your next presentation with pen and paper before turning to your tools, consider attending our virtual craft the narrative practice session on May 11th and 12th. In it, we’ll guide participants to practice a variety of low-tech strategies using a project of their choice. Attendees will leave the session with a robust plan of attack for their next presentation—plus a process to use in the future to communicate more effectively. Learn more about this and other upcoming workshops.

I’ll close with a practical tip: once you have your low-tech plan, talk through it out loud. This practice will help you vet the flow, find your words, form effective transitions, and ultimately, create content that will better support you. Hear more about the various benefits of articulating your thoughts aloud in the SWD podcast episode 6 “say it out loud.”