Technical glitches are cutting into your presentation time. How do you stay on track?
When unexpected technical issues arise during a presentation, maintaining your composure and adapting quickly are crucial. Try these strategies to stay on track:
What strategies do you use to stay on track during technical glitches?
Technical glitches are cutting into your presentation time. How do you stay on track?
When unexpected technical issues arise during a presentation, maintaining your composure and adapting quickly are crucial. Try these strategies to stay on track:
What strategies do you use to stay on track during technical glitches?
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I’d remain calm and quickly adapt by summarizing key points, skipping less critical details. Using backup materials like handouts or verbal explanations ensures continuity. Staying composed shows professionalism, keeping the audience engaged despite the technical challenges.
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I would stay calm and briefly acknowledge the issue without losing composure. I would prioritize key points and adapt by explaining concepts verbally or engaging the audience while maintaining focus on your main objectives. If time runs short, I would offer follow-up resources to cover missed details and end with a clear conclusion.
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Assume that something will go wrong, and be prepared to shorten your presentation to make up the time. Know your material enough to know what you can skip to ensure that the critical key points are touched on with the time remaining. Other suggestions: - Don't be afraid to "Call it" & suggest a reschedule if the technical issues are going on too long. - Ask for help, maybe someone else not critical to the meeting can troubleshoot, while you continue to present. - Follow up with an email copy of your material to supplement for the lost time. - Offer to answer any follow up questions via email or with a follow up meeting/presentation. -If audio/video are not working, do not forget the chat feature, as a way to communicate to your audience.
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I’d stay positive, adapt on the spot, and keep the energy up. If fixing it fails, I’d focus on delivering value and making the best out of it! 🗣️
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Murphy's Law, always have back up material. This enables you to flow smoothly when disruptions threaten your presentation. Breathe, stay calm, be yourself, and continue to engage you audience. You can do this.
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Always have a printout. Go ahead and start speaking if possible based on your printed materials without the visual. When you can plug back in to the slides, you can skip ahead to the right section or circle back to any key graphics. Stay confident and adaptable by being prepared to present verbally in advance, not relying on reading from the PPT. If you have audio issues and must wait to begin, determine what you can cut out, promise to share the slides afterwards for more detail. Use a little humor to keep your audience engaged, either about the topic, or about the problem - "and here I'm supposed to manage our IT functions!" or "what irony since this presentation is about software automation - so let's start with: no system is perfect!"
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Preperation! As a technical AV production supplier, one of the first things we suggest to our clients is including a production switcher on the job. This is a piece of hardware that allows for multiple HDMI sources to connect and allows for the technician to seamlessly switch to a backup laptop, which simultaneously runs the same presentation. Sometimes we go a step further running a hot projector backup and redundant hdmi/ fibre optic lines to the displays too but for most scenarios running a backup laptop lowers the risk enough.
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When technical glitches occur during a presentation, I focus on staying calm and composed. I always have a backup plan, such as printed copies of my slides or a secondary device, to quickly switch to if needed. While troubleshooting, I communicate the issue to the audience and reassure them that we’ll proceed shortly. To keep engagement high, I use the downtime to answer questions, elaborate on points, or discuss related topics. This helps maintain the flow of the presentation and ensures that the audience remains involved, even during unexpected disruptions.
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