Are you preparing for a steering committee presentation? By the end of this video,
I'm going to share with you everything you need to have in your presentation so that you can have
a successful outcome. And if you want to be a Project Slayer, stick around until the end of
this video, because I have what you need to know on how projects fail and what you can do
to stop it. Hi, if you're new here, welcome. Subscribe to my channel for the best career
and project management advice, coming to you every Wednesday with a brand new video. Now,
if you're excited like I am about how you can wow your steering committee with the
best and most awesome presentation, well like this video, and let's get to it.
Purpose of a steering committee. Okay, before I can go into the presentation and what exactly
you need in it, we have to just get clarity on the purpose of the steering committee. Your steering
committee is there to help you as a project manager remove roadblocks, ensure you're aligned
to strategy, for a lot more information as to what steering committees do, I do have a video that I
created please go check it out, it'll definitely give you more in depth information. But we're
going to talk all about the presentation. All right, I find it quite funny that I'm doing this
video on steering committees and a presentation, and I actually have a presentation today that I'm
giving to a first time steering committee. So I already have my presentation all set up. So I
want to give you all the things that I do that is going to ensure success. These are tried and true
techniques I do over and over and get accolades for. So I want you to get these same accolades.
So, tip number one is the first thing you want to do in your presentation is you want to have a
reminder of all the key elements of your project. So what are these things? It's like the scope
statement. It's a priority matrix, it's the rules and responsibility, it's the overall timeline.
Things that are critical to the project that you need to have there to remind everybody what
they all agreed to. Because interestingly enough, even though you're not going to spend time here,
nor should you ever, you can always send it out as preread, I want you to have it in the beginning of
your presentation. Because there will be points and time throughout the lifecycle of your project
when you're going to have some challenges and you need to go back to that scope statement,
you need to go back to the priority matrix, and you don't have to search for it. Why? Because it's
in your presentation. It really is huge and makes a big difference and just keeps everyone on track
and focused and reminded. So definitely add that. Project update. This is the second section I
always add to my steering committee presentations. Now, why is this always second? Because sometimes
if I don't have anything else to share with them, then I'll just give everything out as a preread
and I'll actually cancel the steering committee meeting. Because executives are super smart,
they can read. But when you do the update, it's really important you do it in a very specific
way. You want to use a stoplight system, you want to be short and sweet, you don't
want anything long winded. So I usually just pull out the deliverables, and with each deliverable,
I will actually a stoplight status, and then I'll give a little comment. Just a little summary
so they understand what's going on. If I have any issues, I'm going to talk
about it in my steering committee, but at least it gives them an idea of, here's what we agreed to,
here's what the project is delivering on, and I want to let you know if it's green,
that means everything's on track, thumbs up. If it's yellow, which by the way, never be
afraid of the color yellow, particularly when it comes to steering committee status updates,
it just means that I'm giving you a heads up, there is a potential risk, we're working on it,
but you need to be aware in case it doesn't go according to what we're trying to do,
which is get it out of the yellow. So that's just something really important. And by the way,
if I do have yellows, I will spend a little bit of time in my steering committee, explaining them and
telling them what we're doing to resolve it. And last but not least is the red, which is,
I have an issue, need your immediate roadblock. Okay, couple of things here when it comes to
the updates, if you have reds that they pop up and you don't have a steering committee,
you need to escalate that right away, so do not wait for your steering committee. But the reason
why I even have the red in there is because there are times when I was green to yellow and now I'm
red. And I want to show them the progression, that I've shared with you that I thought we were going
to have issues, and now the issues actually came to fruition. Some issues are not a rush, others
are. So play that one by ear, if you're going to escalate it or not, or wait until the meeting.
Approvals and discussions. Okay, so in your PowerPoint presentation, because I'm making
the assumption your presentations are all done in PowerPoint, I know majority of organizations
that's how they communicate. So on this section that I put in the slide deck, this is where
all the meat and potatoes lie. So these are the approvals and the discussion items that I bring
to the table knowing based on the life cycle of my project, based on the milestones, based on what's
going on, that I want to bring to their attention. So some things can be very basic like, hey, we
just finished creating something, we want to show it to you, and I need your approval that you're
good with this and we can proceed and move forward by executing on it. Or it could be a discussion
point, there could be some issues popping up in the project that I may need roadblock removal for,
so I'll bring that under discussion. So this is really the heartbeat of your
steering committee in your presentation, it's all the discussion points and the approvals.
Big hint here, one item per slide, do not jam pack everything. I'd rather have you have 10
slides with 10 items than try to fit 10 items on one slide. It distracts because really there's
some really good information you have to put on there like, what are you going to be talking
about? What's the issue? What is a potential resolution? And what are you expecting from
your steering committee? These are all important things you need to have on that one slide. So
one slide per approval and/or discussion item. But this is the heartbeat of your presentation,
by the way, steering committee members love it because it's succinct, it's concise,
and you're getting to the heartbeat of what's going on. That is going to really distinguish you.
Steering committee action items. Now, not every single presentation that you put together will
have steering committee action items. I usually create this as a running list.
I find my steering committee are high-level senior executives, they're not part of my action plan,
so I don't include them on my project action plan. I got to monitor them in a different way. So I
monitor them through the actual presentation. So if we've come up with resolutions and they
themselves have some steps, I'll collect that and put it in the presentation.
So that next time we meet that is going to be in the next presentation and I also send them the
presentations afterwards so it's also a way for them to actually have it physically too. So you
always want to capture those action items, leave it in the presentation and monitor it through the
presentation. These are individuals that you're not around all the time, and so by having it
one stop shop in what you're going to be presenting to them in your PowerPoint just makes
it easier for you and them. More apt for them to actually execute on the tasks too, by the way.
All right, and the last section that you have in your presentation, I call next steps. So this
is when you're going to have the next meeting and you're going to highlight to the steering
committee what are the potential topics you're going to be talking about. And if you're saying,
"Well, Adriana, how do I know what those potential topics are?" I'm going to say,
"Have you done your planning?" And if the answer is, yes, you will know what those potential topics
are, because if you've done a really good project plan, you'll have some high level milestones, you
have an idea as to what you need to talk about. So that is really important because it just sets
it up for the steering committee to know, our next meeting is a month from now, and there are five
items that she already has on her agenda that she wants us to talk about. I don't give any detail,
I just kind of say, hey, we're going to have to talk about ABCD. Why? Because I know what's
coming down the pike and I want to make sure that they are aware of it as well. So it's just
in their mind's eye to know that this steering committee is pretty important and there's already
topics of discussion that we need to have. Now, I also want to clarify something too,
just so that we're all clear. This is a PowerPoint presentation that you're doing. What I suggest and
have outlined for you is a standard outline. So every single fresh presentation that you will do
will have this standard to it. It just ensures that you're not going to miss out on anything.
And then when we talk about things from previous meetings, I want you just to cut and paste it and
pop it into your brand new presentation, following the exact same format. So that is why there are
times things can travel from a previous meeting and even move forward to the next meeting, nothing
wrong with that, just cut and paste and make a fresh presentation using the standard approach.
Now that you know how to do a steering presentation, you need to hear about
the common reasons why projects fail so that those common factors don't derail your project.
Make sure you grab the complete guide I have for you by finding the link below this video.
Don't forget to subscribe and like the video and share it with all the professionals you know.
If you feel more confident doing your next steering committee presentation, let me know
in the comments below, I'd love to hear how this video helped you. See in the next one.