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Executive Presentation Checklist
An executive presentation is judged in the first two minutes and decided in the last five. This is the pass to make before either — seventeen checks, from the objective to the final delivery.
WHY PRESENTATIONS STRUGGLE
Most executive presentations do not fail on content. They fail because the audience cannot find the point, cannot trust the numbers, or cannot tell what they are being asked to decide.
Each of those failures is preventable, and almost always visible before the meeting — if someone looks. The checks below are the ones that catch them.
THE SEVENTEEN CHECKS
- 01
Define the objective
Write one sentence that says what you want the audience to decide, approve, understand or do. If you cannot, the presentation is not ready to build.
- 02
Identify the audience
Know who will be in the room, what each person cares about, what they already know and who makes the decision. Build for the decision-maker.
- 03
Establish the core message
Reduce the presentation to one sentence that you would still want remembered if everything else were forgotten. Say it in the first two minutes.
- 04
Build the narrative
Give the argument a shape: situation, complication, resolution — or position, direction, evidence, decision. The order should feel inevitable.
- 05
Structure the presentation
Read the slide titles alone, in order. If they tell the story, the structure works. If they read like a table of contents, rewrite them as conclusions.
- 06
Check slide hierarchy
On every slide, the most important element should be the most prominent. Squint at the slide: what you can still see is what the audience notices first.
- 07
Check visual consistency
Fonts, colours, sizes, margins and title positions should be identical from slide to slide. Inconsistency reads as haste, and haste undermines trust.
- 08
Validate the data
Every figure should be sourced, dated and consistent across slides, papers and summaries — the same number, rounded the same way, everywhere.
- 09
Make the recommendation explicit
State the recommendation in words, on its own slide, and say it aloud. An audience that has to infer the recommendation will assume there is none.
- 10
Identify the decisions required
Write each decision as a question the audience can answer. "We are asking you to approve…" is clearer than any amount of context.
- 11
Identify actions and owners
Every action needs one named owner — a person, not a team — and a date. Actions without both are intentions.
- 12
Remove unnecessary information
Move anything the audience might want but does not need into an appendix. Every slide in the main deck should earn its place.
- 13
Check terminology
Define abbreviations, remove internal jargon and use the same term for the same thing throughout. Senior audiences cross departmental boundaries.
- 14
Check the charts
Each chart should make one point, stated in its title. Start bar axes at zero, label data directly, and use colour to highlight, not to decorate.
- 15
Check the executive summary
Near the front, a summary should stand alone: the conclusion, the key evidence, the ask. Many senior readers will read nothing else.
- 16
Rehearse the narrative
Rehearse out loud, timed, and at least once without the slides. If the story only works with the deck in front of you, you know the slides, not the argument.
- 17
Run the final delivery check
Test the file on the equipment you will use, keep a PDF as a fallback, know which slides to skip if time is cut, and know exactly how you will close.
THE EIGHT-SECOND TEST
Show someone your recommendation slide for eight seconds, then take it away. Ask them what is being recommended.
If they cannot tell you, neither will the board. Rewrite the title until the recommendation survives the test.
FREE RESOURCE
Download the Executive Presentation Checklist
The printable two-page checklist: every check above, grouped by stage, with space to tick each one off before an important presentation.
Free to download, print and share in its original form. No payment, account or sign-up required.
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