‘The PowerPoint Fallacy’ by Matthias Poehm, published by Poehm

When I first came across this book I was uncertain how serious it would be. Mr Poehm is a German speaking trainer based in Switzerland and obviously an effective publicist; he calls himself the founder of the Anti PowerPoint Party and was willing to provide a discount on his book if you joined up; I did not do so.

I have a lot of sympathy with the essential thrust of the book - that PowerPoint has become far too dominant in business life; the author quotes 95% of presentations using this medium and our own observations would confirm this. He makes the pertinent point that Barack Obama manages to get over his messages without PowerPoint and that we should be able to do the same. This ignores the point that we do not have the President’s charisma or speaking skills.

My view from experience is that PowerPoint is not the problem, it is how people use it. So many times I have sat through presentations by company finance people who show loads of unreadable figures which add no value at all; and I have often been asked by clients to produce PowerPoint slides that we will not use but which they need to satisfy themselves that we have ‘prepared’.

Where I would disagree with the author is that it is all or nothing, that we should do without PowerPoint altogether. Indeed I would argue that the growth of on-line meetings and virtual training has increased the need, because it provides a focal point for discussions. The challenge however is to use the PowerPoint method as the basis for encouraging interaction, not as an excuse for one way communication.

Despite its all or nothing approach, the book does provide useful tips and guidance. He supports the informality of the flipchart and many of us would agree, though he fails to take into account the fact that many of us are not as neat and legible as he seems to be (am I the only one who yearns for the overhead projector which you could write and draw on? I know you can now do something similar in virtual classrooms but it’s not quite the same)

He is also right in his analysis that you devalue a statement when you show it on a screen and then read it out. At MTP we try to work to the principle that every entry on a PowerPoint slide must be capable of being added to, and the additions are there in the speaker notes if needed. The speaker notes can, for the less experienced trainer, also provide questions to be asked and triggers to be fired to encourage discussion and questioning.

So, despite my criticism of the author’s dogmatic approach, I recommend the book to any trainer who is concerned about ‘Death by PowerPoint’ and is unsure how to address the problem. It could also be a gift to those colleagues who love to produce 100+ slide decks and use them to bore the pants of everyone.