CMA Board Report Presentation - Slides

During the CMA Board Report Presentation there are so many variables (you cannot control what your team members will say and how they will say it, you cannot predict the type of questions that will be asked nor can you anticipate the type of board panel personalities and their likes and dislikes, and you never know just how nervous you will get). But, you CAN  control one thing, and it is the power point presentation that you prepare for the CMA Board Report Presentation. You have a lot of time to work on it so it better be perfect.
Unless the rules changed from when I presented, we had to give copies of our entire presentation to the whole Board Panel and this ensured that they will not forget or miss anything in it that they liked or disliked. I believe that the slides are VERY important to your final mark in the presentation and to the overall impression that you make on the panel so do not rush through it and make sure that the slides are as good as you can get them. There is no excuse for errors because you have a lot of time to prepare and perfect them. Below are the principles that we applied to putting our slides together for our CMA Board Report Presentation.

Some Notes on Slides:

Slides are not a transcript for what you are going to say, rather they should be a visual representation/point form summary of what you are going to say during the time the slide will be up. You do not want the audience to be busy reading your slides while you are talking. You want them to glance at the slide, and get an idea of what you are about to discuss.

Do:

• Use visual components such as images, graphs, charts, colours, directional arrows, etc. to draw the viewers and keep their attention and interest. Be creative but also professional. 
• Make sure the images add impact/value and that the image message corresponds to the slide content. 
• Make sure that the font is big enough to see across the room.
• Include the group logo/name on each slide as well as the name of the person presenting
• Keep a consistent style theme among slides, as well as the same title fonts, sizes and colors.
• Include a cover page - on the cover include such things as the group logo/name, the company name and date of the presentation.
• Apply an engaging yet professional background in line with the overall style theme. If relevant and possible try to relate the theme and style to the case if possible (for example, a case on lawns and gardens can have a green color theme).
• Include a slide with the company's mission/vision - especially when the case does not have a stated mission/vision but rather an implied one. This should be among the first few slides. 
• Include a slide that discusses the current situation and what you will be helping the company achieve. 
• Include an agenda of what you will discuss, in what order and who on your team will discuss each of these. One thing our moderators liked was to have the name of the speaker in the corner of each slide that he/she was presenting so that the audience always knew who is speaking. 
• Include the summary /key numbers only for financials (a chart/graph or other visual representation of the financials would be good), not the entire NPV calculations or pro-forma. See note on back up slides - that is where the details will be.
• Remember that the key to the presentation is to convince the board that your recommendations will help the company achieve their goal
• Keep the bullet points short - you will provide the details when you speak
• Prepare back up slides with the details to everything in your report in case it comes up in the Q&A so that you can show the details. That way when the question comes up about say 'what were your assumptiosn when calculating NPV' you can flip to one of your back-up slides and show it to the audience. I will do a post specifically on this sometime soon because our moderators showed us a very effective way of setting up the back up slides to make them easier to navigate, especially since we had almost 100 back-up slides. 
• Have a slide at the end of your presentation with something like 'Q&A' on it so that you can keep this slide on during the Q&A portion.
• Focus your presentation on the alternatives that you are recommending while briefly touching on those that you are not recommending and why.
• Use a visual way to show the action plan instead of providing slide after slide with names and what they should do. A visual task and time lines chart will show the overall action plan for the company and give a sense of the time lines and resource commitments.
• Check the spelling and grammar
• Ensure that you are referring to the company management properly (use Mr. Green or John Green instead of 'Green' or 'John' or 'CEO').

Do Not:

• Use smiley faces and cartoon characters (yes, I have seen some groups do that!)
• Go over board on icons, images, photos or colors.
• Show up with a slide presentation consisting of regular black font on white background bullet points, page after page.
• Use the slides as a transcript of your speech
• Do not over crowd the slides 
• Spend more than 90 seconds per slide
• Include every single detail from your report in the slides 
• Include entire financials in the slides
• Spend a lot of slide space discussing the pros of alternatives that you are not recommending.
• Use negative terms when talking about the company (instead of saying 'operational issues' which suggest the company has 'issues', you may prefer to say 'operational recommendations' - this is a more positive way to present the same information)
• Spend too much time discussing the pros of alternatives that you are not recommending.
• Use slang or Internet jargon 

Remember, the key is 'engaging yet professional'

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Group Dynamics In CMA SLP Year 2

This was the biggest change (and challenge!) as compared to Year 1. In year two of the CMA SLP all the case reports were now group work. Depending on your personality, you may view this as a positive or a negative. For me this components was the biggest challenge. On one hand it was great to be able to bounce ideas among the team members and often if one person did not know something, another did. However sometimes two or more people thought they were right, but each person had a different answer - that is where we often spent a lot of time debating on which approach to go with and often had to resolve to a vote.

Our team had 6 people and I am happy with our team as we didn't have any trouble makers or 'difficult' people, and everyone genuinely cared and put effort in towards the report, but we still had our share of issues.

The moderators broke us into groups supposedly based on a personality test that we did earlier, but also taking into account our residence to make it easier to meet up. I think they did well overall as they tried to avoid having more than one Type A personality per group. I am a major Type A personality and luckily no one else in the group was too.

We quickly settled into our roles that emerged based on our individual skills. In the beginning we tried to split everything evenly so say everyone gets an alternative to calculate, but the reality is that some people are better at quants and others may be better at research and writing or at presentations and creating visuals for power point slides so we ended up embracing this eventually and things started moving much more smoothly when we did so.

We did hit a few road blocks when a member would insist on including something that others didn't feel belonged in the report (we were limited by pages for appendixes and by number of words for the body of the report), but resorting to a vote usually made these decisions seem less personal. We voted on things often.

Every weekend our team would meet and we would review what each person did and then work on putting it together in a cohesive way (we found that we had to choose a team member that will be the 'voice' of the report, otherwise if you just copy and paste the work of 6 people it did not sound cohesive and professional. We wanted the report to flow smoothly and not feel like the voice/writing style was constantly changing). To make it sound cohesive one person would be sitting with a laptop and typing the information that the group would come up with (i.e. everyone had the case in front of them and would read it together and identify the pros/cons, etc. and the person at the computer would include it in the report in their 'writing style').

We also had a 'plan' that we came up with ahead of time, charting what we wanted to achieve each weekend and if we would fall behind, we would push harder the next weekend of meet an extra time. The plan was for several months ahead and ensured that we had adequate time to finish the project without pulling all-nighters like some teams ended up doing.

I will caution you that in our team, some members spent more time working on the report then others, but I think this is inevitable. Some members are stronger than others and even though it is 'not fair' that everyone will get the same mark at the end, you still want the person who is the best at something to be the one to do it (so if someone is good at quants, even though they may not like it, I think it is best for them to be the main quants person).

I think this report should not be approached from a 'how can we do it fairly' perspective, but rather from a 'how can we do it well' perspective.

During the weekend CMA sessions you will be given an anonymous sheet to mark your team mates. I really recommend that you just give everyone good feedback and a good mark. I know it sounds weird, and you may think 'but isn't this my chance to let them know that they are not pulling in their weight and need to step it up'. If you choose to do this, it is up to you. But speaking from experience, in our team for the first evaluation someone did give out 'honest' feedback and it ended up costing the team as a whole because I guess it conveyed that our team wasn't really 'working though our issues/ working effectively' so our team mark was less than impressive for that weekend session. For all next evaluations we decided to just give everyone AEs and write positive feedback and since then our team mark was great. I recommend that you deal with any issues internally in your team.

I think the most challenging aspect of the group dynamic is during presentations because your performance depends on others and you don’t have a chance to 'proof read', review, adjust or vote on what others will say before it gets assessed (like you do with the written report). People get nervous and make mistakes. Teammates will fumble their slides and presentation, they will mess up Q&As, they will say the wrong thing and they will project the wrong body language at times during the presentation. This will happen and your mark will be affected by it and you better make peace with it sooner than later, it hurts but it is true. You will make mistakes too at some point and they will have to come to terms with it as well.

One thing to remember is that the group passes or fails together, so if you are having a problem with a team member I highly recommend you resolving it internally. You may have a team member that is not pulling in their weight as much as others and from what I have heard it is best to just deal with it because making a big deal and having the moderators deal with this may result in a negative impact on the whole group (if you have a member that’s MIA that may be a different issue, but if its a member that’s slacking off here and there, I would just have the rest of the group deal with it rather than bring CMA into the mix).

You will get to know the people in your team very well so make the best of it, try to laugh through it all because you will see them more than your family some weeks so try to make it pleasant (we would often bring snacks, joke around, and made sure to get to know each other).
 

 

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Want To Share Your CMA Experience?

Since it has been a few years since I have been through the CMA program myself, I am looking for current or recent CMA students (at any stage of the process) who may be interested in writing a post about their experience in the program. Students often wonder about what is it like to go through the various stages of the CMA program and I would love to post first hand experiences from current or recent students so that others can read and get an idea of what to expect or to compare their own experiences!

If you are interested, please let me know by contacting me at cmacasemaster (@) gmail.com

Where To Hold SLP Year 2 Group Meetings?

One issue our group in year 2 of the CMA SLP had was where to hold our group meetings. We met every single weekend, sometimes both Saturday and Sunday. We tried various locations and here are some of the pros and cons that we found on the various locations and what we eventually settled on:

Coffee Shops

We tried meeting at coffee shops but that was a fail. Even though there are many locations to choose from which was great, we had issues with no available plugs, small tables where we were not able to fit all of our laptops and notes, and sometimes not enough free tables at all. We gave up on this fast.

Reserving Public Library Rooms

For a while we would meet at public libraries, where a member would book a room. It was a great set up. Large conference style table, a board where we could write things out, a lot of space for notes and laptops and many plugs. But the amount of time that we were able to reserve the rooms for was limited and we were not allowed to book a room back to back and often we would run out of time and have to leave even though we still had things to address so we had to look for another option. Another con was that since the room was in the Library (and it had poor sound insulation), we were often reminded to keep it down, which was hard when we were having (sometimes heated) debates about topics.

Meeting at a University

Our CMA SLP used to take place at a University for a while, before moving to the downtown location. So one day we just went for a walk throughout the university building to look for some available free space and we found one. Universities sometimes have areas with some tables and chairs and plugs so students can study/spend time there between classes. This was working well but the con was that we had to pay for parking each time we were there and since we met a lot this added up quickly. 

Meeting at Someone's Home

We tried meeting in someone's home. This was a great option in that we had plenty of space, we were not limited in time, free parking, snacks available, etc. The con was that someone's family home would get taken over for hours and other family members may not be too happy about this. If you have a large home with a separate area where you can accommodate this without disrupting your spouse/kids/family then I think this is the best option. Group members would bring snacks to share and I think this helped foster a more friendly group environment - the last thing you want is to argue with a bunch of hungry and tired people.  

Image courtesy of Sura Nualpradid FreeDigitalPhotos.net

How To Prepare For CMA SLP Year 2

I have received several emails as well as a forum question on how to prepare for Year 2 of the CMA Strategic Leadership Program (SLP). Looks like this is something that quite a few people are wondering about so I put together this post to share my view on how to prepare for Year 2 of the CMA SLP program: 

I would be one of those to tell you 'enjoy your summer and when Year 2 of the CMA SLP program starts, you will review and refresh yourself on anything that you feel you may have forgotten and catch up on things you may not know'.

But if I were really set on reviewing things during the summer this is what I would do:

• I would review all the various case components (situational analysis, NPV, recommendations, action plan, situational analysis, SWOT, etc.) as well as quantitative methods like payback period, IRR, variances and general concepts like the value chain and balanced scorecard. I wouldn't study these in depth, rather I would just review these before the start of year 2 to make sure that I remember and understand what these are and how to approach them properly.
• I would get myself comfortable with powerpoint (creating slides, visuals, graphs, links, etc.) for all the presentations that you will be doing in year
• I would also get comfortable with excel for all the quants you will be doing. The quants in year 2 are more detailed and lengthy and being comfortable with excel could help you streamline these quants.
• I would practice presenting and speaking in front of a crowd as you will be doing a lot of that.