Save us from death by PowerPoint

EARLIER this year, a report from the US Army concluded that "PowerPoint makes us stupid".

And then came the news that our own prime minister, Kevin Rudd, had made a 40-minute PowerPoint presentation on his health and hospital reform proposal to the state premiers.

Can you imagine Bob Menzies giving a PowerPoint presentation to anyone?

There is no doubt that there are many company directors who would agree with the US Army's conclusion, especially after sitting through seemingly endless PowerPoint presentations given by senior executives and outside advisers. I like to think of it as "death by PowerPoint".

For those directors who have been sitting around board tables for a long time, including myself, the use of the PowerPoint presentation initially crept up on us, but its domination is now almost complete, save for the instances where it is firmly resisted.

Many years ago, board papers were written in the form of essays, albeit with a surfeit of tables. On odd occasions, a chart would be included, put together by some long-suffering graduate assistant.

A proposal would be put or a topic examined, but the discussion was always written in sentences -- logically, with a beginning, middle and end. Modesty was often a hallmark of these papers, in which it was made clear what assumptions were being made and the inherent uncertainty of the conclusions.

It was akin to a journey being made together -- by the authors of the paper and the directors of the company.

Fast-forward to meetings dominated by PowerPoint presentations. Sometimes lobbed on directors on the day of the meeting -- although such practice is to be strenuously resisted -- an executive or outside adviser may present upwards of 40 or 50 slides.

Depending on how busy these slides are -- evidently 40 words is typical for a business slide and each provides for eight seconds of silent reading -- it is easy to see how the number of slides per presentation begins to add up.

Moreover, a common tendency of authors is to cram far too much information into any one slide. Words, charts, pictures -- the effect of this clutter is mind-numbing rather than enlightening. According to Edward Tufte, an academic who has analysed the impact of PowerPoint presentations, the end-result is that "audiences endure a relentless sequentiality, one damn slide after another".

Of course, it is impossible not to be impressed by the technical possibilities that arise by virtue of the software. Moving parts, different kinds of charts, pictures and maps -- the visual brilliance of PowerPoint presentations can be quite breathtaking.

And in terms of the decorative radiance of presentations, the outside advisers seem to compete with each other to achieve ever dizzying heights, with distinctive logos always prominently placed on each slide.

For older directors, in particular, who have not had hands-on experience with using the software (which is not particularly difficult, by the way), the stunning spectacle of the presentation can be especially alluring, even in the context of a weak or flimsy proposal. One of the issues raised by the use of the PowerPoint presentation in the boardroom is the altered power balance.

Rather than the chairman taking a paper as read and opening up the contents for discussion by the directors, the meeting is broken up by presentations, followed by discussion.

You know the routine: points of clarification only, let the presenter finish, there will be plenty of time at the end for discussion.

According to Tufte: "PowerPoint's pushy style seeks to set up a speaker's dominance over the audience. The speaker, after all, is making power point with bullets."

An additional trap of PowerPoint presentations is the potential to convince decision-makers of the wisdom of a particular action or point of view on the basis of so-called spurious precision.

This is because bullets points appear to be precise, according to marketing expert, Seth Godin, when in reality they are nothing of the sort. But bullet points do not invite questions, particularly about the underlying assumptions.

By their nature, presentations are linear, with one point leading to another to another and so on. But complex issues need to be judged within their contexts and by reference to important comparisons. For these reasons, the PowerPoint presentation is often ill-suited as an aid to decision-making.

And presentations are typically too long "so that nothing in particular gets commented on or remembered or criticised", according to Godin.

I recall sitting through an interminable presentation by an outside adviser, with maps, charts, projections of massive returns to investment, only to realise half way through that the whole case was based on one key and unrealistic assumption.

When I piped up to make this point, I was told that I should allow the adviser to complete the presentation.

What we really should have been doing was interrogating the key assumption -- without endorsement of the plausibility of this assumption, the presentation was a complete waste of time.

Insisting that PowerPoint presentations be included as part of board papers is one means of undercutting the potential dangers, in part because the visual allure of PowerPoint presentations is so much less on paper. Without those moving parts and the assured voice of the presenter, it is much easier to query assumptions, points of deductions and conclusions.

Having said this, the actual presentation of the PowerPoint slides at the time of the meeting then become almost unbearable and insupportable.

At the risk of appearing to be a fuddy-duddy pining for the good old days, a case can be made for a rebalancing of board meetings to give less time to PowerPoint presentations, assuming they are not completely disallowed, and more time for well-written and argued board papers.

In their place and for particular purposes, PowerPoint presentations can be a useful aid to understanding issues and making decisions. But their role in the boardroom needs to be limited and constrained.

Professor Judith Sloan is an economist and company director