Effective Means To Gather Feedback On Presentations

It takes a great deal of self confidence to be able to deliver a presentation before huge crowds; hence once it is done you do feel a sense of relief. But wait, just giving the presentation isn’t enough; to fully serve the purpose, you must not skip the part where you gather feedback!

It is often said that communication without feedback is meaningless. Well, they sure are right about that! It is feedback that allows you to know if what you have endeavored to communicate is actually understood by the audience or not. This is important for you so you can know where you lack to bring about improvements to it for the future. In a way feedback is what plays a major role is becoming better than your existing self when it comes to giving a presentation.

It must be known that gathering feedback is not necessarily the last stage to the communication cycle; it may begin during the presentation to come to an end once the presentation is delivered. Let us take a look at a few effective means of gathering feedback:

• Observing viewer reaction – This feedback is taken note of during the presentation delivery. Factors such as responsiveness of the audience and consistence in the rate of participation allow you to know if the presentation is going the right course, by being engaging enough or not. If as a presenter you are too involved to take notes, ask for assistance to do this vital job.

• Written checklist – An easy to understand written checklist for a feedback form can be distributed at the end of the presentation.

• Debrief/verbal feedback – Obviously, verbal communication is more effective since it allows open end questioning to get a broader view for audience feedback.

• Uptake of brochures – Brochures a good means of both advertising and interpreting the total brochure pick up for feedback. The more the brochures taken, the more is the impact of the presentation which is indicative of a successful delivery of a great presentation.

• Comment book – This sure is innovative since most people don’t do this. But it is good to keep a comment book for the audience to pour out their heart before leaving the presentation venue.  The comments they write will give you a clear idea of what worked for your presentation and what didn’t.
• Audience feedback tools – There are also a number of apps that you can use for gathering audience feedback. For a list of such apps see our posts about presentation feedback tools.

Effectively embrace the above given means of gathering feedback and you’ll know exactly what you must change or add to the quality of presentation matter and the presentation style. This is how you can set your eyes on perfecting the art of presentation!