I know we all have probably come up against this same situation at one time or another as I have in the past, however this time the other party is really resistant. The particular subject is the content and format of a PowerPoint presentation. I am just not getting my point across very well about too much content on one slide and having the content display all at once rather than displayed as discussed. I have been polite and tried several times, however it just is not getting through. Any suggestions?

I guess I would start with a question--who's training is it??

Is it training that you, or the training department own? If so, then you can make it a non-negotiable. If not, then you may have done what you can. You make suggestions, offering sound professional advice, and they either take it or they don't.

Pat,

I am the Training Manager. I was brought in to get a training department off the ground. Until I got here subject matter experts were doing whatever they wanted.

Susan

It IS a problem when people dont agree to what may be a very sensible idea.

May be what you can do is include an assessment of training delivery in the program evaluation. specially quality and use of visual aids. Get feedback from the participants.

Also run a post program test on learning.

The scores will tell you whether you are correct and also provide you ammunition to deal with the situation.

Since the SME's were running the programs before you came in, it might be a good idea to lose a few battles along the way in order to win the war.

best of luck!

Susan,

In addition to the other suggestions posted, Presentations Magazine runs a column every month called "Before and After," where they re-do PowerPoint slides to show the reader ideas on how to make them better. One of the recurring themes is to lose as much of the text as possible, using graphics instead and also breaking text up over more slides. (Using a pretty commonly accepted "truth" to PowerPoint - too much content/text per slide is bad.)

It might help to have something like this on hand as back-up to what you are saying. You can go to presentations.com and either read articles or subscribe to the hard-copy mag for free (if you have some input in presentation product purchasing).

And if not, Iqbal's point is a good one ... since you're trying to change "the way they've always done it" there's gonna be some resistance. Build relationships with the SMEs and over time, you'll be able to make that change happen.

Good luck!