3 Slide Presentation To Get Buy-In For Data Science Projects

As Senior Data Scientists, we often need to develop a quick presentation to pitch our projects to senior leaders and stakeholders.

“The CTO and Product Management wants to go over your project.”

“When’s the meeting?”

“Tomorrow, 9 am. I’ll forward you the invite.”

It’s 4:30 pm when that hits your Slack. Few of us are expert deck jockeys. I have a three-slide canned format when I get hit with last-minute project reviews. In this post, I’ll explain the basic structure for your presentation and what to put on each slide.

Do not use an introduction slide. Just skip it. You’ll find yourself in a rabbit hole trying to jam everything into a summary. Then you’ll repeat yourself through the rest of the presentation. Often you lose your audience in the introduction. Just dive right in—no title slide. No introduction.

Slide 1: Opportunity Definition

Every project is you bringing the business an opportunity. The biggest mistake I see Data Scientists make is starting with the project itself. For a technical audience, that works very well. Your audience is different, and they have a different focus.

All good Data Science starts with a question. Title this slide with that question. The project may have more of an objective statement than an actual question. That works just as well.

Quantify the scope of the opportunity. Value is rarely specific for Data Science projects. I put in a range with labels of outperform at the top, expected in the middle, and underperform at the bottom. Make sure the underperform is still an impressive amount of value. Have a slide in the appendix if someone wants to dive into how you calculated that value.

You are creating opportunities for questions. Make space for people to talk in places you are prepared to respond. If you don’t create space for them, they’ll create it for themselves. Stay in control of the presentation by intentionally creating space for them.

Value is best shown as a dollar amount, but person-hours saved or other business metrics work just as well with some projects.

Show the strategy and goals alignment. The C Suite shares core strategy with the business. Line the project up with one pillar of that presentation. In companies that do not communicate strategy, align with a business goal. Both are typically very high level, so spend a minute drawing a connection between the project and strategy pillar or goal during the presentation.

Explain the costs, risks, and external resource requirements. Put them on slide one but do not lead the presentation with them. Get people to understand the benefits first. This audience expects this piece, so don’t be afraid of transparency.

Have a quick reference to each one but keep details in an appendix slide. The appendix slide should focus on cost reduction and risk mitigation efforts.

Use all your visualization tricks, from font size to color to text positioning on the slide. Use your corporate slide templates instead of customizing a new one.

Slide 2: Justification

Title this slide with a simplified answer to, “Why this project vs. an alternative?” Project revue meetings come from a lack of progress or awareness of project value. It’s rarely stated plainly, but reviews aim to decide if resources should go somewhere else.

Extend the concepts from slide 1. Prioritization is critical to justifying this project versus an alternative. Prioritization extends from strategy alignment. The message is, “This is a critical strategic pillar or goal; therefore, this is a critical project. This is important because the business said it is important.”

Describe the loss of not moving forward with this project. What value would be lost by reallocating resources? This is not a loss due to current progress, but the increased value returned by this project over others that could be considered.

End slide two by explaining the alignment with stakeholder goals. While the business has top-level goals, each business unit has goals that extend from those top-level goals. Get stakeholders on board by explaining the project’s benefits to them.

This piece answers the question, “Why do external teams care?” If they buy-in, they become evangelists and promoters. It’s easier to get buy-in when you’re not the only one pushing for the project. For efficiency projects, these are internal users. For products and features, this is everyone who will be positively impacted by the new revenue source or new/improved functionality.

Slide 3: Next Steps

The title of this slide is ‘Next Steps,’ but this is the project description. Your audience cares about the project details. Their interest comes from understanding what happens if this project moves forward.

Describe the project by presenting a timeline. If you have not fully estimated the project yet, that’s fine. Put the steps in chronological order and put month or even quarter level estimates next to each step. Whatever you put here, expect to be held to no matter how tentative you say those dates are. If you’re not sure yet, stay high level and don’t get trapped into estimating on the fly. Better for the project to die than you not to deliver.

Steps do not need to be detailed to the granularity of tasks. Data pipeline, infrastructure improvements, and model development are acceptable for this audience.

Include steps that have already been completed and talk about results already delivered. This section is where you communicate the work that would be lost if the project stops now. You also want to show there has been progress made. This group may not know that work has started and results are delivered.

End with project asks and a call to action. Asks include external resources, budget, reduced/increased scope, or extra time. If there are no asks, end with a call to action. “I need your support to deliver the value you expect from this project or achieve this strategic goal or something they care about.”

Stop Talking

The temptation is to support the call to action. Don’t. Make your call to action, then stop talking. Assume they are going to say, “Yes.” Don’t risk talking yourself out of that “Yes.”

People rarely make decisions at these types of meetings. Don’t expect to walk away with a solid answer.

You lose control of the meeting at this point. Let it happen. Don’t feel the need to respond to everything that gets said. Don’t insert yourself into side conversations that may break out. Wait for questions. Respond to contradictions.

Allow people to disagree and present their perspectives without you disagreeing. Instead of proving they are wrong, respond by supporting your position. You are almost ignoring their argument to stay on message. If they present contradictory evidence, refute their evidence, not them.

Quick answers are the best here. Be brief and to the point. Don’t elaborate unless asked.

If the conversation turns towards making changes to the project during the meeting or increasing the scope of the project, squash it by saying, “Let’s make changes to the project in a different meeting after we have decided to move forward with it.”