You are working diligently putting a brief together, or some other type of presentation, for purpose X. The brief goes through many hands for inputs and chops as it passes through the first tier of leadership.  As a good Action Officer, you are going to see this presentation through to the end! You are sitting down with the Program Manager with a room full of the same people who scrutinized your work. And someone says…”What is the purpose of this brief?” As you think to yourself “really?” Someone else says, “Let’s get through this brief and we’ll see what the purpose is.”

Monkeys in the Middle are often called to put a brief or presentation together. One of the first questions you should be asking is “what is the purpose of this presentation?” The purpose is one of the core pieces driving how the brief will be prepared and needs to be identified from the onset. If you think about it, the purpose can be put into one of six categories:

Inform: This is a status update. Just informing leadership of where you are in a project. “We have expended 50% of the funds and on schedule.”

Decision: You are at a point in a project where you need a decision from leadership to take some type of action. “An additional $100k is needed for travel so we will be able to support the meeting.”

Problem/Solution: During the project you have come across a problem but as the good action officer, you also present a solution. “We don’t have those calipers on site. However, our factory on the East Coast has them and they can send them to us on loan while we order the ones we need.”

Timeline: This could be a considered part history lesson and/or part projection. This presents where you have been and our plan forward. “All our milestones have been met to this point. But, projections show we will be slowing down during the holidays.”

Compare/Contrast: This is when you look at two items and compare them. “ Radio X and Radio Y have the same dimensions, power output, and cost. However, sensitivity on radio Y is 8 times better.”

Cause/Effect: You could use this looking back at things like failure analysis, or into the future analyzing potential paths forward. When we do X, Y happened (or will happen). “Eating so much ice cream gave you the stomach ache” or “ Increasing the pipe size by 1 inch will increase the flow rate to 55 gallons a minute.”

Next time you are drafting a presentation, don’t forget to ask what the purpose is before you start.