How To Present Engineering Case Studies To Stakeholders

You might as well be speaking “Klingon” Just dropped from a meeting where the IT Director provided his update to the leadership team. The c-level folks and non-technical leaders had no clue what he was talking about… From my experience this is the #1 mistake technical professionals make when meeting with business stakeholders I'll be blunt… business stakeholders don’t care about your technical architecture diagrams, your configuration details, or how cutting-edge your solution is. They care about outcomes. They care about results. They care about impact. BUT most technical professionals go into meetings armed with technical jargon & acronyms and leave the room wondering why no one bought in. If you’re presenting to business leaders, here’s the reality check… you are selling and you’re not selling technology - you’re selling business value. I don’t like to present a problem without a solution – so let’s try this… Step 1 Start every conversation by answering this “How does this solve a business problem?” If you have a technical solution that reduces costs, increases revenue, mitigates risk, or makes life easier for users, lead with that. Everything else is just details that nobody cares about. Step 2 Translate technical features into business benefits. Instead of saying, “We’re implementing zero trust,” say, “We’re reducing critical risks to our top revenue producing critical business functions.” Step 3 Stakeholders want to hear about how your solution will reduce downtime, increase productivity, save $$$, or improve client satisfaction. Make your impact measurable and relatable. Step 4 Can you reframe your message using an analogy or better yet a story. Numbers are great, but stories are sticky and resonate. Frame your solution in the context of a real-world scenario, like something stakeholders can visualize and connect with. Step 5 No one likes a squeaky wishy washy technical expert. Take a position, back it with evidence, and be clear about the path forward. Confidence inspires trust. Stop talking about the “how.” Start owning the “why.” And STOP speaking “Klingon” When you shift your focus to business value, you’ll see interest, buy-in, alignment, and support. #ciso #dpo #msp #leadership

About effective presentations: Story Telling So a mentee approached me the other day, about being asked by their manager to present to the SVP and Directs about a recent migration in the core of their system.   I was familiar with the work and it was generally "yet another system migration", so the first question I asked? "What's the story". The first answer was an engineering overview, basically same as every single other system migration: analyze, design, review, feedback, implementation, migration, etc. This is not really an interesting story as it is like all the rest: Big work, Executed cleanly, Had cake. My challenge back was to consider the context of presenting to the SVP and their VP directs. What message should they remember? That's an expensive room. All their teams deliver big important features so what is special about this one? Is there a moral to the story? What might they take back to their own teams? If they only remembered one thing, what is that one thing? This story, the over-arching message, is the most important part. It is the reason for being. It is the thread that winds through the whole thing. It is the point that you are trying to make. It is the "agenda" that you are driving. And this is not just for "presentations" but everywhere you influence. It always goes easier when you have an agenda, a purpose, when you have that intent, that over-arching theme. The presentation will stick better if you are reinforcing a single, simple message. The story might include tales of adversity and woe, heroic adventures, death-defying feats of mystery and intrigue, cinematic explosions, poignant moments, but in the telling, these are all in the service of the over-arching theme. Here's a real-life example, over-simplified, from a presentation I was contributing on, to that same group. We were looking at Developer Experience and the very first iteration was: "Dev experience is important. You should care. We did an experiment, captured a bunch of data, and decided to focus on these few things." The final iteration had an actual message: "Our experiment showed that issues impacting Developer Experience vary from team to team, so instead of creating a single set of top-down targets, we should go bottoms up, having teams identify their most impactful items to go fix." Every example of data highlighted how different the metrics were from team to team. We reinforced on multiple slides how the hot points varied across team. We paved the way to the punch line. So, Flint's tip of the week: Don't just relate lists of facts. Step back and think about the 1 or 2 things that you want people to remember. This is your agenda, your theme, your story arc. Double-check that every section supports that agenda. Be intentional about words and phrases to support that theme. If a section distracts from the theme, reconsider if you need it or if it could be half as long. #Teams #Leadership #StoryTelling #Presenting

You have great results. But you’re not presenting them in the right way to prospects. The right case studies make all the difference to your trust, credibility & close rate. You have to: - Focus on a company in the same industry and a key person with a similar title to the one you’re targeting. - Make them relevant and show you’ve “been there, done that” in a scenario similar to the one your prospect is facing. - Start by spinning the story about the organization, their goal, the business issues they faced, the problems they encountered, and the value you brought to the table. Include metrics for each section to activate the listener. For example, you might say: "We helped Acme Corporation, which was facing similar challenges, achieve a 32% reduction in costs and a 12% increase in productivity." You have to AVOID: - Talking too much about the solution and not the impact it had. Prospects are interested in the results you achieved, not the step-by-step details of how you got there. Evolve your case studies based on the sales journey: - Early in the conversation, a 30-second reference story that highlights your credibility and value is ideal. This “credibility introduction” quickly establishes your expertise and relevance. - For example, you might say: "At the beginning of our research with Acme, we identified their top challenges and delivered a solution that reduced their operational costs by 32%." - Later in the sales process, when you’ve earned the right to share more detailed stories, you can provide a more in-depth case study. This allows you to delve into specific problems your prospect has mentioned and how you’ve solved similar issues for others. You have to match the right case study to the right stage in the sales journey. The best salespeople can pull out the right story at the right time, tailored to the specific needs and concerns of their prospects. Know your case studies inside out. Practice them. You’ll become a master. P.S: Follow me for more content like this.

Want to get raving feedback about your case studies? After getting responses like this many times for Captivate Talent's case studies, I wanted to spend some time peeling back what's made them a success 👇 When I first joined, we had no case studies on the website. Building our library has been part science and part art. Here are my best tips for building those WOW case studies: 1—Focus on the transformation story All of our case studies have a: • Clear beginning: Why the problem existed, what they tried before • Clear middle: How our team provided a bridge (the solution) • Clear end: The results 🎉 It's important to take the reader on a journey through success story (a better word for case study IMO). Add that background context, share examples, bring up any challenges and how they were overcome. 2—Make sure you cover the must-have information When I say must-have, it's more than just listing out the company logo, their description, and results. Some of the other things that are great to include are: Company traits to help prospects feel like they match up with the company in the case study • Company industry • Team/company size • Revenue Results details like: • Process implemented • Business impact for the company (revenue, time savings, etc.) • How the company felt after implementing the solution • A quote from the client • The win moment 3—Connect the dots One of my favorite case studies is one we recently posted about how we hired account executives for BrowserStack. We leaned into how our relationships started back in 2020 with a single hire, and when they were ready to expand further in the US, we helped them grow out their sales team a few years later. We also included details on what they appreciated from our process (detailed notes and more rigorous screening was big) Showing those instances of how trust was built, maintained, and grew was a big win. It can bridge the gap when a prospect is looking but doesn't talk with you yet. Anyways, I could go on and on about case studies. I'll drop a couple of links in the comments worth checking out: 1—Our list of case studies 2—A piece on micro case studies (worthwhile to increase proof) #marketing #content #b2b

This is how you lose a room of stakeholders when you present: “On this screen I used a list view, with a search box & filters on top.” Do this instead: “System admins struggle to find specific users so they can change their permissions. They’re in a rush and it’s a needle in a haystack: 50% of our customers have more than 10,000 users in their system. We’re going to keep missing our SUS score goal without a fix here. This issue brought our scores down below 80 for the first time in a year. This new search and filter design makes it twice as fast to narrow down—and the list view now shows enough data to confirm they’ve found the right user without clicking into the detail sheet”. Boom 🎉 In the first example the designer describes the interface to us. In the second they tell a story. Stop describing UI and features to stakeholders. Start telling a story to help them understand why the design is good. For better products and better design reviews focus on outcomes. Not outputs.

No one cares HOW you built something. Well, devs may care, but stakeholders won't. They care about why it matters. When presenting anything, always start with impact. Here's a framework: 1. What 2. Why 3. How Let's briefly break each one down. 1. WHAT - This is the impact. Example: "Sales are up 15% from last quarter." This gives people a reason to pay attention. Lead with your main point and then share context. 2. WHY - This is where you provide more context. Why are we looking at this? Why did this happen? Why should we care? Start painting a picture. 3. HOW - The "boring" stuff Save this for the end. It's relevant, but barely. How you gathered the data. How you connected the data. How you aggregated the data. Blah blah blah... 4. BONUS - WHAT'S NEXT? This is where you advise action. (Most people don't do this) Example: "I recommend we double down on our content marketing as we saw the most traffic coming from here." This ends your presentation with a bang. And provides clear next steps. TL;DR 1. What - share impact 2. Why - share context 3. How - share process 4. What's next - share strategy