Do you often face situations where you are being constrained by the number of slides you are allowed in a presentation? Or maybe you were being told that you are only allowed 5-8 slides. It is a common belief that the more slides we have, the longer will be our presentation, and we will most likely over run the allocated time given to us. This is quite true if we approach presentation slides in the way 95% of presenters do.

With the constrain imposed on us, we usually try to squeeze more information on to each slide making it cluttered, unattractive, and difficult to comprehend. This might be acceptable to most in an internal meeting, but we shouldn't make this a norm for all our presentations.

In a meeting, we are sometimes required to present data using a pre-defined set of template—everyone has to use the template. Beyond the standard templates, I am sure there are ways that we can make our presentation slides more exciting.

Having more slides shouldn't increase the amount of time we take to present. We might even take lesser time to present because breaking information into more slides will make each slide is more focused and easier to understand.

We should create as many slides as needed to present the information effectively. When we start to break information into smaller chunks, we are actually validating the content of our presentation and realizing that certain information is not necessarily needed in our slides.

Unnecessary information can be additional footnotes; numbers or figures that are not key; text that seems like words you would say during the presentation; images that are small and do not help you convey your message; information that you will not be highlighting during the presentation, information for documentation purpose; etc.

Don't make the slide count a constrain to your presentation, but make your presentation slides count.