Make the most of the 15 minutes you are allotted to address your board of directors

Here are some tips for making the most of your time to connect your role to the value of the overall organization.

Hone your message. You should first ask yourself, What am I trying to say? What do you want the board to hear today? The structure of the presentation should flow from that.

If you're making a presentation intended to persuade the group to do something, the most important tool you have is evidence. What convinces people of something is a preponderance of facts.

Be strategic. Boards are concerned with strategy, and they expect CIOs to work with them at that level. CIOs tend to provide way too much technical information that doesn't relate to a business decision. Boards want to know the value of the technology.

That means: When making a presentation, CIOs must speak the language of the business, not the vernacular of IT. Too often, CIOs view their presentation as an opportunity to show off what they know about IT. That's a big mistake. If you're the CIO, the board is going to assume you know technology. Otherwise, why were you hired?

Make visuals clear and concise. Just as your message should be succinct, so should the supporting visuals. One common mistake CIOs make is dumping every piece of data they have into a PowerPoint presentation and dragging the board through every bit and byte. Consequently, board members tune out. CIOs might think that if they throw everything up there, they can't get in trouble because everything's covered. But what you want are only those visuals that support the message. That means clear, easy-to-read and compelling visual aids.

Don't rely on staffers to prepare your visual presentations for you. An assistant who knows what information to include but not the overall message can do more harm than good. A talented admin can prepare an above-average PowerPoint presentation, but he may not know that the presentation has four major divisions of information that the presenter will need to be able to go back and forth to. If the visuals aren't organized in the right way, the CIO will lose credibility during the presentation.

Always keep the written report to five pages or less. That's about the maximum attention span someone has for any given topic.

Presentation time should be kept to a minimum too. Plan to speak for two-thirds to three-quarters of the time allotted—tops, advises Kubilus. That leaves more time for questions. And even if there aren't many questions, the meeting-weary board members will still appreciate your concision.

Practice, practice and then practice some more. Worry that going over your presentation too many times will make it stale? Don't. An alternative is to tape yourself on audio or video, to judge yourself as the board will.

It's not a speech. Unlike giving a talk at a conference, presenting to the board is less about you addressing an audience than it is about the audience addressing you. Questions, which may start the minute you stand up (if the board has done its homework), are the driving force of board meetings. Early questions can be a good sign; they indicate the board is engaged. But you should prepare a response for every possible scenario, even the worst. Know which visuals will help you answer the toughest inquiries so that you can instantly pull them up to use in your response.

Be professional but engaging. When it comes time to speak before the board, you should be polished but not too formal. It's a fine line, but the goal is to be conversational. Keep the terminology and tone vibrant and meaningful for the audience. A board doesn't like to be bored any more than anyone else does. Keep it exciting.

And don't be seduced into getting too familiar with the board, no matter how casually they present themselves and their questions. You're not a member of the club; you're a guest. Appropriate dress is also important. Stay alert. You can't possibly anticipate everything. If you get a question that you can't answer on the spot, there are several options—none of which includes making something up. Acknowledge that you don't have the answer and say you'll get back to them. Or call someone to get it if you know where it's immediately available. The worst thing you can do is give the board an answer that's wrong. Credibility is a big issue at the board level.