Forward Momentum: Delivering Results

By Darrell G. Stiffler, PMP

If you can have your cake and eat it, too, why can’t you have multiple PowerPoint slides and your notes ON ONE PAGE? YOU CAN!

When using PowerPoint, have you ever wanted to print multiple slides on one page with the notes associated with the slides on the same page? If you have, you have probably thought you have tried everything under the sun and ended up frustrated. (I know I did.) The PowerPoint standard print options do not allow you to print multiple slides and notes on the same page. If you print the notes associate with a particular slide, PowerPoint print options only allow you to print the one slide at a time.

You’re thinking it would make preparing for a presentation so much easier if you could see both slide and note at the same time plus see the upcoming slides on the same page. It would make publishing handouts much more economical, especially if you can duplex print,

If this describes you, you have come to the right place. I have the answer for you. However, there are some good news and some limitations. First, the good news. PowerPoint will automatically print three slides per page and if the notes exceed the space for notes associated with the slide, the note area expands to accommodate the space required to print all the notes. With long notes, you may only be able to get one slide per page. More good news is if the slide appears smaller than your liking, you may adjust the margins and expand the slide size to your liking. The limitation is that you must do this by hand and that can be very time consuming.

OK, here comes the magic.

If you are using PowerPoint 2003:

1. Open the PowerPoint presentation and select File from the Main menu.
2. Select Send which opens a secondary menu.
3. Select Word. It will then copy the PowerPoint presentation to a Word file.

If you are using Office 2007 the process is a little different:

1. Select the Office Button (upper left hand corner).
2. Select Publish from the menu.
3. Then select Create Handouts in Microsoft Word and make the appropriate choice from the pull down menu.
4. Once the selection has been made, PowerPoint will open the Word document and copy the information automatically.

Even with the limitation noted above, I have found this feature extremely useful. It would be even better if Microsoft would provide more flexibility to the PowerPoint/Word master template.

Yes, I know you are grateful. And just think, you didn’t have to spend a penny for this wisdom.

Good luck and enjoy.

By Kathy Garland, guest contributor

On Saturdays, all belt levels in my Haidong Gumdo program show up for practice. Last Saturday, I was the total new kid on the block with many experienced people in the class. I could choose to sit back and watch or do the best I could to keep up. Of course, I stayed and kept up for the most part, but then the group went beyond the exercises and forms I knew. As I stumbled to keep up, they were patient and supportive. At one point I asked if I was the slowest ever to learn a particular move. They said, “We didn’t learn this till we were orange belts (2 levels above me.)

You see, I was trying to keep up with people three, four and five levels ahead. The good news here is that by being with people who have higher skills and proficiency than me, I learn more and faster. Part of the class for all students is to lead one of the exercises, which involves knowing the name of the exercise (in Korean) and counting to 10 (in Korean) as well as knowing the particular moves of the exercise. I didn’t expect to be asked to lead an exercise, so did my best with help from the class. However, since then, I have really stepped up my effort to learn these things. I have now mastered counting to ten in Korean. It’s a small victory, but hey, I’m counting everything!

In addition, I’ve started spending more time outside of class learning the forms, the language and the exercises. I want to move up and really I want to be less obvious that I’m such a beginner! If I hadn’t gone to that class with so many people at higher belt levels, I wouldn’t be pushing myself as much.

When you want to grow and expand your skills, thinking and success, it’s a good idea to hang out with people who are further along on their path than you. It takes a little confidence and courage on your part and you will be so glad you did.

Originally posted by Kathy Garland on her site, www.kathygarland.com.

by Vicki Wrona, PMP

We are all familiar with brainstorming, but its impact is often quite limited due to a number of factors discussed earlier. But have you heard of reverse brainstorming? It is a simple technique which can generate truly new ideas as well as ideas that have a better chance to last and have a greater positive impact.

With brainstorming, you present a problem at a meeting and expect everyone to come up with ideas on the spot on how to solve it. Rarely is creativity available on demand. You will get ideas, but they may not be optimal and tend to be similar to ideas from discussions already held.

With reverse brainstorming, you ask your team to bring any ideas that struck them over the time period since your last meeting. For purposes of this discussion, let’s assume that you hold weekly meetings with your team. You should provide notice to your team that you will be asking for this so they can (hopefully) keep a running list of ideas as they appear throughout the week. It is a different way of thinking than they are familiar with and may take some getting used to. Keeping a running list of ideas allows those ideas not to be forgotten or lost. This list is not designed to produce MANY ideas but rather QUALITY ideas. Using a list, separate ideas are kept in the forefront of your mind and may possibly be combined with other, seemingly disparate ideas to create one new, better idea.

At the next team meeting, anyone with an idea explains their idea as best they can, including how they developed and formed the idea. In other words, they would describe the ideas or concepts they combined to reach this idea. Then instead of judging the merits of this idea on the spot, everyone can then think about it over the next week. Giving your team time to digest and mull over the idea, to go back to the person to ask questions, and to talk it over with others, allows those ideas to percolate and grow. At the next meeting, those ideas with merit will hopefully come out and can be further explored. The first idea may morph into different and new ideas, and that is fine.

What this process does is generate more thoughtful ideas, create a team culture or expectation of always looking out for better ideas or approaches, and knowing that the idea will be given a fair chance to be evaluated (vs. traditional brainstorming where ideas are quickly judged). This will result not only in better and longer-lasting ideas but also in generating ideas in areas which may not have been looked into otherwise. Lastly, it also creates a culture of continuous improvement, a good environment for a project or an organization.

Reverse brainstorming is discussed in the book Strategic Intuition: The Creative Spark In Human Achievement by William Duggan, a book I highly recommend for anyone wanting to understand how great ideas and new thinking come together and can be developed. It has intriguing examples from history as well as explanations on how to apply the concepts.

Have you practiced anything like reverse brainstorming? How did it work for you?