How to Create A Presentation For Your Group Project (Without Losing Your Mind)

Group presentations can be bittersweet. While they provide a great sense of camaraderie and teamwork, technology can turn them into a big hassle. It can be hard to be on the same page when you’re not in the same room.

It’s time to bring team projects back to what they’re meant to be: an opportunity to collaborate with others and piece together a variety of perspectives to reach a common goal. Technology shouldn’t get in the way of collaboration; it should support it. We’ll walk you through the process of creating a group presentation⁠(opens in a new tab or window) that will help impress your colleagues while sparing your sanity.

Working with a group of people means a lot of different perspectives, which is great—until those perspectives put you all on different pages. Spend time aligning on goals before starting on the presentation itself. That way, you will have created a solid foundation to further develop your ideas upon.

Talk through the goals of the presentation or what you hope your audience will take away. Then share what you each think needs to be included to achieve those goals. Creating a mind map⁠(opens in a new tab or window) with your team is a great way to dump all your ideas into one place for reference.

Now that you’ve created a solid foundation with clear goals and a presentation outline, it’s time to establish roles. Don’t leave this part unspoken. If you assume the roles are taken care of, you could miss an important section of the presentation or duplicate work unnecessarily.

By determining roles at the beginning of the project and clearly articulating who is responsible for each task and process, you create a more efficient workflow and ensure each member understands their responsibilities.

With presentations⁠(opens in a new tab or window), you can assign roles to members directly on the slides. Choose between admin roles or member roles to clarify who’s leading a section. This can also help with the challenge of working across timezones: no more waking up to messages from a team member asking what slides they were supposed to work on.

Group projects aren’t what they used to be: everyone meeting at the same time, in the same room to discuss the project. Now you can have members scattered in different locations and working in various time zones, so the ability to work in a collaborative environment is crucial.

In fact, in some ways, the right platform can make remote collaboration easier than in-person collaboration. Collaboration presentation templates⁠(opens in a new tab or window) can be a valuable tool in this regard.

Canva’s team focused presentation tool⁠(opens in a new tab or window) also allows you to assign slides or sections to different team members. That means everyone can work in tandem—and even simultaneously, if you want—to complete the portions related to their areas of expertise. No more waiting for someone to save and get out of the doc before you start!

Tip: Sharing your meeting minutes⁠(opens in a new tab or window) every after team alignment would be helpful in keeping the team organized.

When you’re working as a team, you’ll need to share and address feedback regularly. Set clear expectations about when feedback should be given, what type of feedback is needed or welcome, and when and how quickly it should be addressed. Build feedback sessions or deadlines into your process, so it doesn’t fall by the wayside.

When you’re the one giving feedback, make sure to give edits that have substance; your goal should be to suggest changes that bring your presentation closer to achieving your goals, not just to make your mark on it.

And remember to be specific about what you’re giving feedback on. With so many elements on a single slide—images, text, graphics, and more—it’s helpful to be able to tag the exact area you’re referring to and notify the owner of that slide.

You may have great content, but if each team member takes their slides in a different visual design direction, your presentation could end up feeling disjointed.

Instead of individually designing each slide of your presentation, or letting each member start from scratch, choose a ready-made presentation template⁠(opens in a new tab or window) to help maintain consistency across your slides.

With a template or theme, you can still customize the content and layout of each slide, but the overall design will be consistent from start to finish. (Don’t forget to add logos, fonts, colors, or other repeated elements to your brand kit⁠(opens in a new tab or window) so any team member can access it while customizing their slides).

Keep in mind that your design is meant to enhance your presentation, not distract from it. Agree on a font choice (or two) and which colors you’ll use. If you need more variety, explore these slide templates⁠(opens in a new tab or window) to maintain cohesion while adding flexibility.

Clarify your deadlines from the start. Even with a known presentation date, everyone has additional responsibilities outside of a group project. Clarify each smaller deadline in the process upfront, so everyone is clear on when things are due and coordinate their schedules accordingly.

Know the material, not just the slides. I’m sure we can all remember a presentation or meeting that consisted of someone reading the text on the slides word-for-word. Not only is that boring, but it also makes you look ill-prepared. Your slides should support what you’re presenting, so make sure you know your stuff and are prepared to answer questions that may come up as you present. If you're looking for a Google Slides alternative⁠(opens in a new tab or window), there are plenty of options that can help you create engaging presentations while keeping your audience's attention.

Rehearse before showtime. Every other activity that requires collaborating with others requires practice. Without it, concerts would be a disaster, football plays wouldn’t run smoothly, and any kind of medical procedure would be that much scarier. You never want to do something for the first time when it counts most! Practicing together in advance will help you nail the flow of the presentation.

Keep your cool. With a variety of ideas comes a variety of working styles and opinions. You might not see eye-to-eye with your group-mates on everything, and that’s okay. What’s not okay is when your different views begin to hinder the well-being of the project. Be level-headed and patient with your colleagues, and make sure to communicate openly. You’re all on the same team; you may just each have different ways to try and win.

We make group presentations easy with live collaboration, ready-to-use templates, feedback tools, and more. Start designing with Canva Presentations⁠(opens in a new tab or window) now.