How do I prepare for a technical talk?

I’ve been recrafting some of my technical talks and workshops lately so I thought to share some of the steps that I take to prepare for them.

Research for inspiration - I look to what new tools and new domains I’ve learned and worked with recently at work. Chances are if you’re learning an exciting new tech, others would be interested in learning about it too
I start joting notes and framework out the talk with high-level points. This is good to do initially as you can better craft out your talk to be more concise and prevent any redundancy.
With the framework now created, I write out the talk in a full blog format. This method comes in handy after to share the talk in various different mediums such as a blog or a post. It also helps with having a backup script. This is not to say you should read it word for word. Yes I’ve done that in the past. But with practice, you will know your material like second-nature.
I’m a designer at the core so yes I do like to make things look pretty and I am also a visual learner. I use Figma to create my slides as I like to custom design the models and diagrams. Other times, I’ve used slides.com or my custom template I’ve bootstrapped. Time your per segment to be no more than 2 minutes per slide. The framework I created in the second step helps to define each slide’s topic and step
Lastly, I try to practice as much as I can by going through the full talk and recording myself. If you have a mentor or teammates who can give you feedback and iterate on your talk, that’s best case scenario. Fortunately, I have amazing teammates who have given feedback on my talk as well as another secret sauce I use and presenting to my little boy. In fact, he find the dry material quite funny!

And there it is! These are just some of the methods I’ve used in the past. Please share any tips you have with preparing and delivering technical talks!