Do you even need a presentation?
First article in the **Never Send The Slides** series on martinfowler.com, published on **September 8, 2026** (~2,400 words, five sections and two sidebars), authored by **Sumeet Gayathri Moghe**, global head of culture and organisational design at **Thoughtworks**; **Martin Fowler** provided editorial review. The text first lays out a definition — *« a presentation is an act of storytelling in which a presenter orchestrates narrative, timing, and emotion to create meaning that neither visuals nor documents can achieve on their own »* — and its corollary: *« the slides are not the presentation »*. From this it derives a hierarchy of five artifacts, condensed at the end into a *cheat sheet* table. **(1)** The **linear document**, sufficient in most business situations where the only goal is to convey information. **(2)** The **infodeck** — the term is Fowler's — when the content has a long shelf life and deserves visual care. **(3)** **Applications web interactives**, to manage the reader's cognitive load. **(4)** **Recorded audio or video**, when the voice matters but not the interaction. **(5)** The **live presentation**, reserved for cases where synchronous presence serves to influence and address objections in real time. Two observations date the text to 2026: **coding harnesses** put the creation of interactive applications within reach of non-developers, and a linear document *« reduces the probability of hallucinations »* when a reader has an LLM summarize it. Same source as [[boeckeler-harness-engineering-coding-agents-2026-04-02]].
Sumeet Gayathri Moghe (global head of culture and organisational design, Thoughtworks) · publié sur martinfowler.com ; relecture éditoriale de Martin Fowler.