Preparing for a Tech Talk, Part 2: What, Why, and How

They build on each other. Without the foundation of Why, the What and the How are prone to ramble and be forgettable.

Having a weak "What" (without a "Why") usually evokes boredom. It's not obvious to me why I should listen to the idea being presented. And that also drives the "How" - see what medium will best get your point across, otherwise it's east to fall into the trap of making slides of something that needs to be shown, or vice versa.

If "what" represents the problem and "how" describes a solution, then "why" is about convincing people that the problem is worth caring about. Which can be considered quite fundamental, since people don't care about solutions if they don't care about the problem in the first place.