Out of Time

 
When was the last time you made a speech and had to rush through it?  Did the MC have to slip you a piece of paper with WRAP UP scrawled on it?  Did you feel you still had much to say but had to end your address abruptly?

Time management is one of the major challenges at conferences and seminars.  You dive into your presentation, get stuck in and because you're having so much fun, you don't realize how fast time flies.  Left to your own devices, you could go on and on till you've squeezed the very last drop of juice out of your subject.  But that could delay the event, irritate subsequent speakers and even annoy your audience.  So how do you keep within time limits?  I'll show you a few ways.

The MC Way - You could work with the master of ceremonies to agree on an alert system for communicating how much time you have left.  He could sit right at the front and put up ten or five fingers to signify the number of minutes you have left.  Or the MC could have someone at the back of the room raising large signs with 2 MINUTES LEFT or END NOW! inscribed on them.  Just don't carried away with your speech and forget to look in the direction where your signals are supposed to be coming from!

The DK Way - DK Osseo-Asare is a Ghanaian architect.  When he strode onto the stage with his notes to speak at a recent conference in Cape Town, he also came equipped with a useful piece of technology.  A stopwatch.  The kind athletics coaches use. Perfect, I thought to myself.  He's in control of his time allocation and when he runs out, he'll end his speech. And so he did.  Of course for this method to work, you'll have to be clear on how much time you have to speak and then stick to it.