Deliver your message in less time

You don't always get the time you want (or need) to give your full presentation. If you've ever been asked to speak at a committee or a conference, you know that sometimes you just don't have the time that you expected. What to do when you don't have enough time?

A common mistake by many presenters is to quickly run through all the slides, all of the talking points, in a the shorter time. They reason that the presentation was structured in a particular way, so they need to go over everything in order to make it a complete presentation. But your audience experiences the opposite: with a fast-paced presentation, your audience will hear a jumble of thoughts that communicates nothing. That is the wrong way to manage time for a presentation.

A better way to give a presentation in less time is to omit content. Find ways to reduce the number of slides. Maybe that means skipping slides, only touching on the most important points. Or maybe that means ending the presentation early at a convenient stopping point, abandoning the rest of the presentation. It depends on your presentation, and your audience.

For example, see this classic training video from IBM, starring Kermit the Frog:

Kermit is menaced by an impatient blue monster, so chooses to skip over most of his 97 "stepping stones to success." Instead of 97 points, Kermit enumerates only the key points from his presentation: #1, #47, #97.

That's a good way to shorten a presentation. When you give your next presentation, be mindful of your critical talking points, in case you run short of time.