The schedule is the real programme

A brilliant speaker in the wrong slot delivers a mediocre session. The reverse happens too.

Shorter than feels right

Most talks are twice as long as their content. Twenty minutes forces a speaker to decide what the point is; forty-five lets them avoid deciding. Cutting the slot usually improves the session and always improves the day.

The gaps are the programme

Conversations in breaks are where attendees get the value they later describe. Scheduling back-to-back sessions to fit more content in produces a fuller programme and a worse event. Fifteen minutes between sessions is a minimum, not a courtesy.

Energy has a shape

Attention peaks mid-morning, collapses after lunch and partially recovers late afternoon. Putting the demanding material in the post-lunch slot wastes it. That slot wants something participatory, or a break.

Panels need a reason

A panel is four people agreeing politely unless it is built around a genuine disagreement and chaired by someone willing to press. Without both, it is the least informative format at any event and the most commonly scheduled.

End early

An event that finishes ahead of schedule is remembered as well run. One that overruns by twenty minutes is remembered as badly run, regardless of what happened in those minutes.

Rehearse the transitions

Most visible failure at an event happens between sessions: a laptop that will not connect, a chair unsure whether to take questions, a speaker who cannot find the stage. Walking the transitions once beforehand removes nearly all of it and takes twenty minutes.