Here are the slides for the opening keynote I delivered at the New Adventures conference in Nottingham on Thursday. They make no sense out of context like this. You kinda had to be there (or suggest to some other conference that I should deliver this talk again—hint, hint).
This is something I do in my presentations. I have speaker notes scattered throughout the slide deck with the “beats” of the talk—10 minutes, 20 minutes, etc.
If I hit one of those slides and I’m ahead of schedule, I can go on a few more tangents. If I hit one of those slides and I’m behind schedule, I can cut to the chase. Either way, having those decision points spread throughout the talk really helps to keep things smooth.
One thing that can really help in the delivery is knowing if you’re running fast or slow before you crash into the end of your talk. That way you can make adjustments as you go along by glossing over smaller points to speed up or expanding more on your ideas to slow down.
Rachel describes her process of putting technical talks together:
This method of creating a talk is the one that I find gets me from blank page to finished slide deck most effectively.
She also acknowledges that many other processes are available.
If you are stuck, and your usual method isn’t working, don’t be afraid to try a different approach even if just to get the ideas moving and take you away from staring at the blank page! You might discover that some types of talk benefit from an alternate starting point. There really are no rules here, other than that you do end up with a talk before you need to walk out on that stage.