How to time a workshop
The overrun is already in the first twelve minutes.
Workshops do not run long at the end. They run long at Open, when you take questions you planned to take later, and at the first discussion, when you let a second topic sit down. Close is what dies. Timing is the work of protecting Close.
Add the minutes on paper first
Write every segment with a number. Sum them. If the sum is 97 and the room is 90, you do not “go tight.” You cut seven minutes from a named row before anyone sits. A buffer that is not a row will be spent on introductions.
Put start clocks, not only durations. 10:38 is a fact. “About twenty minutes of clustering” is a wish. See the workshop run of show template for a 90-minute table that already adds up.
Where the minutes go
| Block | Safe steal | Do not steal |
|---|---|---|
| Open / contract | Cut the round from 15 seconds to 10. Drop your second joke. | The sentence that names the decision. Phones away. |
| Context / framing | Read the one-pager; do not narrate it. Kill the tour of every chart. | The one fact the room still argues about. |
| Silent write | Six minutes, not ten. People finish. The extra four is social noise. | The silence itself. If they talk while writing, the wall is theater. |
| Discussion | One round, then you name a last comment. Do not open a new stack. | The vote, the written sentence, the ten seconds of silence after. |
| Break | Five instead of ten in a 90-minute room. Still a row, still a return time. | The whole break. A tired room will spend it inside Decide anyway. |
| Decide / commit | Shorter author pitches. Forty-five seconds. You keep the clock visible. | Owners, dates, the photograph. This is the product of the hour. |
| Close | Nothing. If you are over, you already stole from the wrong place. | The 48-hour round. Ending on time. |
Amber, then red
A kitchen timer that only beeps is a timer that you will ignore. You need a clock that changes its face while you are still talking.
Last minute
00:48
Amber. Land the line. Do not open a new topic. Next-up is already on the rail.
Overrun
−02:17
Red. This segment has gone past its mark. Next-up is holding. End now, shorten the next talk, or eat the break. The remaining kit will not grow.
In the Places presenter console, remaining time is paper-white while you are inside the segment. Under one minute it turns amber. Past zero it turns curtain red and the rail marks the block as overrun. Hold pauses the countdown; the room may not know that. Skip does not give the minutes back.
Moves that keep Close alive
Name the end time out loud
“We end at 11:30.” Say it in Open. Write it on the board. People manage their own last comment when the wall has a clock.
Write before talk
A silent block is the cheapest way to buy a discussion that fits. The loudest title does not get a seven-minute preamble if the sentence is already on a sticky.
One round, then a last comment
When discussion is using its time, name the last comment. “Two more, then we vote.” If you wait for the topic to exhaust itself, it will take the next two segments with it.
Do not recap for late people
Recapping is how Opening becomes twenty minutes. The contract is on the board. They can read.
Protect the break even when you are behind
A five-minute stand-up resets the decide block. Skipping it to “make up time” usually donates the time to a hallway argument you then have to unwind.
Rehearse the spine, not the jokes
Walk the segments at speed. Cue-to-cue: one session minute per real second, just to feel the joints. You are checking whether Decide still exists after a fat Open, not whether the metaphor lands.
Still over, still talking: choose. Cut. Shorten the next talk. Eat the break. Do not invent a new act after the last segment. House lights means house lights.
A recovery card, in your pocket
If Open is +4: skip the second round; go to the wall.
If Context is +6: one surprise-number each, no second loop.
If Mapping is +8: cluster only, skip naming five constraints — you will name them in Decide.
If Decide is +5: drop author pitches; dots then sentences.
If you hit Close with 4 minutes: read the board, 15-second actions, photo. Do not take “one more bet.”
Put those recovery lines on the facilitator agenda, not in your head. The facilitator agenda template is the page you hold. The console is the clock that takes your side when you will not.
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