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Most panels fail the same way: long bios, one question asked four times, and polite agreement until the clock runs out. This 60-minute shape keeps introductions to a single round, gives each panelist questions of their own, makes room for one real disagreement and hands the audience sixteen minutes. It assumes three or four panelists and a moderator who has spoken to each of them beforehand.
| Topic | Minutes | Running total |
|---|---|---|
| Welcome and framing Say why the topic matters to this room, not just what it is. Explain the format and where questions go. | 5 | 5 |
| Opening round You introduce each panelist in two lines. Then one broad question, ninety seconds at most each. | 6 | 11 |
| Moderated conversation A different question for each named panelist. Follow up, invite replies, steer away from whoever had the floor. | 18 | 29 |
| The real disagreement Name the tension you found in the pre-call and let two panelists argue it out. Polite consensus is failure. | 10 | 39 |
| Audience Q&A Open with the top-voted or a seeded question. One sentence, ending in a question mark. Repeat it into the mic. | 16 | 55 |
| Closing round One takeaway each in thirty seconds, then thank the panel and tell the room where to follow them. | 5 | 60 |
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Using BriefMe, create a 60-minute panel discussion with four panelists: a 5-minute welcome and framing, a 6-minute opening round, 18 minutes of moderated conversation, 10 minutes on the panel's real disagreement, 16 minutes of audience Q&A and a 5-minute closing round.
Sixty minutes with three or four panelists is the reliable shape. Do the arithmetic before you invite anyone: take out the welcome, the audience Q&A and the close, and this agenda leaves 34 minutes of conversation, about eight per panelist with four of them, your questions included. A fifth panelist pushes that under seven, and everyone gets a sound bite instead of an argument. Ninety minutes suits a contested topic; under forty-five leaves the audience no time at all.
Find the disagreement before the event, not on stage. In a fifteen-minute pre-call with each panelist, ask where they think the others are wrong, or what the usual view of the topic misses. Then give it a block of its own: state both positions out loud, let each side make its case, and ask panelists to answer each other by name rather than through you. If every invitee holds the same view, the fix is the line-up, not the questions.
Plan for both. Collect questions on cards or in an app from the start, so the room has been writing them for forty minutes when Q&A opens, and keep two of your own ready; after you invite questions, count silently to five before you use one. For a speech, wait for a breath, say 'So the question for the panel is...', finish the sentence yourself and hand it to a panelist. Asking for one sentence that ends in a question mark, before the first hand goes up, prevents most of them.