‘I liked the training, but it felt a bit rushed...’
‘I liked the training, but I found it a pity that we had to skip some parts due to time.’
You are probably familiar with this feedback. I know I am: I received both frequently when I started out. The skill you have to develop in this case is invisibly being in control of time. When you master this skill, you are able to orchestrate exactly how long each programme segment will take without participants noticing you're pulling the strings.
With this month’s blogposts, I’ll walk you through how you do it. Next up: Recovering time!
Recovering time
So when you’ve been thrown a curveball and your timing is out of whack, you can either skip things altogether or recover time by cutting down the time it takes to run your programme. Usually, I try for option number 2 first, if at all possible. In my opinion, there is a right and a wrong way of recovering time. The right way keeps the integrity of the programme and respects participants’ energy. The wrong way creates a sense of rush, overburdens your participants, and hurts your evaluations. Let’s start with what not to do.
Do not — ever — recover time by skipping breaks. This used to be my first go-to solution whenever I was falling behind. I had yet to learn that effective breaks supercharge the value of the actual training time. By skipping breaks, I wore participants AND myself out, created a sense of rush, and struggled to keep the group engaged. Breaks exist for a reason — honor them. Breaks trump training segments, period.
Do not sacrifice your closing in order to buy training time. Remember the peak-end rule (we don’t judge an experience by every moment of it — we mostly remember the highlight, the peak, and how it ended). If you rush through the closing, evaluations will suffer because participants’ experience of the whole training will be tainted by the rush at the end.
Now that you’ve made your breaks and closing sacrosanct, let’s jump into what you can do to regain some lost time.
Make groups smaller. Look for parts of the training where people work in groups of 3 or more and where each person gets a turn. Logically, the fewer people per group, the less time you need. When pressed for time, I usually have them work in duos if the exercise allows. A reflection round of 20 minutes is brought down to 10 minutes when you slim the group from 4 to 2 people. And voila: you’ve earned yourself 10 full minutes.
Slimmed-down reflection. When I design a programme segment, I usually start with an exercise, followed by time for participants to reflect (individually or in groups), and then a plenary debrief guided by me. The reflection helps participants form their own insights, and the plenary ensures the key takeaways are highlighted. I aim to stick to this flow, but it also gives me flexibility to adjust when time is tight. Usually, the participants’ reflection takes longer than the plenary debrief. So, if I need to save a little time, I’ll skip the plenary debrief. If I need to save more, I’ll skip the individual reflection and only run the plenary.
Effective use of cases. Cases are a staple in training — whether you’re running role-plays or reflection exercises — but asking participants for their own cases can eat up more time than you think. The good news? It’s also one of the easiest places to win that time back.
One simple fix is to bring a few canned cases — examples you’ve prepared ahead of time. They’re not quite as relevant as real, participant-driven cases, but they can be a lifesaver when time is tight. I always have a couple ready, even if I don’t plan on using them. Most of the time, I aim for bespoke cases, but when I’m running behind, a prepared case keeps things moving without anyone feeling rushed.
Another approach is to have everyone work on the same case. This way, you only need to gather details once instead of multiple times. The trick here is to choose a case broad enough that everyone can relate to it. And if participants start worrying it’ll feel repetitive, reassure them: it never actually plays out the same way twice. Different personalities, experiences, and styles keep every round engaging. I’ve also noticed that the quality of practice improves this way because people pick up new ideas by watching each other.
A third option is to break the case into pieces and have participants work on different parts. In role-plays, for example, you can have people take turns stepping in (bonus: it keeps everyone sharp and paying attention). This works especially well with step-by-step models, like feedback frameworks, where each person can own one part of the process. For reflection exercises, you can do the same by assigning different questions to different participants instead of having everyone reflect on everything at once.
Eat a little into lunch. This is the only time I sometimes bend my own “don’t mess with breaks” rule. I always design sessions with a one-hour lunch break, and ideally, we stick to it. But when time is tight, I occasionally shorten it to 45 minutes — and only if the participants are okay with it and the lunch is on-site. If they need to travel for lunch, I never do this, because I want them to have at least 45 minutes of true downtime.
Cut entire segments. If none of the above are suitable for slimming down your programme segment, and you cannot think of another way to make it shorter, consider skipping the entire segment altogether. Don’t introduce a topic if you’re sure in advance you cannot do it justice due to time. Instead, beef up the programme segments that you are including, so that you truly make an impact there.
This is an excerpt from my upcoming book on how to deliver awesome trainings. It comes from the chapter Essential Trainer Skills - Time Management. This theory is also covered in my Train-the-Trainer programme: Inspire to Develop.