30 Minute presentations can be useful in many different situations. Half an hour can be taken from a meeting for the presentation and the remaining time can be spent for a question and answer session.
Its the same when a presentation is being given in a school or college classroom. A 30 minute presentation leaves time for a lesson or another presentation.
This presentation format limits the time to 30 minutes and makes them more predictable. The number of slides isn’t nearly as important as the duration of the presentation and the amount of time given to each slide. This obviouly allows us to plan forward and fill available time with more presentations if needed.
What is a 30 Minute Presentation?
It is a presentation where the presenter makes sure to spend only half an hour on the whole presentation. So, if you have 15 slides, then you should only spend 2 minutes per slide. If you have 10 slides then you should spend 3 minutes per slide and so on.
Make an estimate of how much time it takes to present an average slide in that presentation. Now, add 30 seconds to each slide to get an idea of how much time all the slides will take. We are adding 30 seconds to each slide to give us some extra time since ending the presentation a little early is better than ending it late.
But Why 30 Minutes?
If shorter presentations are better than longer ones, then why not aim for a 20 minute presentation instead? And the answer to that question is that you can absolutely make a 20 minute presentation if it suits your purpose. However, planning how slides progress is also very important.
Guy Kawasaki’s 10/20/30 Rule
The 10/20/30 rule defines some standards that can help make an audience friendly and engaging presentation. Its pretty simple. A PowerPoint presentation should have 10 slides. It shouldn’t be longer than 20 minutes. And, the font shouldn’t be less than 30 point size.
You can read more about Guy Kawasaki’s 10/20/30 Rule by clicking here.
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