Gathered material does not arrange itself. A plan is not a table of contents or a list of slide bullets. It's the route along which you walk a listener from where they are to where they need to end up. A good plan is audible: at any moment the person in the room knows where they are and how much is left.
Three parts, three jobs
The old handbooks split a speech into opening, body with proof, and close. Simple enough — but each part does distinct work, and confusing them is expensive.
The opening answers one unspoken question: why should I listen? The answer belongs in the first thirty or forty seconds. Not thanks, not an apology for nerves, not a recap of the agenda — a specific case, question, or number that shows what this is about and why it touches the people sitting there.
The body carries the content: two to four blocks, each with its own claim and its own support — an example, a figure, a piece of analysis. Nobody holds more than four blocks in a short talk, you included.
The close returns to the purpose and says what happens next. It is short. The worst-ending talk is the one that ends three times.
Four working orders
Block order isn't taste. It's a choice made for a job.
Problem then solution. Works when the room already feels the problem. Fails when you have to prove the problem first — you'll spend the whole talk on it.
Chronological. How it was, what happened, where we are. An honest order for reports and stories, a risky one for persuasion: people leave understanding, but not acting.
Known to new. Start where the room already agrees and add unfamiliar ground a step at a time. Slow, but it survives scepticism.
Claim then support. State the main point, then give three supports. The best order when time is short or when half the room will leave in the middle.
Choose the order after you've fixed the purpose, never before.
Timing
Timing is a form of respect, not a technicality. An unhurried speaking pace runs about 110-130 words a minute, so seven minutes is roughly 800-900 words — less than it feels. Plan for 80% of your slot: a seven-minute slot means a five-and-a-half-minute talk. The rest goes to pauses, the room's reactions, and the things you will inevitably add.
Write a minute figure next to every block. If the sum overruns, cut blocks, not pace. Speeding up doesn't save time; it just stops landing.
Write your transitions out as sentences: one line between blocks saying what has ended and what begins. Transitions are where listeners get lost, and where speakers improvise worst.
Exercise (30 minutes, today)
- 10 minutes. Sort last lesson's cards into 3 piles — those are your blocks. Title each pile as a claim, not a topic: not "timelines" but "the timeline moved two weeks, and here's why that's better".
- 5 minutes. Pick one of the four orders and arrange the piles. Then pick a different one and rearrange. Compare: which answers the room's question sooner?
- 5 minutes. Assign minutes: opening 0:45, blocks 1:30 each, close 0:40. The total must be 20% under your slot.
- 10 minutes. Record yourself speaking only the block titles and the transitions between them — no content, 2 minutes maximum. Listen back. If the logic isn't visible from that skeleton alone, content won't rescue it. Rewrite the transitions and record a second take.
This works fully on your own. A group adds one thing: after your talk, ask a listener to name the three blocks from memory. Whatever they can't recall was never really in the plan.
In closing
A plan doesn't constrain you, it frees you: when the route is clear you can afford to follow a question from the room and come back without losing the thread. And the right move is almost always to remove one block. That makes the talk not poorer, but legible.