How to deliver a great Ignite talk

Ignite talks: 5 minutes. 300 seconds. 20 slides, with slides advancing automatically every 15 seconds. Sounds a bit daunting, doesn’t it?

Ignite talks are something of a staple at devopsdays conferences, and are popping up at many other events too. So why might you want to do them? There are some really good reasons:

• It’s a great opportunity to get a speaker slot, and a great way to contribute to a conference, particularly if you are not a “known” speaker. Because the format is short, organisers usually have a number of potential slots that they need to fill. I’ve submitted Ignite proposals to five devopsdays conferences so far, and was accepted for four of those.
• If you’re accepted, you’ll almost certainly not have to pay for a conference ticket. Many conferences also have special events for speakers, such as a dinner, which is a great chance to meet interesting and influential people.
• Unlike breakout track sessions, which can sometimes be sparsely attended (particularly if they clash with a very popular session), Ignite talks tend to be delivered in the main conference room, and you get most of the conference attendees.
• The audience tends to pay good attention. After all, it’s only five minutes of their time!

If you get accepted, the real fun begins. The whole premise can feel a little daunting. Is it even possible to get across a good story in just five minutes.

As always, let’s ask Squeeze.

There you go: In less than three minutes (not counting the long outro), Glenn Tillbrook has told a tale of romantic trysts in the park, subsequent cohabitation, dwindling appearances at the local pub, a new job, a pregnancy, a family budget crisis, the birth of a child, that child subsequently learning to walk, and then a sad and messy end to the whole relationship.

There’s no reason, then, that you can’t get a point across in five minutes!

In all seriousness, though, those five minutes of your Ignite presentation can feel like the fastest five minutes of your life. It flies by. The secret is to be well prepared. In fact, in the course of doing my first Ignite talks, I quickly learned that it takes much longer to prepare for a five minute Ignite talk, than it does for an ordinary 30 or 40 minute one.

After my most recent Ignite talk a fellow speaker said I made it look “effortless”. With an Ignite, though, the only secret to achieving a sense of effortlessness is to put in a lot of effort! Here are some tips:

• Aim to make one single point. You don’t have time for anything else, and nor should you expect you audience to digest any more. You should really be able to describe that point in a sentence (e.g “traditional 3-tier team model is a bad fit for devops, but “Swarming” may be a much better option”)
• Follow a simple path: Set out the situation, explain its consequences, propose a solution, and outline the benefits.
• With only fifteen seconds for each slide, you don’t have much talking time. Jot down just a few simple bullet points for each: these are the points you’re going to get across in that fifteen seconds.
• Think hard about what not to include. An Ignite requires a ruthless attitude.
• Remember that your audience needs to read your words, digest your visuals, and hear what you are saying. Keep the slides much simpler than you might do for a regular presentation.
• When your deck is drafted, practice it, repeatedly. This is a great way to refine your presentation. As you read out each slide, you’ll probably find some more challenging to talk about than others. If you get bogged down on a slide, try it again. If it keeps happening, have a rethink.
• Almost as important as each slide is the transition between them. My favourite Ignite talks flowed, becoming a continuous narrative rather than a set of jarring 15-second points. Some transitions will feel less smooth and natural than others. If a transition just doesn’t feel right after multiple rehearsals, then change it.
• Consider building in a few slides which give you a chance to catch up, in case you get behind. I’ve seen a few effective techniques here. A trick I use is a visual which builds up over two transitions. There’s nothing wrong with this, and it effectively gives 30 seconds to work with a point, rather than 15. Alternatively, a few simpler slides, perhaps subheadings or pictures, can give you a chance to pause and breathe.
• Once you are happy with the deck, learn it. Make sure you confidently remember the slides, their order, and the points you are going to make with each. A major benefit of having this familiarity comes is that if you have a few seconds spare before a slide transition, you can start talking about the next one before it comes up, which takes some pressure off the next transition.
• Did I mention practicing? Practice is the single most important thing in this list. Powerpoint and other slide applications enable you to replicate the 15 second transitions of an Ignite delivery. Select this mode, and talk out loud, until you’re confidently delivering the points for each slide, in the appropriate number of seconds.
• Warm up. In the hour before your talk, run through the presentation a few more times, again, speaking out loud.

Finally: Enjoy yourself! Ignite talks are a little daunting to deliver, and the time rushes by, but you should always remember that they are fun for the audience. Your crowd doesn’t necessarily expect the super-slick delivery of an expensive keynote speaker: they just want to learn a few things in a lively way, in that awkward after-lunch slot. Prepare well, and you’ll give them that.