13 Guidelines for Great Panel Discussions

Advice for Event Organizers and Moderators

ome panels crackle with energy, elicit fresh ideas, and bring the audience into the discussion. Others plod along,
and by the fifteen-minute mark the audience is checking iPhones and thumbing through the program.
I've had the chance to moderate dozens of panel discussions, at places as diverse as the Harvard Business School,
the South by Southwest Film Festival, Las Vegas' humongous Consumer Electronics Show, and a convention
ofagricultural marketers in St. Louis. I've also planned conferences, assembled panels, and recruited other moderators.
This article is a compilation of some of the things I've learned.
While it's of course important for every panel to have a tight focus or value proposition (what is the audience going to
get out of it?), and for the moderator to have a sense of how to structure his questions and juggle the different points of
view, I'm going to leave those issues for another day. Instead, I want to talk about how a panel's success can hinge upon
some subtle, under-appreciated factors -- all of which need to be considered well before the day of the event arrives.
Some of the factors may seem insignificant, but I've found that each one has a big impact on how much your audience
will get out of your panel.

1. Length and panel size.
The ideal length for a panel discussion is 45 minutes to one hour. The ideal number of participants is 4-5, plus
moderator. I tend to book five guests for many panels, on the assumption that one of them sometimes drops out at the
last minute, leaving me with four. Panels with five people can work, but once you get to six, everyone on the panel
starts to get anxious about getting enough airtime.
Some photographic examples:
In cases where some of your panelists plan to show slides (more on that
later), you may need to extend a panel to 90 minutes, but my rule is that
there should be no more than one 90-minute session per day at a
seminar or conference - that's a long time to ask the audience to sit and
pay attention. And ninety-minute sessions are best scheduled for the
morning, rather than the end of the day.
2. Choosing a moderator.
Every panel needs a strong moderator, and the role of the moderator is
very different from the role of a panelist. I don't recommend having one
of your panelists try to fill both roles. It's like trying to conduct an
orchestra while playing a solo.
The best moderator is
someone who has
moderated panels in
the past, understands
the subject matter, knows a bit about the panelists, and realizes that
she is there to guide the conversation - not to impress the audience
with her brilliance. The moderator is there to make the speakers
look good and make sure that they connect with the audience.
Moderators also need an innate sense of pacing (how long each
panelist should talk, and how long she should dedicate to each topic
before moving on) and a smooth approach to weaving in questions
from the audience.
There is a very delicate balance between a moderator who talks
too much and one who doesn't talk enough. The moderator who talks
too much typically believes that she should contribute as much to
the panel as the panelists, and is as much of an expert as they
are, and wants to convey that to the audience. The moderator who
doesn't talk enough lets the inmates run the asylum: some panelists
will go on long jags, discoursing on topics that are not related to the panel at all.

Here's the typical panel set-up, best avoided: The
moderator is at the podium, and panelists are hidden
behind a red-draped table.

I was at this conference in 2005, and the production
values were great. Note the two lamps on side
tables, the two small coffee tables in front of the
panelists, and the bright lights above the stage. The
only problem here was that they left extra chairs
onstage when they weren't needed, which resulted in
big gaps between the speakers.
Journalists, analysts, industry "gurus," and consultants can all make good moderators, since they're accustomed to
asking probing questions. (I tend to think that people without something to sell to your audience work best as
moderators, which sometimes excludes consultants and industry gurus, who may be inclined to shill for their services.)
Be clear with your moderator that you are entrusting her to run the
show, but that you'd like her to spend a fixed amount of time (usually
no more than five minutes) introducing the speakers and teeing up the
discussion before bringing in the perspectives of the panelists. It's also
a good idea to let your moderator know that she has the authority to
politely cut off or redirect speakers if they stray. But an experienced
moderator will already know that.
I often tell moderators that they are "all-powerful" - but I expect them
to know that that doesn't mean they're the star of the panel. I often tell
speakers that the moderator will "guide the conversation," so that they
know what to expect, and aren't surprised if the moderator reins them in
or redirects them.
3. Panelist guidelines and advance preparation.
I think it's a good idea to communicate with panelists at least twice
before the event -- and yes, it is possible to over-communicate,
annoying your panelists and causing them to pay less attention to the
materials you send them.
Once a panelist has signed on, I send a confirmation via e-mail
thanking them for agreeing to be part of the event. Contained in this e-
mail are the date/time/location of the event; anything the speakers need
to do in advance of the event (such as send in a short bio for your
program book or reserve a hotel room or indicate their meal preferences); and a mention that they'll be hearing more
from you or the moderator about the specifics of their session in advance of the event.
The second communication, which can come from the event organizer or the moderator, should again list the date, time,
and place. It's a good idea to send this at least two weeks before the event itself. The focus of this communication is to

Putting the moderator (in this photo, me) in the
middle sends the subtle message that he is going to
guide the conversation (and also makes it easier for
him to redirect panelists if they drift off-topic).
Everyone has a comfy chair, and a lapel
microphone. One problem: the coffee table is
cluttered with printed name-tents, so it's hard to tell
which speaker is which. But a few of the items on
the table are items that Marina Hatsopoulos (the
speaker in the red jacket) brought for show-and-tell
- far better than slides.
let the panelists know who'll be moderating, and get into more detail about the topics/themes of the session, and what
you hope to achieve.
Explain how the session will proceed, and what each panelist should be prepared to do. (Often, I find myself saying,
"Don't bring a prepared speech or a PowerPoint presentation, just your anecdotes, recent experiences, and data points
about this topic.") The moderator may want to include some sample questions. You might also want to send the
panelists a copy of the full agenda (or point them to it online), and the bios of their fellow panelists. Another good idea
is to send them a cell phone number for the person who'll be coordinating event, in case a panelist is having trouble
finding (or getting to) the venue on the day of their panel.
Finally, it never hurts to call the panelists and the moderator the week
before an event to make sure they've received all your materials and
check if they have any questions.
I don't tend to organize conference calls among panelists before panel
discussions, as I've found this can be more trouble than it is worth.
Scheduling is difficult, and if even one panelist misses the call,
someone needs to fill him in on what happened. I think it's sufficient to
get the panelists together in the hallway fifteen minutes before a
session, or have them sit together at breakfast or lunch. Spontaneity is
preferable to having all of your panelists preface their statements by
saying, "As we discussed on the conference call..."
But once your panelists are on-site, make sure they get connected to
their fellow panelists and the moderator as quickly as possible.
A CEO once told me that he'd been on a live TV show where the only
instruction he got beforehand was this: "No dead air." I think that's a
good instruction to give panelists, too. I also usually tell them that I'm
not necessarily going to go straight down the line and have each of them answer every question. Instead, I ask them to
jump in whenever they have something to say.
I also frequently mention that it's not a bad idea to accentuate conflicts and differences of opinion (not in an aggressive

Panelists are more comfortable when they have a
sense of what topics you'll be discussing during the
session, and a few of the questions you may ask. But
it is possible for panelists and moderators to
overprepare, sapping the spontaneity.
way, of course), rather than highlighting areas where the panelists agree ("I agree with what the other four panelists
said.") That makes for an action-packed and enlightening panel.
4. Slides.
Since a panel discussion is usually part of a larger agenda that includes plenty of slide presentations by keynote
speakers and others, I usually ask panelists not to bring slides to show as part of the panel. Audience members will
enjoy hearing the panelists' perspectives sans slides, and seeing the interaction between the panelists. No one has ever
left a conference or seminar saying, "I just wish there was more PowerPoint." That said, there are some topics that can
benefit from slides.
When slides are involved, I try to avoid having all of the panelists bring
slides. It's not unfair to ask one or two panelists to bring a short slide
presentation if you make sure that other panelists who haven't brought
slides will get an equivalent amount of airtime. If that's what you
choose to do, or if you allow all of your panelists to bring slides, you
should give them a limit: ask them to bring the three or five slides that
they absolutely must show to get their argument across. (If you give
them a time limit instead of a firm number of slides, some people will
imagine they can somehow squeeze twenty slides into five minutes.)
You should avoid having your speakers connect and disconnect their
own laptops to the projector during the session; either an audio-visual
person should do this, or you should have all of the slides on a single
laptop and someone designated (again, not a panelist) to switch from
one presentation to the next.
Even better than slides is asking speakers to bring objects for "show-and-tell"; this only works in some circumstances -
for instance when your panelists represent manufacturing companies, or they're doctors implanting a new kind of
medical device, or they're designers. If a panelist brings a couple of cell phones that his firm helped to design, the
audience can pass them around while he's talking.
5. Setting the stage.
The worst kind of set-up for a panel discussion, unfortunately, is the one you encounter most often in hotel ballrooms

PowerPoint poisoning: If at all possible, ask your
panelists to leave the slides at home.
and convention centers. There is a long table on a raised stage, usually draped with a red tablecloth, with chairs behind
it. The moderator stands at a podium apart from the speakers. There is a gap of about twenty feet between the stage and
the first row of seats.
It's much better not to hide your panelists behind a table. The audience will appreciate seeing them better: body
language is a very subtle thing, and it's often part of panel discussions, especially when people joke with one another or
disagree about something. Give your panelists tall stools, or regular chairs, to sit on. (If you have a few side tables that
can go between some of the chairs, or a low coffee table that can go in front of them, those can be handy for placing
pitchers of water or notes that your speakers may carry onstage with them.)
The chairs should be arranged in a slight semi-circle, since putting
them in a straight line makes it hard for panelists to see one another.
This is important: remove any extra chairs that may have been left
onstage from previous panels. Otherwise, there will be vast oceans of
space between your panelists, and the audience will wonder who didn't
show up.
The moderator should sit with the panelists so that he or she can guide
the conversation, not at a podium; I usually like to sit in the middle.
Your objective should be to get the first row of seats as close to the
stage as possible, and to encourage people to sit in them. This raises the
energy level in the room. It makes your speakers feel more accountable
to the audience, and it helps your audience feel like they're part of the
conversation. If you have some freebies or prizes that you can give
away, the moderator or conference host shouldn't hesitate to use them
to bribe people to move from the back to the front row, just as you're
beginning the session.
6. Everyone needs a microphone.
It can be a clip-on lavalier mic, or a handheld, or a mic perched on an adjustable stand, but forcing everyone to share a
single mic means that there will be long stretches of dead air as your panelists hand the mic back and forth.

Nice stage set-up, with coffee tables and comfy
chairs for panelists (though there may be too many
of them.) But the chairs are set in a straight line,
rather than a slight semi-circle, which makes it
tough for a panelist on one end to make eye contact
with the person on the other end.
This slows down the pace of the discussion, and often it prevents
panelists who have something to say from jumping in, because
someone else will hijack the mic while it is traveling down the line.
A second-best option to having mics for everyone is to have mics for
half of your panelists - but one microphone dedicated to the moderator,
who needs to control the flow of the discussion. Panelists can then
share a mic with their immediate neighbor, reducing the amount of
mic-passing that has to take place.
7. Lighting.
Lighting is an easy
thing to overlook, but
too often panel
discussions take place in the shadows of a fluorescent-lit room. If you
can get supplemental lighting, focus it on the stage - the audience
wants to see panelists' facial expressions, and good lighting will guide
their attention to the stage, rather than to their Blackberries or the
copy of USA Today that arrived on their hotel room doorstep. If you
can't get supplemental lighting at your venue, at least make sure that
your stage and your panelists are positioned in the brightest part of
the room.
8. Identifying your panelists.
You want to help your audience understand which speaker is which -
even if an audience member missed the beginning of the session,
when each speaker was introduced.

When everyone has a microphone, no one has to
worry about when they'll get an opportunity to
chime in.

Can't you just hear the audience snoring softly?
Slides force you to lower the level of light in the
room, which makes it tougher to see the
speaker...but easier to catch some Zs.
There are a number of different ways to help your audience understand
who's onstage, and who's speaking. I think the best scenario is to have a
list of their names and titles in your printed conference agenda, and ask
them to sit in that order from left to right on the stage. (You can
facilitate this by placing a piece of paper with each speaker's name on
the chairs before the session. Again, you probably will want to put the
moderator in the middle.) Instead of (or in addition to) that, you may
want to list your speakers on a slide that's projected on the screen
throughout the session. At some point, the event's host or the moderator
- or both - should let the audience know that panelists will sit from left
to right as they're listed in the agenda or on the slide.
I'm not a fan of putting the speakers' names on folded name tents, since
these are usually hard to read from the back of the room. But if you
have a coffee table onstage, you could certainly place name tents on the
front of that, or on the front edge of the stage.

Nice big name-tents in front of each speaker. And
each person has his own individual table, though
they look so spindly that I suspect the slightest
nudge with a knee would knock one over.

Very nice set-up. Chairs are arranged in a slight
semi-circle, so the panelists can all see each other.
The low tables give them a place to put a glass of
water or some notes. There are paper name-tents in
front of each speaker. And the lighting in the room
Having each panelist's bio printed as part of the conference agenda or
program is also wise. That will free up your moderator to simply give a
one- or two-sentence introduction to each panelist, rather than reading
their complete bio to the audience. With four or five panelists, the recitation of the bios can get tedious, and it cuts into
the time you have for the actual discussion.
9. Audience interaction.
The best moderators don't wait until the Q&A period to get the audience involved. A very basic technique is starting the
session by polling the audience. Where are they from, what job function are they in, what industry, what level of
experience do they have with your topic? This will give the moderator and the panelists a good sense for who they're
addressing, and it'll keep you from doing a pro-level panel for an entry-level audience, or vice versa.
If your panelists all agree on a question, you can ask the audience if anyone is willing to stand up and offer a dissenting
view. There are zillions of other inventive ways to get the audience involved, and I guarantee it will make your panel
better. You might have entrepreneurs do a one-minute explainer of their business idea, and have the panel offer
feedback or ask probing questions. If your panel is about hiring, you might have an audience member participate in a
mock interview. If your panel is about advertising, you could show ads produced by the panelists and ask for audience
reaction to each one. You could create buzzword bingo cards for the audience, and let them check off buzzwords as you
and your panelists utter them, with a prize for the winner.
Think of a great magic show, or Springsteen pulling someone up from the front row during "Dancing in the Dark."
Participation just makes it better -- as long as you use your volunteers respectfully, and don't put them in positions that
will embarrass them. (By the way, I've tried many digital and mobile technologies for polling the audience, and while
some are OK, none is better than the old-fashioned approach: asking people to raise their hand, or stand up, or come
onstage.)
10. Question and answer period.
For an hour-long panel discussion, you should allocate at least fifteen minutes at the end for questions. Twenty or thirty
minutes is better, if you think the audience will have lots of questions and if the panel is more educational in nature. My
belief about panels is that the moderator can easily spend the entire time asking questions that she believes the audience
cares about... or she can actually let the audience ask questions that it cares about.
is plenty bright.
I can't emphasize enough how important a Q&A period is; without one
(or with an abbreviated one), it sends the message that the audience is
there to be passive listeners, rather than active participants.
The moderator might also choose to let the audience know that he or
she will take questions throughout the panel discussion, if audience
members raise their hands. The key with doing that is not to allow an
off-topic or obscure question to derail the panel and bore the other
audience members. If you get a super-detailed question that seems like
it is only of interest to the questioner, the moderator can easily ask one
panelists to address it, and then move on.
During the main question-and-answer period, the moderator should try
to avoid calling on the same person twice until everyone has gotten a
chance to ask a question. In the event that there are no questions
immediately, it's good for the moderator to either have someone in the
audience (perhaps one of the organizers) primed to ask a question, or
for the moderator to have an extra question or two in reserve.
Not everyone on the panel needs to weigh in on every question; my goal as a moderator is usually to try to get as many
audience questions into the Q&A period as possible.
11. Watching the clock.
It's the moderator's job to make sure no panelist drags on for too long, and that there's plenty of time for questions at the
end. To help the moderator and panelists, you may want to have a digital countdown clock that all of the speakers can
see positioned at the edge of the stage.

The gap kills: With no one sitting in the first two
rows of the ballroom, there's a giant gulf between
the panelists and the audience. The result is usually
a low energy level in the room.
But the lower-tech approach is to have a person in the back of the room
holding up signs (with BIG LETTERS) that say "10 Minutes," "5
Minutes," and "1 Minute." Introduce your moderator to this timekeeper
before the session starts, so that he or she will know whom to look for.
A good timekeeper will wave the signs like a checkered flag at a
NASCAR race until the moderator sees them; a good moderator will
nod at the timekeeper to let him or her know that the moderator has
gotten the message.
Why is time-keeping important? You may have a panelist who has
booked a flight or made an appointment assuming that her panel will be
done at 1 p.m., and there's nothing worse than someone leaving the
stage before the panel is over. (I've seen it happen.)
12. Thank your panelists.

Good lighting, but the moderator looks like she is
stranded on her own desert island, at left. And
everyone is hidden by the draped table.

Beautiful venue, great lighting, and a nifty aqua
backdrop. The room seems full, which keeps the
energy level high. One way to fill up a room, which
they've done here, is to set it up "classroom style,"
with tables in front of each row of seats, instead of
"theater style" (just rows of seats.) It's also possible
You really can't thank your panelists and your moderator enough for
helping out with your event. Some people give them a small gift at the
event, or send a nice handwritten note afterwards, or both. If you got
positive feedback from your audience about the panel - either on
feedback forms or just informally after the session - you should also
convey that in your note.
13. The panel ain't over when it's over.
Many audience members will want a chance to chat informally with the panelists and moderator. Ask your speakers in
advance to stick around at the event for at least 15 or 20 minutes after their session, so that attendees will have a chance
to buttonhole them in the hallway after their session. Even better is to encourage them to stay for lunch, dinner, the
cocktail hour - or whatever else you've got planned.
to do a mix of theater and classroom style, putting a
few rows of theater style seating in the front, and
classroom in the back for people who want a table
for note-taking or using their laptop. This panel does
seem to have nine people on it, though, which
makes it start to look like the National Spelling Bee.