I had a poster competition and given 4 minutes to explain everything in brief to the judges plus 1 minute for Q&A. I prepared in that way and explained my work to the judges in 3 minutes and 58 seconds. One judge asked me a quick question and I answered it also quickly. As there were another few seconds left, second judge asked me another question and I also explained it very nicely. Finally one person with a stopwatch told me you finished everything in exactly 5 minutes.
When the result got announced, I just got shocked because out of 3 winners at least 2 were there who neither maintain the time nor could answer the judges' simple questions properly. The best poster award was given to X who took 7 minutes and 35 seconds to finish her presentation (with 3 additional time notifications:-please conclude, please conclude, please conclude). One judge asked a quick question to her and she took additional few minutes to answer. The person with stopwatch told her that she took a total of 9 minutes and 54 seconds.
So I am curious to know whether the judgement process does not consider the time management? Or it just depends on the judges' own interest? I had a chance to ask about my presentation to one judge during the end day dinner. Below are the relevant one:
Me: How was my presentation, any suggestions please to improve it?
Judge: Your presentation was one of the best. But why didn't you explain your results more explicitly? (Pointing the best poster awardee) X explained her results very clearly.
Me: I had only 4 minutes.
Judge: Yaah, I can understand it. But you have excellent fluent and good depth of your research objective. Keep it up.
