As session chair, how to politely end someone's presentation/conversation if over time?

Question

Scenario 1:

Depending on the length of the talk, I'd show the speaker a 10min/5min "warning" sign that their time is about to come to an end. Arguably, 1-2min "overtime" seems tolerable, but 5mins will delay further proceedings (especially if everyone is doing it). What would be a polite way to transition into the question segment?

Secenario 2:
In the question segment, people sometimes forget about the rest and a (heated) discussion will erupt. How to politely remind the people that other people might have questions as well or that the next speaker should come up.

Addendum: This also should work in a virtual environment.

Answer 1

If you'd like to give the speaker 10, 5 and 1-minute warnings, assign someone to hold up cards with those warnings.

If someone goes over and you need them to finish, you will need to be assertive. Stand up, walk to the front of the room, and announce, "Thank you very much, but we are out of time and need to wrap this up. Perhaps our speaker may be willing to answer additional questions offline during our break. Again, many thanks to our speaker for a wonderful presentation and to our attendees for their kind attention."

Added: As lalala points out in comments, all it may take is walking to the front of the room. It shouldn't take a genius to realize you did that because time's up. You may not have to say a word. But if you do, be assertive and just say it.

Answer 2

While this is unlikely to be a broadly useful answer, here goes.

Story time:

Some years ago I attended a focused conference/workshop held in a small town in Italy. The town had a lovely conference center with an auditorium and a nice sound system for the talks. Each day there were sessions with talks, as well as discussion time and activities. The first day's program was a disaster - nobody kept to their allotted time, the session ran late, lunch was late as a result, and so on. One of the more experienced hands said no problem, I'll take care of it tomorrow.

The next morning the first speaker ignored the stop signal and kept on talking. The audience then heard, slowly coming up in volume, a selection from the Three Tenors. The speaker tried talking louder. The music kept swelling. The speaker quit speaking, and the music slowly went away. The audience looked back, and there was the experienced hand at the sound board with his CD player jacked into it to provide the music.

The next speaker also ignored the stop signal and tried to keep talking. Once again, music from the Three Tenors started being added into the sound system. That speaker figured out what was going to happen, and stopped rather abruptly before the music got too loud, and the audience had a good laugh.

Nobody else ran over time through the rest of the week.

So, a sound board and an Ipod to provide lovely classical music is one approach to the issue. It works quite well.

Answer 3

I think both scenarios have the same response:

You need to look for a natural pause from the speaker. When they end a sentence, when there's a moment of silence, when they finish asking a question. Moments like these are where you should slip in and (firmly) state that the time for their presentation/question really has passed.

For a question/discussion mention that they should 'take it offline', i.e. continue the discussion afterwards without the audience so that the session can move on. For a presentation, you can give them one final minute if you're lenient. But if you've already warned them that their time is up, tell them that and move the session further.

This answer is also possibly useful: https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/54150/69838

Answer 4

Meet with each speaker prior to the session, perhaps immediately before and perhaps earlier. You may need to find a way to inform them that they need to meet.

Tell them that you will appear on the stage immediately at the scheduled end of the talk, hopefully within their peripheral vision. That is the two minute warning. After two minutes, just step to the podium/mike and say "Let's thank the speaker" and start the applause. If you don't permit two minute "overruns" then just step on the stage a bit earlier, within the five minute window.

Many speakers will actually appreciate this as five minutes (and ten, especially) can seem like a long time for a speaker.

If it is in a Q/A session, there is likely a microphone (or more) on the floor. Have someone step near it at the two minute mark and ask for it when that time expires.

People can carry on any remaining conversations away from the presentation.

It is polite in the sense that the speaker has been given notice, several times with your ten and five minute warnings. It is also polite to following speakers that things don't overrun and to audience members who come for only some of the presentations. The last speaker, especially, will thank you for keeping it moving.

This is a fairly common practice at some large in-person meetings in my experience. It is a bit harder with a virtual meeting unless you have a private channel to a speaker. I think a Zoom host has some power to interrupt and one can send private text via chat.

Answer 5

In my somewhat limited experience the best solution to this is the automatic timed "traffic lights" that both the speaker and audience can see. They display a green light during the main bit of the talk, it turns yellow when approaching the end and turns red when the time is up. As the audience can see it they know the speaker is going over, the speaker knows the audience knows and tends to finish soon. It is not a absolute protection, and the chair may need to step in after a while, but it does provide an automated way of delivering the information that avoids the personal uncomfortableness of having to interrupt a potentially senior academic.