How do you moderate a panel discussion when you are the expert and moderator ? . Here is a bad example which I witnessed.
A few years back , I attended a panel discussion on e-governance at Hyderabad at the Institution of Engineers . The chairman and moderator was a former government servant widely respected for his knowledge on a variety of topics and his broad perspective on policies and programs at the national level . The three eminent panelists were drawn from the government, industry and academia . The session including Q & A was for two hours and the chairman during his introduction told the speakers that each speaker will get 30 minutes to talk and he will open the session with brief introductory remarks .
As it turned out , the speakers and the audience were in for a rude shock!! . The chairman chose to speak for more than 90 minutes drawing from the large repertoire and fountain of his knowledge oblivious of the ground rules set by him [ he really liked his voice!!] leaving the poor speakers literally stranded and looking helpless . Finally, each of them were allotted seven minutes each during which time , they scrambled to do justice to their power points and the Q&A which followed for another 10 minutes somehow salvaged their self respect to some degree. The chairman even at this stage wanted to give out more of his pearls of wisdom!!