Decision-Making at Speed: What Extemporaneous and Parlaw Contests Teach About Thinking on Your Feet

How Contests Build Skills That Outlast the Competition

By FFApresident.com Editorial

Two FFA leadership events share an unusual demand: you must decide what to say or do right now, with limited time and a room watching. Extemporaneous public speaking asks members to build a talk on the spot. Parliamentary procedure, the event the headline calls “Parlaw,” asks them to apply the rules of orderly meetings to live problems. FFA’s official event pages and coaching articles show what each builds.

A note on terms: “Parlaw” here refers to the Parliamentary Procedure event, which FFA describes as testing a solid understanding of parliamentary law.

Key takeaway: both events train structured thinking under time pressure.
The transferable habit: impose a framework fast, then let it carry you.

Extemporaneous Public Speaking

According to the official event page, the extemporaneous event develops members’ abilities to express themselves on a given agriculture-related topic without prior preparation or rehearsal. Participants formulate and present remarks in a limited time, and judges evaluate speaking, presentation, content and the ability to answer questions about the topic.

That last element matters. A speech is not the end; the questions are part of the score. The skill is not memorization but synthesis: take what you know, pick a structure and deliver.

FFA’s improv coaching in Improve Your Public Speaking With Improv supports this approach. It defines improvisation as delivering a speech by thinking of what to say as you say it, and offers tips such as warming up the voice, adopting a “Yes, and…” mindset in which audience questions become opportunities and aiming for authenticity over perfection.

Parliamentary Procedure

The official event page describes an event that helps students participate effectively in meetings while honing leadership, research, problem-solving and critical-thinking skills. Participants learn to conduct orderly meetings, demonstrate understanding of parliamentary law, present convincing debates, evaluate minutes and organizational documents and use parliamentary resources to solve management and operational problems.

Speed matters because meetings do not pause. A motion arrives and the chair must respond correctly in the moment. FFA’s Parliamentary Procedure: Come to Order Q&A with a professional parliamentarian who serves on a National FFA event committee highlights how precision matters: quorum, the number of members required to transact business, is whatever the bylaws say, not necessarily a majority, and ex officio means by virtue of title. Getting such definitions right fast is the event in miniature.

FFA’s five skills article adds a decision rule: when two-thirds of a group is ready to end discussion, it is time to vote, because the purpose of a meeting is to get something done.

What Both Events Share

Structure as a shortcut. Extemporaneous speakers lean on an outline; parliamentarians lean on rules. Both reduce the decision to a framework.
Listening while acting. Each requires tracking what others said.
Accepting imperfection. Neither event allows a perfect answer, only a good enough one on time.
Questions as part of the test. Both include answering or responding in real time.

The first three bullets are this site’s interpretation; the event pages describe the tasks, not the mental techniques.

Practice Drills

Three-part outline: practice answering any topic with a point, two supports and a close.
Random-topic rounds: have a friend choose an agricultural topic and give you limited time.
Motion flashcards: practice identifying what must happen when a given motion is made.
Defend the other side: argue against your own view for a minute.

Frequently Asked Questions

How is extemporaneous speaking different from prepared speaking?

FFA describes prepared public speaking as presenting speeches on current agricultural topics to enhance leadership, communication and citizenship skills, while the extemporaneous event requires remarks on a given topic without prior preparation or rehearsal. See the prepared public speaking page.

Where is the extemporaneous event held?

FFA’s page says it is held in conjunction with the National FFA Convention & Expo, a platform for members to show their speaking abilities.

Which parliamentary events are for younger members?

Conduct of Chapter Meetings introduces members in grades 7–9 to parliamentary procedure so they can conduct efficient meetings and improve communication, according to its official page.

Honest Limits

This article does not cover time limits, topic selection or scoring, which vary and should be taken from current event handbooks. Quick decisions are only as good as the knowledge behind them, which is why preparation for both events is largely about internalizing frameworks in advance. And no source cited here measures whether these events improve decision-making outside FFA.

Past presidents on this site built public-facing careers: Mark Sanborn as a leadership speaker, Tim Hammerich as a broadcaster and Nels Ackerson as a lawyer.

Sources

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