Q&A and interaction

I know you’re probably familiar with them, but just on the safe side, here are industry standard guidelines on how to answer questions after a presentation.

Industry Standard Presentation Question Answering Best Practice*

*sounds official, huh?

~ Let the group know at the start of the Q&A how long you have for Q&A.

~ If you’re at all unsure of the question, feel free to clarify with the asker.

~ If the group is larger than, say, eight or nine, repeat the question back to the whole group.

~ Answer the question to the whole group, not just the asker.

~ Answer briefly. People can always follow up.

~ If the question is very particular to the asker’s situation, see if you can bring your answer up to refer to more general principles that are relevant to the whole group.

~ Before moving on, check with the asker that you’ve answered their question sufficiently.

~ If you say you’ll get back to someone… get back to them, eh?

~ As you’re getting to the end of your allotted time, let everyone know.

There are plenty of situations where you might want to vary these, but if you do, make sure you have a particular reason.

These guidelines won’t necessarily make you shine (for that, start here), but you will come off, at the very least, as professional.

So you finish your presentation.

What’s next?

You ask, ‘Any questions?’

And then… silence.

Church bells. Crickets. The howl of the wind…

Bah!

Lack of questions is totally fixable.

First thing you need to do is to think about why you want questions in the first place.

If you do indeed want there to be questions after your presentations, the next step surely is to think about what might be getting in the way of people speaking out. [click to continue…]

Before we come to strategies for The Dreaded Q&A, I think it’s important you ask yourself as question:

Why the hell do you want people to be asking you questions anyway?

Aren’t some of your worst presentation memories about not answering a question well? Isn’t it just opening the floodgates to difficulty and embarrassment? Wouldn’t it be easier if you said, ‘Any questions?’, and then everyone sat silent for a few seconds, and then you just sat down?

I know you might actually be saying, ‘Yes, YES, it would be better.’

However, once you think about how the Q&A fits into things, it can help you to refocus on the purpose of your presentation.

Q&A and the purpose of presentations

If you’ve been planning from outcomes, you will have realised that as soon as you think about the response you’re looking for, things become much clearer.

Generally, the short/medium-term outcome for a presentation is conversation. The reason you’re giving the presentation is to spark that conversation and set the frame for it. And by conversation I mean the exchange of ideas in many formats as well as literal I-say-something-you-say-something.

If conversation is the thing…

If you want people discussing your topic, then surely  Q&A is exactly what you’re looking for?

Ok, if your answer was no, let me add something else in.

If you want people discussing your topic, and you knew how to deal with even difficult questions well, isn’t Q&A exactly what you’re looking for?

I thought so.

(If you want to start thinking about how to deal with difficult questions, start here.)

Some reasons you might want people to ask you questions after a presentation:

~ You want to know what people don’t understand, so you can correct their understanding
~ You want to know people’s concerns about your topic, so you can help them deal with them
~ You want to know what’s of interest to your listeners
~ You want to look like you’ve been an interesting speaker
~ You can’t bear the silence anymore.

If you can work out why you want interaction, you can begin to work out how to make it happen.

Next article: What stops your listeners asking you questions?

Stay tuned.