Adrian Trenholm

How to handle conference Q and A sessions

August 18th, 2005

I have been talking with a lot of conference speakers over the last few days - researching how they prepare and carry out their speaking roles, and what difficulties they encounter. Many speakers hate the inevitable question and answer session after their presentation. One speaker confessed he deliberately makes his presentation five minutes too long in order to eat into question time! That’s a shame because Q and A is a great opportunity to check the audience’s understanding and restate your main message one more time.

Here are a few tips for how to handle Q and A after you have delivered a structured presentation:

1. Plan: prepare a slide to show during the Q and A. This slide should contain, in one sentence, the main thrust of your presentation (Your Act III, scene 4 slide if you are using ). Ask the chairman to call time on your Q and A session not by saying the traditional “We have time for one more question,” but by saying “Would you like to sum up?”

2. Anticipate: if you rehearse with colleagues, or at least discuss the presentation with them, you will discover the kind of questions you can expect on the day. Better yet if you can find a friendly client, the kind of person you can expect in the audience, rehearse with him or her.

3. Divide / Restate: restate each question to confirm your understanding – it helps you and the other people in the audience who may not have heard the original question. Ask for more specfics if the question seems too broad. If the question has more than one part, pause, split the question into its constituent elements then restate and answer each part in turn.

4. Refer / Defer: if the question is not relevant, don’t waste your Q and A time, even if you know the answer. If you can, politely refer the questioner to a more appropriate speaker and ask the chairman to ensure that the question is followed up. Alternatively, promise to answer the question during a break. If you don’t know an answer, it’s better to admit your don’t know and promise to find out, rather than to take an ill-informed stab.

5. Use both hands: when faced with “What do you think of…?” or “What is the best… ?” it can be useful to slot your answer into a “on the one hand… on the other hand…” format. The audience really wants to know which hand you prefer, so if possible, end with “in my opinion, the better of those two options is… .”

6. Past / Present / Future: another prepackaged answer structure is “Here’s how it used to be, here’s how it is now, here’s what I expect / need / want to happen in future.” This is a great structure to use if you are proposing change.

7. Sum up: if possible, end each answer with reference to one of the key points from your presentation. At the end of your Q and A, when the chairman asks would you like to sum up, quickly restate the main thrust of your presentation, refering to your Q and A slide. Such a professional ending is rare, so you will leave a great last impression with the audience.

Comments are open, so feel free to add your own favourite techniques for handling Q and A.

Update: via Lifehack , I came across , which contains a post on . Bert’s blog is worth reading.

Entry Filed under: Speaking