The Question-and-AnswerSession

After presentation

Introduction to Presentation Skills for

Professionals

Arguably, the question-and-answer session can make or break a presentation.

When the presenter is seen to be speaking ‘off script’ the audience tends to believe him or her more than during the formal presentation and, of course, the presenter is responding exactly to the audience’s specific needs.

If, however the presenter is nervous, answers badly, or fails to control the session, then no matter how good the presentation has been the audience will take away a negative impression.

Intro

This said, the question-and-answer session does serve several very useful purposes:

◦ it allows you to check the audience’s understanding – the questions will give you valuable information about what they have or have not understood.

◦ it reinforces your message by giving you a chance to repeat the information that is important to them.

Possible Benefits

It is useful to remember that audiences really like the question-and-answer session because it gives them the chance to articulate the new information and explore the subject.

It gives them the chance to speak after a long period of silence, a chance to open up the subject and often the chance to show how clever they are.

Moving from the presentation to the question-and-answer

session

The secret of a good transition from presentation to interaction is control.

When you open up the question-and-answer session you should first lay down the ground rules.

CONTROL & GROUND RULES

◦ You can limit the time (‘we have 15 minutes for the question-and-answer session’)

◦ You can limit the number of questions (‘we have time for three questions’)

◦ You can limit the subject matter (‘I’ll answer questions on the legal aspects of this new contract’)

◦ You can limit the questioners (‘because we have only a little time, I’ll take questions from the human resources department’).

◦ You can also exclude certain subjects, (‘I cannot answer questions on prices because these have yet to be set’; ‘The future plans for this range of machines is still company confidential’, ‘I cannot make any comments on how we intend to implement this programme since this is our competitive advantage’).

GROUND RULES

Now to actually answering the questions. You need to be very disciplined about this, particularly if the questions you get are the ones you really wanted.

There are five steps to answering successfully:◦ Listen carefully all the way through the question.◦ Decide whether you want to answer the question.◦ If you decide you do, repeat and if necessary

rephrase the question.◦ Answer the question and only the question.◦ Check that the answer was acceptable.

ANSWERING THE Qs

Broadly, questions fall into seven categories:◦Clarifying◦Technical◦Anticipatory◦Peripheral◦Dilemma◦Loaded◦ and ‘Gotcha’.

Types of questions to expect

Things like: ‘Can you explain …?’ ‘I’m not sure what you mean by …’, ‘Does that mean that …?’

Are these questions good? Yes they are – they give you a chance to expand your topics and check for understanding.

Should you encourage them? Yes.

Should you answer them? Certainly.

Clarifying questions

Things like: ‘What is the specification for …?’ ‘Is X compatible with Y?’ Or: ‘If the subflammary injection sprinzer is calibrated with the pulmintary inhibitation valve what happens to the misgenic saving counter and the vertical scat mitigator and the …?’

Are these questions good? Yes and no.

Should you encourage them? Yes and no.

Should you answer them? Eventually, yes, but you need to think this through.

If the audience is predominantly technical and if you can keep the answers short, by all means answer them, but if the audience is not particularly technical, then have the information in a hand-out and refer them to it.

Technical questions

Things like: ‘Will you be talking about …?’ or ‘What about xxx (the subject of the next presentation)?’ or ‘Will you be covering …?’

Are these questions good? They certainly are.

Should you encourage them? Yes indeed.

Should you answer them? Yes, but not with an actual answer about the topic.

Anticipatory(future) questions

Things like: ‘When I was in India …’, ‘I had a very interesting experience when …’, ‘In my experience blah blah blah …’, ‘My field of expertise tells me …’.

Are these good? It depends.

Should you encourage them? Maybe.

Should you answer them? Answer what? These are probably not questions at all.

If you have invited the audience to share their experiences

then they are an excellent way of creating rapport and you should welcome them – they give the audience a chance to match up what they know to what you have just presented to them.

If however, time is tight and you know that other questions are waiting you need to tactfully get the questioner to move on.

Peripheral(story base) questions

These are questions that put you in a real spot – such as requiring company sensitive, pricing or competitive information that shouldn’t be aired publicly.

Are these good? Yes and no.

Should you encourage them? Yes and no.

Should you answer them? Not in public. If you are prepared to share the information required then do it off line – not in front of the audience.

If you can’t, then tell the questioner so and don’t answer.

Dilemma (strategic)questions

These questions are often used where the questioner obviously has a sub-agenda and is waiting for you to step right into it. Often, a question seeded by your competitors.

Are these good? That depends.

Should you encourage them? Again, that depends. Should you answer them? Hmmm.

Loaded questions may be uncomfortable but they do give you the opportunity to correct misinformation and set the record straight.

Turn the question from negative to positive and answer crisply and succinctly. Don’t be pulled into an argument, keep your body language and voice positive.

When you have finished your answer, look away from the questioner and ask for another question from the rest of the audience.

Loaded questions

These are malicious or unanswerable questions that are a mixture of dilemma and loaded questions and they are always asked for negative reasons.

Are they good? Certainly not.

Should you encourage them? Never (but if you can find out before the presentation whether there is anyone in the audience sharpening up their sword and loading the machine gun, you are at least forewarned).

Should you answer them? No. Be uncompromising, refuse to answer, don’t look at the questioner, don’t get into an argument and try not to be affected by them.

‘Gotcha!’ questions

THANK YOU