How to Handle Q&A Sessions

After spending countless hours preparing your presentation– brainstorming, organizing, practicing, stressing, practicing more– you also have to be prepared for the inevitable question and answer session. It’s easy to brush off the Q&A as something that doesn’t require preparation, something that you’ll be able to tackle spontaneously, something that you can be as relaxed and casual about as you want– easy as pie. Try to avoid this thinking, as a great presentation can be ruined by inadequate preparation for questions at the end.

Imagine you’re giving the best presentation of your life, everything’s going wonderfully smooth, you’re feeling relaxed and at ease, when a person in the audience hits you with a question that you have no idea how to answer. You balk, stammer, apologize, and lose all credibility. Prepare for this possibility. Spend a good chunk of time considering what questions the audience might ask. What question would stump you? What questions would require a lengthy answer, that perhaps you should address in your presentation instead? Prepare a list of possible questions, and formulate a response for each of them. Even think of the most obvious questions that are very easy to answer. It’s worth going through a response, simply to avoid awkward pauses, stumbles or mumbles.

Determine whether you intend on having a formal Q&A session, or if you would rather be informal and take questions throughout the presentation. Be up front with the audience so they know if they should ask questions when they feel inclined, or if they should wait until the end of the presentation to inquire. Establish boundaries with the audience, so the flow of your presentation isn’t affected by questions or interruptions in a way you weren’t intending.

Keep the Q&A lighthearted. Relax. If you aren’t completely at ease, look like you are. The hard part’s over. You’ve finished going through your presentation, and now it’s time to extrapolate on the information you’ve already covered. Take it easy. Be funny. Be likable.

Also, try and keep the audience on its toes. Don’t bore them with long, drawn out answers to simple questions. Don’t be repetitive. If you’ve already said it, don’t say it again the same way. Find a different, clearer way to get that same point across, but don’t waste time saying the same thing over and over again. Avoid presenting new information during the Q&A; it should function more like a platform for clarification rather than a platform for disseminating information. If you find yourself becoming too focused on new information during the Q&A, find a clever way to circle back to the information you’ve already covered.

It can be super discouraging to arrive at the Q&A session and find that no one in the audience has a question. Don’t get too down if this happens. Perhaps you have a shy audience, or maybe your presentation was just so completely awesome that no questions are needed. Regardless, encourage the audience to ask questions, but don’t be self deprecating and awkwardly wonder aloud why no one has questions, or annoy your audience by trying to force them to ask questions. Wait a few minutes. If no one has a question by then, summarize your main objectives again, and end on a strong note. Even if you spend five hours on the Q&A session (though, we certainly don’t recommend it…), end in the same way: with a concise summary and strong ending. Oh, and a smile if you can manage it.





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