How often have you heard “Any questions?” at the end of a conference session?
Hands rise, and the presenter picks an audience member who asks a question. The presenter answers the question and picks another questioner. The process continues for a few minutes.
Simple enough. We’ve been using this Q&A format for centuries.
But can we improve it?
Yes!
Let’s explore, starting with…
Six criticisms of traditional Q&A
Traditional Q&A reinforces the engrained assumption that the presenter is the expert, and audience members are relative novices. This ignores today’s reality that the smartest person in the room is the room.
Traditional Q&A is a one-to-many process. These days, conference attendees come to learn andconnect. But the only connection going on (if any) during traditional Q&A is between the presenter and individual audience members.
Have you ever thought, “I could answer that question better than [the person on stage]!”? Traditional Q&A provides no opportunity for obtaining answers from audience members.
Who gets to ask questions? The presenter decides, allowing any implicit (and explicit) bias full reign.
How much time is available for questions? Again, the presenter decides. Too little time scheduled frustrates audience members whose questions remain unanswered. Too much time leads to a premature session close.
During traditional Q&A, the questioner is in the audience while the presenter is up on stage. As a result, questioners remain largely anonymous; audience members can’t even see a questioner behind them without turning around.
Ways to improve Q&A
I can think of two fundamental ways to improve Q&A. Here are…
Five ways to refine the traditional Q&A format
Include multiple Q&A opportunities throughout the session. This helps audience members get answers to questions while they’re top-of-mind, rather than waiting until the end of the session. It also increases interaction with the presenter, which can help maintain attendee attention and improve learning.
Instead of the presenter picking the questioners, have an independent third party (a moderator) choose them.
Or you can have the audience submit questions via an app and then vote on the list. This helps uncover popular questions.
If you’re using a moderator, have the audience submit questions in writing or via an app. This allows the moderator to curate questions to be asked. When appropriate, the moderator can combine similar questions.
Instead of taking questions from the audience, have questioners line up at a front-of-room mike so everyone can see them.
Or, we can…
Further improve Q&A by integrating it into a discussion format
Traditional sessions have two parts, first a lecture, and then Q&A. As mentioned above, presenting multiple short pieces of content interspersed with Q&A increases interaction and consequent learning. But we can do better!
Combined with experiential exercises, here’s the approach I use in my Participate! Labs.
Using a facilitated discussion format like the fishbowl sandwich, I create a session that offers Q&A on an as-needed basis. As I share content, attendees can join me on stage at any time for questions or a discussion that I moderate. (Check the link to see how this works.) The session then becomes more like a live Ask Me Anything (AMA) around my content.
Creating a truly participative Q&A in this way lets the resulting questions and discussions reflect the audience’s just-in-time needs, optimizing the value of the session for participants.
Do you have additional suggestions for improving Q&A? Share them in the comments below!
We’ve all experienced the meeting question that isn’t. A session presenter or moderator asks for questions and someone stands up and starts spouting their own opinions. A concluding question (if they even have one) is little more than an excuse for their own speech.
Are you tired of attendees making statements during question time? Here are ways to deal with audience questions that aren’t actually questions.
Clearly convey your desired format and that questions are expected
Decide on ground rules for asking questions
Determine the ground rules for audience questions before the session.
Where will questions be asked: e.g. from a stage or roving mike?
What format should the questioner use: e.g. state name and organization, who the question is for (if a panel session), ask the question in one sentence, take less than thirty seconds.
Explain the ground rules before audience questions
Clearly explain the expected format for questions. Here’s what David Gergen says:
“If you would, identify yourself, be fairly succinct, and remember that a question ends with a question mark.” —David Gergen, CNN commentator
Maintain control during question time
Interrupt and steer rambling questioners back on track
If an audience member rambles, interrupt (repeatedly if need be) with “Can you put that into a question?” and/or “Is this leading to a question?”
Don’t surrender the microphone
Once an audience member has a live microphone in their hand their mouth can potentially run amok. So roaming moderators or audience runners should never surrender the microphone. If you’re using a stage microphone, agree on a signal for your A/V staff to cut its feed if necessary.
Finally, two ways to eliminate live questions
Replace live questions with screened questions
Taking audience live questions has been traditional for centuries, but that doesn’t mean we have to do things the same way today. Instead, screen questions using:
Question cards: Distribute note cards to the audience at the start, and explain how to use them to take questions. Collect cards at the appropriate time.
Texting, tweeting, or an app: Explain how and when to use a cell number (text), hashtag (tweet), or conference app to submit questions.
Plan and staff an appropriate method to select questions to answer. Read out each screened question to the audience (or have a staff member do it.)
Consider using meeting formats where attendee opinions are welcome
The ultimate method of avoiding “questions that aren’t” is to use session formats where contributions from audience members are encouraged and welcome! My book The Power of Participation contains a comprehensive tool chest of formats you can use to integrate questions and contributions seamlessly into conference sessions.
Do you have further ways to handle a meeting question that isn’t? Share them in the comments below!
I was facilitating a one-day workshop for 24 college presidents. At the start, we agreed to follow six covenants, including the freedom to ask questions at any time, and a commitment to stay on schedule. Our program was tight and college presidents are not known for their brevity, and I was feeling somewhat apprehensive about the group’s ability to honor the latter covenant.
During our opening roundtable sharing, everybody heroically tried to stop when their time was up, but we were still running late when, at the end of one participant’s contribution, someone I’ll call Q said, “Can I ask a question?”
All eyes turned in my direction. Conflicted and flustered, I blurted out: “No.”
Everyone laughed. My self-contradiction was funny—in the same way that seeing someone slipping on a banana peel is funny.
Q then asked his question anyway, which was the right thing to do. Why? Because both the question and the answer that followed were brief, and then we were on our way again. It was a challenge, but with the participants’ help we stayed on schedule for the rest of the day.
What I learned from this collision of agreements
This was an interesting learning experience for me for three reasons. I learned that:
A preoccupation with a long-term process goal (keeping a program on schedule) can lead me to try to block a short-term need (getting a question answered).
I can trust participants who respect the covenants we’re using (Q saw a contradiction and rightly asked me what was appropriate for him to do) to do the right thing.
I am far more capable of dealing with potentially embarrassing situations than I used to be. (The moment I realized that my aim to keep the event on track wasn’t threatened, the experience became funny to me too. In the past, I would have remained feeling uncomfortable for a while about “losing control”.)
I suspect it’s impossible to have a set of covenants that won’t occasionally clash—and I think that’s a good thing.
A Taoist might say that tension between opposites illuminates the underlying core. In this example, I was attempting to balance the success of the overall experience with the needs of the moment. There’s no “right” answer. After all, too many delaying questions could have disrupted the workshop flow and reduced the value of our time together. Awareness of the potential contradictions helped me to focus on a key aspect of the day’s work.
Noticing and responding as best one can to such tensions is necessary and valuable in the moment of facilitation. And, as a bonus, sometimes the outcome of a collision of agreements is amusing too.
A fundamental question frequently arises when I receive initial requests for conference or meeting designs because it’s often not clear whom the event is expected to benefit:
Whom is your event for?
A powerful way of thinking about events emerges from answering this question.
Here are three ways of thinking about people that could be components of your answer:
Individual participants.
Organizations.
Culture.
(The third, Culture, is the best word I can think of to represent societal patterns and beliefs: i.e. forms to follow. Not strictly a “whom”, but still a powerful force to include.)
A Venn diagram
Looking through this lens leads me to the Venn diagram above, which I think is an interesting way to view different kinds of meetings. You may quibble about the definitions and boundaries of the event types plotted—feel free to share your thoughts in the comments!
Four quick observations:
It’s surprising how nicely most common event types fall into one of the seven combinations of the three constituencies. One exception is what I call “client conferences” which can be predominantly for an organization’s benefit (e.g. “In order to qualify to sell our products you must attend this conference”) or for both the organization’s and clients’ benefit (e.g. “learn how to sell our products better and let’s all make more money”).
In my work, I sometimes see tension between the needs of the organization and those of the participants. Part of my approach to event design is to make events win-win for both.
I can’t think of any events that are purely “for” culture. People or organizations always seem to have to be involved. (Though perhaps The Long Now or a burial of time capsules are rare exceptions?)
Feel free to add religious events wherever you think appropriate. I’m not going there.
I see this formulation as a work in progress, so your comments, additions, and corrections are especially welcome!
Curtiss Reed and I enjoyed presenting our thirty-minute MeetingsNet webinar Participant-Led Meetings: A Case Study on February 4, 2014, and I’m happy to announce that the webinar is now available free on demand (until February 4, 2015). Just go to the registration link and complete the short sign-up to receive a link to the webinar. We received many good participant-led event questions and were not able to answer them all in the time available. So I’ve listed them here, together with my answers. I hope you find them useful!
Angie Patel
Do you find most participants are organically prepared to participate in the peer sessions? Or do some come with data, slides, etc.?
At Conferences That Work, people are willing and able to participate in peer sessions by the time they begin. (Typically the morning of the second day.) The combination of the ground rules, roundtable experience, and peer session sign-up transform the vast majority of attendees into participants.
How to prepare attendees for the possibility that they may have given a relevant presentation previously or have resource materials that might be relevant to the conference? We send out pre-conference information—a couple of weeks before the meeting—that includes language similar to the following:
“Have you worked on something that may be of interest to other attendees? Do you have experience or expertise in a given area or topic? Then we encourage you to bring any useful supporting or presentation materials or links to the conference. All sessions are informal, so you don’t need to bring or prepare anything polished for distribution.”
Tara Taylor & Alethea Session
How do I find out if and where there might be opportunities to observe/attend participant-led events?How do you find these events?
For Conferences That Work format events, check out my events calendar which lists events I’ve heard about that use the Conferences That Work format, or elements of it. (Many are, unfortunately, unlisted because I don’t know about them; if you’re running one please let me know and I’ll list it for free!) You can also fill out my training opportunities form, which allows me to inform you of events that you may be able to staff.
If you have a meeting that has to be more structured (due to regulations, like continuing medical education) can you do a hybrid? If so, what elements can you successfully integrate?Is a “hybrid” approach worth discussing? Example: Day 1 pre-planned agenda, Day 2 – participant-led content?
You can do a hybrid event incorporating participant-led and traditional sessions, provided you have enough time to do both well.
I don’t know how to include traditional elements into a 1½ day Conferences That Work without unduly rushing the participant-led components. But if I have 2 or more days, it’s easy to integrate a keynote/plenary/trade show.
The edACCESS annual conference I’ve now been running for 22 years lasts 3½ days and uses the Conferences That Work format together with a trade show, one or two preplanned plenaries, and sometimes a keynote. Peer sessions fill the rest of the time.
Incorporating such traditional elements can also help with marketing. People see the program and say “Well, I don’t really understand this participant-led stuff. But so-and-so is going to be speaking and there’s a session on such-and-such so I’ll sign up.” Invariably, they end up evaluating the peer sessions higher than the traditional ones, but that’s OK; the latter helped them make the decision to attend.
One more point: on the order in which these two kinds of sessions are presented. It’s best to blend both formats, participant-led & traditional, into a single conference rather than separating them into a traditional day and a participant-led day. That way, people get exposed to both approaches and come to appreciate the latter. Otherwise, some people will avoid it because they aren’t familiar with its benefits.
Doreen Ashton Wagner
I’m curious: what if the sign-up-to-sessions process means that one or a few participants don’t find anything that appeals to them? That’s where I’ve been disappointed with Open Space formats in the past…I didn’t share the concerns of others!
Yes, Open Space, which has a minimalist structure, can suffer from its opening format. That’s because people are asked with little or no preparation to suggest topics they want to be discussed. Without easing attendees into a participant mindset—as happens during the first half-day of Conferences That Work—attendees may only hear topics from the more extrovert attendees, leading to the others ultimately feeling unrepresented. By the time the peer session sign-up occurs during Conferences That Work, nearly everyone is comfortable sharing the topics in which they are interested. If you’ve shared your own topics — i.e. you participate 🙂 — other attendees will see your interests. Subsequently, it’s rare that absolutely no one else is interested in every topic that any one person suggests.
Lee Pucker
How do you get companies to pay for people to attend without publishing a defined agenda for them to use to prove the ROI for the company?
I hope Curtiss gave you a useful answer from a client’s viewpoint during the webinar. There’s no question that until participant-led events become more mainstream it’s hard to start participant-led events from scratch when there’s no one yet available to testify to a specific event’s benefits. The capability to form more and better connections that these formats allow is probably the most concrete outcome for someone who needs to justify on an ROI basis. “I’m likely to make three times as many better quality connections at this event than at a traditional conference. That’s three times as many better-qualified sales leads…” etc.
Amy Forgette
With the roomset being so radically different (room for 200 to accommodate 70 in a circle) …how do we get VENUES to take our programs?
I’ve found that the issue is less about getting venues to take our programs (venues are almost always eager for business) and more about finding venues that fit the space needs of participant-led events. You may need to look beyond standard hotel business meeting rooms and event spaces that focus mainly on special events. Interestingly, educational institutions often turn out to provide great venues for many of the events that I run. I’m a big fan of non-traditional venues. Also, there are an increasing number of commercial venues that are aware that these event formats are becoming more popular and have adapted or reconfigured their space to fit.
Chris Kirchner
Any best practices on pre-conference marketing without a published agenda?
I hope I was able to answer this question during the webinar. Here are some helpful articles:
What makes a “well-run” event? Is it facilitators?
I think there are two important components:
1) An established participant-led format that has a good track record. Any of the formats covered in the webinar poll meet this definition, except sometimes events advertised as “unconferences” or “bar camps”. Why? Because such terminology is sometimes slapped onto “alternative” events without having a clear meeting design in place. People occasionally use such labels to describe events that turn out to be relatively unstructured, prone to hijacking by a vocal few, and unnecessarily chaotic.
2) What’s more important is indeed the caliber and experience of the facilitators of the event. That’s not to say that someone with good facilitation skills can’t do a decent job running one of these formats the first time they try. But if there’s some perceived risk to holding the event, it’s worth working with people who have a track record of running successful participant-led events.
John Boyle
What is the ideal size for a participant-led event? Is it scalable? For instance, can you have events within events or concurrent events to serve a larger group?
My book covers events that have up to 100 attendees. For an answer that covers events larger than this, please download my free book supplement and check out Chapter 5.
Doreen Ashton Wagner
With crowdsourcing tools and online collaboration, couldn’t this exchange [of topics for the conference] be done, at least in part, ahead of the event?
Ever wanted a way to find out what attendees want to talk about? Post It! is what you need. It’s a simple technique you can use for:
All the attendees at an event.
Breakout groups discussing a specialty set of topics.
A single conference session.
If you’re a conference presenter with an audience of less than 50 people, you can use Post It! to rapidly discover audience interests and to help decide what those present would like to hear about.
Alternatively, Post It! provides an effective and efficient way for a group to learn and reflect on its members’ interests. If you need to process in more detail the topics uncovered, consider using the affinity grouping technique described in Conferences That Work: Creating Events That People Love (and my upcoming book too).
When
Run Post It! at the opening of an event, breakout group, or a single session.
Resources
It is surely no surprise that you’ll need one or more sticky notes (e.g. Post-it® brand) for each participant. If you’re using Post It! for a presenter tool at a single session, give each attendee a single 2” x 3” note. For a group display of topics, supply one to four 6” x 8” (preferred size) notes, or 3” x 5” notes if posting space is limited.
Make sure that you have sufficient pens available. Fine-tip marker pens are best.
Finally, you’ll need a clear, accessible wall or noticeboard space to post the notes. Walls should be smooth and clean, as sticky notes don’t adhere well to rough or dirty surfaces. If you’re using Post It! as a presenter tool, the posting area should be close to where you are standing in the room so you can easily refer to it.
How a presenter can use Post It! to learn what attendees want to talk about
Before the session begins, give each participant a single sticky note and a pen. Ask the audience to write down the one topic they would like explored or one question they would like answered during the session. Give everyone a couple of minutes to write their response and collect the notes as they are completed. As you collect the notes, browse their contents and mentally categorize their contents into broad themes. For example, some:
attendees ask specific questions;
may want an overview of your topic; and
may want you to cover one particular aspect.
Once you’ve collected all the notes, briefly read each one out loud and add it to a cluster of similar notes on the wall next to you. You may find a note that is unique and needs to be placed by itself.
Once all the notes are on the wall, it should be clear to both you and your audience what the group is interested in. Don’t feel obliged to cover everything mentioned. Instead, use the notes to make a plan of how you will spend your time with the group. Describe your plan briefly, and apologize for topics that you’re not able to cover in the time available. Even if you don’t cover everything requested, your audience will have the information to understand why you made the choices you did. If you’re going to be available after the session is over, you can invite attendees to meet with you to talk more.
As you continue with your audience-customized session, refer to the note clusters to confirm that you’re covering your plan.
How you can use Post It! to make public the interests and questions of a group
Before the session begins, decide on the number of sticky notes to give to each participant. The number will depend on the size of the group and the length of time available for any resulting sessions. Suggestions for the number of notes are in the table below.
Size of group
Suggested number of notes for each attendee
20 − 30
2 − 4
30 − 50
2 − 3
50 − 100
1 − 2
100+
1
Hand out this number of sticky notes and a pen to each attendee. Ask the audience to write down one or more topics they would like explored or questions they would like answered during the session, one per note. Tell them they do not need to use all their notes. Show where they can post the notes. Ask them, once they have finished, to post their notes on the wall. Give participants a few minutes to write their responses. During the note posting, it’s natural for people to hang around the wall and read what others have written. Let them do this, but ask people to allow late posters to get to the wall.
Once you’ve posted all the notes, provide some time for everyone to take in the topics and questions displayed. You can then use this group sharing as a starting point for Open Space, Fishbowls, Plus/Delta, and other group discussion techniques discussed in my upcoming book.
There’s no excuse for not knowing what attendees want to talk about anymore!
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could know whether a great idea would lead to successfully creating a new conference?
Creating a new conference is a chancy business that requires a certain amount of guts. I have worked on several conference projects that haven’t panned out. Failing to engage a critical mass of registrants for an event that you thought would be popular is a disheartening experience.
Despite success in creating many successful new conferences over the last thirty years, I still don’t know how to predict whether an event will be viable. But I have learned one thing.
One requirement for success is being able to easily find others—my rule of thumb is at least four people—who share your vision for the conference and are willing to help make the event a reality. In the past, I’ve tried to gauge commitment intuitively. While rereading Peter Block’s wonderful book Community: The Structure of Belonging with my Consultants and Trainers monthly network group (now in its 27th year!) I came across his Four Early Questions, which he uses to negotiate the social contract between group members to “shift the ownership of the room”. Peter suggests asking people to rate on a seven-point scale, from low to high, their responses to these four questions:
How valuable an experience (or project, or community) do you plan for this to be?
How much risk are you willing to take?
To what extent are you invested in the well-being of the whole?
How participative do you plan to be?
When building any kind of new endeavor, I think these questions provide a useful way to learn more about the people you may be working with. So I’m sharing them with you here.
Traditional conferences have implicit ground rules. Many people are surprised when I talk about the need for explicit ground rules at conferences. “Why do you need them?” is a common response.
So perhaps it’s worthwhile pointing out that every traditional conference has ground rules.
We just never talk about them. They’re implicit.
Some common implicit ground rules
Don’t interrupt presentations.
Don’t ask questions until you’re told you can.
The time to meet and connect with other attendees is during the breaks not during the sessions.
Applaud the presenter when she’s done.
Don’t share anything intimate; you don’t know who might hear about it.
The people talking at the front of the room know more than the audience.
Don’t talk about how you’re feeling in public.
If you have an opposing minority point of view, keep quiet.
And a few more for conference organizers (a little tongue-in-cheek here):
Of course, each of us has slightly different interpretations or internal beliefs about implicit ground rules like these, and that’s what causes problems.
Explicit ground rules
When we don’t agree to explicit ground rules at the start of an event, no one knows exactly what’s acceptable behavior. (Think about what it’s like when you have to go to a conference and don’t know the dress code.) The result is stress when we’d like to do something that might not be OK, like ask a question, let a presenter know we can’t hear properly, or share a personal story. We’re social animals, and most of us don’t want to rock the boat too much. The result: we play it safe; we’ll probably remain silent. And we lose an opportunity to make our experience better and more meaningful.
A common misconception about explicit ground rules is that they restrict us from doing things. (“Turn off your cell phones”. “No flash photography”.) Actually, good ground rules do the opposite; they increase our freedom of action. That’s because, by making it explicit that we permit certain behaviors, like asking questions, they remove stressful uncertainty and widen our options.
What do you think about explicit ground rules during conferences? Have you attended conferences that used them? If so, what was your experience of having them available?
How can we better support event professionals? was the topic of a fascinating August 5, 2010 #eventprofs chat (archive), moderated by the “Queen of EIR“, Jenise Fryatt. The chat was noteworthy for its energy around two initiatives that emerged during our hour together:
An online resource for answering event industry questions
An online resource for matching volunteer mentors and mentees
Responding to the energy, I registered the domain www.eventprofsanswers.com during the chat and set up a skeleton website. As you can read in the archive, many chat participants were enthusiastic about this action and asked how they could help move these initiatives forward.
Since the chat, I’ve had offline discussions about developing the website. Most correspondents have been positive, though a minority has expressed some reservations.
So, how can we better support event professionals?
Here are some of my conclusions and questions arising from the discussion so far
I think it’s important to have the widest possible initial discussion before proceeding further. We need to find out what other #eventprofs think and hear from professional association members and the associations themselves.
I’m not aware of significant attempts to use online technologies to address the two initiatives, other than the ad hoc use of Tweeted questions using the #eventprofs and allied hashtags. Perhaps there are existing resources we’re not aware of?
There seems to be evidence that some event professionals, especially perhaps those who entered the industry through non-conventional paths (like me), would appreciate a central online location for posting questions and finding appropriate mentors (either online or face-to-face). How easy has it been for you to get your events-related questions answered? What has your experience been with the availability of and satisfaction with existing industry mentoring programs?
I have already received a number of individual and association chapter offers of support (thank you, everyone!) If you would like these initiatives to be implemented in some fashion, what are you willing to contribute to making this happen?
Do you have suggestions for additional online initiatives that would address event professionals’ needs?
I want to make it clear that I am personally completely open to the process and the organizational structure used to implement these initiatives. Perhaps an online resource would be run by a group of volunteers, perhaps it could become part of an existing professional association’s online presence and services, or perhaps it would remain an independent presence that is formally supported by an association’s staff. What do you think?
Lots of questions! I believe the professional events community, would like to know your responses. Either comment below or write me privately if you prefer. I look forward to everyone’s input!
[Written in 2010, I’m keeping this post up because it includes many suggestions that are just as relevant today.]
There’s still a lot of buzz in the events industry about hybrid events where there are two audiences: people physically present, the local audience, and people connected to the event remotely, via Twitter, chat, audio, and video streams, the remote audience. But there’s a potential drawback to hybrid events.
Event planners are excited about this new event model because it has the potential to increase:
overall audiences
interaction between attendees
exposure for the event
exposure for event sponsors and the hosting organization
the value of attendee experience through new virtual tools
the likelihood that a remote attendee will become a face-to-face attendee in the future
Because of these positives, I expect that events that include local and remote audiences will become more popular over time. Especially, as we gain experience in what formats work and become proficient at resolving the technical issues involved in successfully hosting these event environments.
But there’s one thing we may lose if we add a remote audience to our events.
A potential drawback
At the face-to-face conferences I run, attendees start by agreeing to a set of ground rules. These ground rules create an environment where participants can speak freely and ask questions. They don’t need to worry that others will reveal their statements or viewpoints outside the event.
It’s hard to convey the difference this assurance makes to the climate at Conferences That Work unless you’ve attended one. The level of intimacy, learning, and community is significantly raised when people feel safe to ask “stupid” questions and share sensitive information with their peers.
I doubt it’s possible to create the same environment of trust when an unseen remote audience joins the local participants. Believing that everyone will adhere to a set of ground rules is risky enough when everyone who agrees is in the same room as you. To sustain the same trust when an invisible remote audience is added is, I think, a significant stretch for many people. If I’m right, the result of opening up a conference to a remote audience may be a reversion to the more common environment of most conferences today, where asking a question may be more about defining status than a simple request to learn or understand something new.
Do you think that hybrid events can be designed so that they are still safe places for people to ask questions and share sensitive issues? Or do you think I’m over-blowing the whole issue?