Questions, Questions, Questions!!!

Do you find that sometimes your attendees have so many questions that they interrupt your flow, they take up too much time, they make your session over run and often that question is going to be answered later on in your training?

So what do you do?

There are a few reasons as to why you are having so many questions.

• It may be because you are not explaining yourself well enough and your attendees need to ask questions to get more clarity.
• Your attendees may be really interested in the subject and want to find out more.
• Your attendees have differing opinions and want to understand more of your opinion.
• Your attendees are lacking in basic knowledge around the subject that you had expected they already have.
• They may have more generic questions that are not on the subject. i.e what time is lunch, because a) they were not listening or b) they have not been told.

Whatever the reason for your attendees question it is imperative that they are answered and not ignored.

So here are some techniques that you can use to help manage your attendees questions:

1. Ensure that your content is clear and that you have some form of exercise to help illustrate each section of content that you are delivering.  This will help your trainees understand your content to the maximum and it will minimise those questions.
2. At the beginning of your training, frame the structure of your training and ensure that you include how you are going to be answering questions.  So if your trainees do have questions, then you need to inform them how you want to take questions.  Here are some suggestions:
   1. Allow your trainees to ask essential questions as you go through the content.
   2. At the end of each section have a timed question and answer session.
   3. Encourage your trainees to write down their questions on a piece of paper and then put them in groups so they can then answer each other’s questions at the end of each session.
   4. Ask them to write down their questions, then you can create this in to a quiz, splitting your trainees into teams.  This enables your trainees to learn from each other’s questions and to add some fun into your training.
   5. Create a ‘parking lot’ - a place for participants to park their questions so you can answer them later on in the session or when you have more time.  Supply each of your trainees tables with a pad of post it notes and create a flipchart that you stick on the wall.  When a delegate has a question that does not fit with the topic that you are on, ask them to write it on the post it note and they can put it on the flipchart “The Parking Lot” when they have a break.  You will then come back to “The Parking Lot” at times throughout the training.
   6. When you are answering your trainees questions always involve all your attendees in answering those questions.
3. Always ensure that you are in control of question time and that your attendees do not take over.  If this happens this is when you will find that your questions will take too much time and you will lose many of your attendees attention. 

REMEMBER:  Always encourage your trainees to ask questions as this will stimulate their thinking and their learning and it will help your trainees get more involved and interested in the content that you are delivering.

What do you think about taking questions?  Do you use any other techniques to manage your questions?

 Happy Training!