1. CONSULTING TOOLKIT
Communicating your recommendation
Handling Q&A
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2. Your audience will judge your team’s strength in Q&A
WHY YOUR AUDIENCE ASKS QUESTIONS
• Do they know their stuff?
• Is there depth behind their
Quality recommendation?
• Can they think on their feet?
Control • How do they respond to challenge?
• Do they have good teamwork?
• Confirm key numbers
• Ask clarification questions about
Improve own how your idea will work
• Ask about alternatives
understanding • Interaction with team
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3. Q&A is as important as the presentation itself, and demands
greater interpersonal skills
Q&A PREPARATION
• Use the hypothesis tree to bullet-proof your presentation
• Anticipate likely questions
• Write formal Q&A for the most challenging questions
• Create a hyperlinked index page for all back-up and presentation
pages, structured by type of question (need to hyperlink each page
back to index too)
• Prepare 2-3 key points you want to reinforce if you get an opportunity
• Agree team roles
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4. Try to anticipate likely questions you will get
ANALYSIS OF LIKELY QUESTIONS
• Audience perspective
• Audience motivations
• Gaps in data
• Omissions due to time – contingency information provision
• Questions against generalisations and distortions
e.g. “they say...” “we need to....” “it’s a better way.....”
• Apply the “so what” principle to every point
© 2007-2012 IES Development Ltd. All Rights Reserved

5. Q&A is as important as the presentation itself, and demands
greater interpersonal skills
HANDLING Q&A
• Body language – engage with audience
• Keep control – it is OK to bring in new people, ask questions back,
engage in discussion
• Stay calm – even the toughest questioning is not personal
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6. Project confidence in your Q&A
RESPONDING TO QUESTIONS
•Breathe – pause to think
•Repeat – active listening to rephrase, probe underlying concerns
and confirm or reframe/turn the question
•Quick judgement – is the question supportive/irrelevant/killer?
•Answer – concise and to the point – don’t waste your most
valuable presentation time
•Reinforce – your key points/messages if appropriate
•Confirm – check the questioner is satisfied
•Exit – move to next question
© 2007-2012 IES Development Ltd. All Rights Reserved

7. Stay calm and professional even under hostile questioning
RESPONDING TO HOSTILE QUESTIONS
•Breathe – pause to think
•Stay calm – it is not personal!
•Respect the question, but don’t answer it as it stands. Try to find
the real issue it is about, reframing/turning the question to make
it positive if possible or at least neutral
•Only in a debate setting, counter-punch
© 2007-2012 IES Development Ltd. All Rights Reserved