I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.
I send them over land and sea,
I send them east and west;
But after they have worked for me,
I give them all a rest.
- Rudyard Kipling – Excerpt from The Elephant’s Child
There’s more to these 6 questions than initially meet the eye. Three of them are open-ended and three of them are much less so. Why would that matter? Well, open-ended questions work better at the start of a conversation, while close-ended questions work better once you have a decision.
Open-ended:
- What?
- Why?
- How?
Close-ended:
- When?
- Where?
- Who?
Never end your presentation on a question. You will be at the mercy of the answer. This often happens in PowerPoint presentations. You have spewed your brain forth onto the slide and you want to know what you missed. Avoid this. Ask for questions throughout your presentation to engage your audience in dialogue. If you don’t want to do that, prepare a strong conclusion that comes after the Q&A.
Finally, when you end a presentation, you can ignore the advice above and ask an open-ended question such as:
How do you see yourself making use of the information I just presented?
When you do this, you will get a sense of how well your information came across. Still follow it up with a fantastic close that ties that response into your conclusion.
Posted under Public Speaking
This post was written by admin on June 22, 2009
