How to Facilitate Speakers and Conference Presentations

During a four-day conference, we facilitated more than 20 speakers and varying presentations, each citing distinctive topics ranging from embracing social responsibility to utilizing Google® Hangouts for small groups. Participants applauded our approach, and we decided to share it here to help you become a more effective facilitator.

How to Facilitate Speakers and Conference Presentations

Challenges Associated with Facilitating Speakers and Conference Presentations

As observed recently at a PMI (i.e., Project Management Institute) event, speakers are typically preachy and not facilitative. This means more moving of lips and less active listening, resulting in less audience response and interaction. Session challenges include:

  • Lack of any conflict to resolve, which makes for a boring session
  • Unclear deliverable (i.e. “increased understanding” doesn’t have enough urgency for most participants)
  • Uncertain purpose (preach, Q&A, applause—nothing is compelling or consensual about this approach)
  • Lack of a glossary and unclear use of terms

Begin with the End in Mind When You Facilitate Speakers and Conference Presentations

Begin with the conference purpose, scope, and objectives (i.e., deliverables) clearly stated and mounted on large format posters throughout the week for immediate reference. Two other preparatory sheets that should be mounted and visible to all are the Simple Agenda and appropriate Ground Rules (e.g., silence the electronic leashes).

Throughout multiple presentations, some speakers will encourage questions during their presentations and others will ask participants to defer questions until their presentations have been completed. In either case, insist that questions be directed through the facilitator with clear reflection back to both the audience and the speaker. This enables you to repeat the question to ensure that all participants have heard it. Also, verify with confirmation that you “got it right” as you distill questions into fewer words using less commentary. After each speaker’s response, reflect as required in Active Listening, and distill their response into the fewest words, using their terms, that directly address the question.

Focused Q & A for Speaker Presentations

During conference presentations, most Q&A (i.e., questions and answers) revolve around clarity, and, as facilitators, you must strive to ensure clear understanding. But don’t stop there. Further challenge the topic, as appropriate, with questions about “anything substantive” that may have been missing. If you ask a smart group of people “Is anything missing?”, the answer is invariably “yes” because there is ALWAYS something else. Therefore, stress the concept of “substantive” “critical” or “important” to prevent the discussion from drifting. Next, seek for general agreement to ensure the participants can support the primary takeaways from each of the conference presentations, and that no one insists that something is highly erroneous or blatantly wrong.

During Q&A, carefully document the Key Findings, as emphasized by participants. After each Q&A, transfer the focus back to the conference purpose and deliverables.

In one of the conferences we facilitated, the deliverables were to provide answers to three discrete questions. We asked participants to link their new knowledge and understanding from presentations back to the three questions and, one at a time, asked them what it meant by re-phrasing their input as a direct response to one of the originally posted questions. Two of the three primary questions demanded future recommendations or actions. Which brings us to…

For each session, capture actions that need to take place after the conference has ended in support of the conference’s purpose. Another way to phrase this question that works very effectively is . . .

“Now that we have heard or learned (summary of participants’ Key Findings), what will you do different tomorrow?” — Facilitator

Bad Habits Die Hard

Nearly everyone conducts a question-and-answer session when new evidence or information has been unveiled. Typically, we then give the speaker a round of applause and take a break or dismiss. The assumption is that we all heard the same thing or that our interpretation will automatically lead to consensual changes and coherent behavior. Such is not always the case. Sometimes meeting participants take off in opposite directions based on their interpretation of new content.

Consensual Content Management

Structure of the Trivium (or, Taleb’s Triad)

The Trivium Helps Facilitate Speakers and Conference Presentations

Some will note the basic structure below follows a strong sense of will, wisdom, and activity. Ranging from Plato’s Trivium (i.e., logic, rhetoric, and grammar) to a Use Case (i.e., input, process, output)—simple structure follows the basic flow of WHY before WHAT before HOW. To develop consensual understanding, deploy the following structure. Especially compel audience participation in steps 2 and 3 below; that is . . .

  1. FACT (or, evidence or example or something significant the speaker has contributed—the WHAT part)
  2. IMPLICATION (ask SO WHAT? from the audience separately for each FACT captured above)
  3. RECOMMENDATION (ask NOW WHAT? (we should do about it) from the audience separately for each IMPLICATION captured above.

The method begins optimally before the speaker’s presentation has begun. Namely, ask the listeners to be on the lookout for (takeaways), why we should care (implications), and what we may want to do differently that will make us more efficient or effective (recommendations). Speaker presentations should stimulate participants about what they can do differently. Therefore, conduct a review session with the same logic, breaking down the “many-to-many” into a clear path of manageable takeaways:

  1. Solicit the takeaways such as facts, evidence, or examples newly learned by the meeting participants. This list provides the WHAT factors.
  2. For each WHAT factor from above (i.e., one at a time), develop a consensual understanding of the implications and why we care. Strive to obtain objective measurements that properly scale the gravity of each implication. This list provides the SO WHAT factors.
  3. For each factor (i.e., one at a time), facilitate consensual understanding about what changes in our lives, and what we should do differently—develop recommendations based on the implications rather than the facts. This list of new behaviors is why we took the time and money to listen to the speaker—it comprises a list of NOW WHATs.

Wrap-up and Close Your Conference Presentations Effectively

Be disciplined about documenting their comments. Finish with MGRUSH‘s four steps of an effective close:

    1. Review and confirm documented findings and actions
    2. Manage the Parking Lot for any open issues
    3. Conduct FAST’s Guardian of Change to agree on what participants will tell others they accomplished during the conference
    4. At a minimum, lead a Plus/ Delta to find out what worked and what could be improved.

Additional Resources

https://presentationgeeks.com/blog/presentation-aids-enhance-presentation/

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Don’t ruin your career by hosting bad meetings. Sign up for a workshop or send this to someone who should. MGRUSH workshops focus on meeting design and practice. Each person practices tools, methods, and activities daily during the week. Therefore, while some call this immersion, we call it the road to building high-value facilitation skills.

Our workshops also provide a superb way to earn up to 40 SEUs from the Scrum Alliance, 40 CDUs from IIBA, 40 Continuous Learning Points (CLPs) based on Federal Acquisition Certification Continuous Professional Learning Requirements using Training and Education activities, 40 Professional Development Units (PDUs) from SAVE International, as well as 4.0 CEUs for other professions. (See workshop and Reference Manual descriptions for details.)

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1 Comment

  1. Tracey
    Tracey on July 21, 2022 at 11:08 AM

    Thank you so much for this valuable article! I am researching a side business idea to organize events that will share information around health and well-being and the formulas within this article will be extremely helpful!!!

    Reply

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