Meeting Management

Questioning Techniques

In groups of 30 or fewer people, these are techniques for questioning:

• Name response—make eye contact, call the person by name, and ask a question;

• Delayed name response—ask a question of the whole group, then call on a person by name;

• Boomerang—someone in the group asks a question and you redirect it to the whole meeting group or a specific person;

• Back-at-you—rephrase a question asked and direct it back to the person who asked.

Try to use names, rather than “Hey, you!” in essence. Use name tents or a seating chart, something to personalize your meeting.

In larger groups, more than 30, encourage short answers and hint at an answer to get people involved:

• Fill-in-the-blanks—Ask a question of the entire group, such as “What ...