[teampractices] Methods for improving the quality of Q&A time after a presentation

Mon Jul 8 18:42:55 UTC 2019

I saw this thread over the weekend, from Eve Tuck:
https://twitter.com/tuckeve/status/1141501422611128320, about grad student
seminars and Q&A, and the concepts seem broadly relevant.

… I make it clear that it is the audience’s responsibility to help craft a
> positive public speaking experience for graduate students and early career
> scholars. I tell the audience to help keep the good experience going and
> tell them not to ask violent questions.  Right after I am finished talking
> or all the panelists have shared their papers, I invite the audience to
> take 5-10 minutes to talk to each other. After 45-70 minutes of listening,
> people are bursting to talk, and taking the time to turn to talk to a
> neighbor keeps the first question from being from a person who just felt
> the urgency to talk. … I suggest that they use the time to peer review
> their questions.  I say that this is a time for them to share a question
> they are considering posing in the q and a, and that they should a) make
> sure it is really a question; b) make sure they aren’t actually trying to
> say that THEY should have given the paper; c) figure out if the question
> needs to be posed and answered in front of everyone; d) I remind the
> audience that the speaker has just done a lot of work, so they should
> figure out if their question is asking the speaker to do work that really
> the question-asker should do. …
>

It's specific to the academic context and the face-to-face setting of an
academic seminar or other controlled meeting room, so these techniques
aren't literally transferable to, e.g., mailing lists or talk pages.  But I
think the problems they are intended to address, such as violent,
off-putting, or unconstructive questions, sound familiar, I wonder how we
can adopt and apply these ideas.

Joel Aufrecht (he/him, they/them)

Program Manager (Technology)
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
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