Good Questions to Ask a Speaker
Questions for the Q and A after a talk or the conversation afterwards: what the speaker cut, the strongest argument against them, where their evidence comes from, what failed before the version they showed, and what does not transfer to a smaller organisation.
The questions
Open any question for the note
If people remember one line from today, which one do you want it to be?
Why ask it
A speaker who cannot name it has not decided what the talk is for, and the answer often differs from what the audience took away. It is also a generous opening question, which makes the harder ones later easier to ask.
What did you cut from this talk that you wish you had kept?
Why ask it
The cut material is usually the caveat, the failed attempt, or the part that was hardest to compress. It is the fastest route to something not in the slides, and almost nobody asks it.
Which part of this do people push back on most?
Why ask it
Rather than posing your own objection, you get the speaker's own summary of the strongest resistance and how they have learned to answer it. Follow with whether the pushback has ever changed their position.
What is the strongest argument against what you presented?
Why ask it
Anyone who has thought seriously about a claim can state the best case against it. If the answer is that critics have not understood the idea, treat the rest of the talk more cautiously.
Where did the number you showed on that slide come from?
Why ask it
Name the specific figure. You are asking about sample, source, and date, and whether it is the speaker's own data or borrowed. Confident answers usually include the limitations without being prompted.
What has changed in your thinking since you first gave this talk?
Why ask it
A talk delivered many times tends to harden. What has moved, and why, distinguishes someone still working on the problem from someone touring a finished product.
What did you try that failed before the version you showed us worked?
Why ask it
Case studies get told backwards from the outcome, which hides the false starts. The failures are the transferable part, since your situation is more likely to resemble their early attempts than their finished result.
For a much smaller organisation, which part of this does not transfer?
Why ask it
You are inviting them to name the limits of their own advice. A speaker who says it all applies universally is selling a framework rather than describing what they know.
If you were starting on this on Monday with no budget, what would you do first?
Why ask it
This strips out the resources that made their example possible and forces a concrete first step. It is the single most useful question for anyone who has to act on the talk rather than admire it.
Which of your recommendations is hardest to actually get done, and why?
Why ask it
Usually the answer involves politics, incentives, or someone who has to give something up. That is the real obstacle in your organisation too, and it rarely appears on a slide.
Who disagrees with you that you respect, and what do they argue?
Why ask it
Naming a credible opponent, and stating their case fairly, is the clearest signal you can get that a speaker is thinking rather than performing. It also gives you the next thing to read.
How would we know a year from now whether we had followed your advice well?
Why ask it
Asks for an observable result rather than a principle. If no measure can be named, the recommendation may not be actionable, which is worth establishing before your team spends six months on it.
What is the most common way people misapply this?
Why ask it
Frameworks get adopted in name and skipped in substance, and speakers watch it happen repeatedly. Hearing the standard failure pattern is often more valuable than hearing the method again.
What are you uncertain about in your own work right now?
Why ask it
Uncertainty is where the frontier is. A speaker willing to say what they do not yet know is telling you which parts of the talk are solid and which are still being worked out.
Where is this field going that most people have not noticed yet?
Why ask it
Ask for something they have observed rather than a prediction. The best answers come with a reason they have seen it early, such as the kind of client or data they have access to.
What question do you get at every event that you are tired of?
Why ask it
Saves you from asking it, and usually produces a laugh and a real answer. It also reveals the misunderstanding they have failed to design out of the talk.
What do you wish someone would ask you about this?
Why ask it
Hands them the floor for the point they could not fit in. In a Q and A running short of good questions, this reliably produces the most interesting minute of the session.
How do you keep up with this area without drowning in it?
Why ask it
Practical and specific if you push for names of people rather than a description of habits. What they read, who they talk to, and what they ignore is a usable reading list.
Who taught you the most about doing this work, and what did they teach you?
Why ask it
Moves from content to craft, and the answer is usually a specific person and a specific lesson rather than a book. It also tends to be the question speakers most enjoy answering.
What would you tell someone starting in this field today?
Why ask it
A closing question with a caveat: their route is probably closed. Push for what they would do given how the field looks now, not how it looked when they entered it.
Asking Well in a Q and A
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
In the room
One sentence of context, one question, then stop
Give your name and a single clause about why you are asking, then ask the question and hand it back. A long preamble makes the moderator move on, and a question with three parts gets answered in the part the speaker prefers.
The shortest good question gets picked
When a moderator is choosing from raised hands or a queue of submitted questions, brevity and specificity win. Write yours down while the talk is running and cut it in half before you raise your hand.
Aim at the gap, not the summary
Asking the speaker to restate a point wastes the slot. The productive questions attack what the talk left out: the cut material, the counterargument, the source of a number, the case where the advice does not apply.
If you want to talk afterwards
- 1Wait for the queue to clear rather than joining it. The best conversations happen once the room has thinned out.
- 2Open with one specific reference to their talk, which proves you were listening and takes ten seconds.
- 3Ask the one question you could not ask publicly, and keep it to a question rather than a briefing about your own situation.
- 4Ask whether you can follow up by email, and send it within two days with the question restated in full.
- 5If they recommend a person or a paper, come back later and tell them what you did with it. That is what turns a conversation into a contact.
What loses the room
- A question that is really an announcement of your own work or your own view.
- Asking something the talk answered directly. It signals you were not listening and wastes the only slot you get.
- Asking them to solve your particular situation in detail from the stage. Ask the general version publicly and the specific version afterwards.
- Multi-part questions. Pick the one you most want answered.
- Recording or photographing without asking, particularly if you plan to post it.
If you are moderating
- Prepare three questions of your own for the silence at the start, and use the specific ones first.
- Cut off statements politely by asking the person to put it as a question.
- Take questions from parts of the room that have not spoken, and from people who did not get in first.
- Ask the speaker beforehand which subjects they would rather not take, and whether anything is under embargo.
- End on a question with a short answer rather than a long one, so the session closes cleanly.