The challenges of running an effective meeting — you’re all too familiar with them. Your objective may be to make a decision, solve a problem or develop a plan. But hurdles, both strategic and tactical, abound.

How do you elicit the best decision or solution from your group? How do you surface all viewpoints so that participants feel a sense of ownership in the results? How do you do all this while staying on topic?

To overcome these hurdles, master the strategic art of asking the right questions at the right time of the right people. Effective questioning will help you obtain the necessary viewpoints and data, maintain the flow of the discussion and focus participants’ attention on the meeting’s ultimate goal.

In the following adaptation from their book Meeting Excellence: 33 Tools to Lead Meetings That Get Results (Jossey-Bass, 2006), Glenn M. Parker and Robert Hoffman provide a 10-question framework to help drive the results you seek from important meetings. The key to success? Not only recognising the types of questions at your disposal but also thinking carefully about when and how to employ each kind.

Open-Ended Question

This is the best questioning technique for eliciting participation and uncovering points of view. Open-ended questions give people a great deal of latitude in their responses because they cannot be answered with either a yes or no. Most begin with what, how or why.

For example:
What is the impact of this change on the project plan?
Why are we having problems recruiting people for this study?

Closed-Ended Question
Use this question type when you want a specific answer. It is a question that requires a yes or no or other brief response.

Has the application been filed with the health authority?
When are we going to open a new site?

Overhead Question
This is a question that is asked to the whole group, allowing anyone to respond. It can be either an open-ended or closed-ended question, although we recommend greater use of the open-ended variety.

How do you feel about the new guidelines?
What is your experience in working with this group?

Direct Question
Used sparingly and carefully, putting someone on the spot with a specific question can be effective.

The general guideline is that

you may call on someone if you are asking a question that falls within that person’s area of expertise or you see a nonverbal cue (eg, leaning forward) that indicates the person wants to participate.
Karla, is this consistent with our marketing plan?

Clarisse, you look like you have something to say about this issue.

Redirect Question
As a facilitator, your goal is to optimise communication among participants and minimise direct question-and-answer dialogues between you and specific members. Take a question directed to you from a member and redirect it to another member.

Pierre is asking an important question about the marketing strategy. Andrew, from the marketing department’s perspective, how would that work out?
Diane, can you shed any light on the issues raised in Mark’s question?

Relay Question

Similar in approach to the redirect question, the relay question takes a question that is directed to the leader and sends it back to the whole group. The goal is to increase member participation.
Anne makes an interesting point. How do the rest of you feel about it?
Rachel, that’s an important question. Let’s see what other people think we should do about it.

Probe Question
With the probe question, you are looking for greater depth, some examples and a rationale.

Could you tell us more about the problems with this contractor?
You seem to indicate that the patients are very unhappy with the results. Can you give us some of their specific complaints?

Paraphrase Question
Paraphrasing should be used when a statement is critical to the outcome of the discussion, may be confusing to others, or expresses a feeling that may represent a widespread sentiment among the group members.

What I hear you saying is that you want us to change the protocol on this study. Is that correct?
Are you asking us to change the dosage to reflect these early results from the 10 sites?

Summary-Seeking Question

As you come to the end of a discussion, you may use a question to help the group get to the desired outcome or move the meeting along to the next topic. A summary-seeking question may be asked as an overhead question to the group or as a direct question to a specific person.

Michele, am I hearing correctly that you want to see us adopt this new procedure on a trial basis?
It appears that we have an agreement to enter into negotiations with Company XYZ. Is that correct?

Consequences Question
Sometimes referred to as a "what if" scenario, this type of question asks participants to consider the consequences of their suggestion or decision.

What will be the impact of this decision on the long-term health of the patients?
Gerald, what do you believe will be the impact on the team’s overall budget and, specifically, the resource allocation?

Keys To Asking A Good Question

Be brief and to the point. Ask the question and then be quiet and wait for a response. Avoid long introductions and detailed explanatory statements.

Make it a "real" question and not a statement hidden in question form, especially if the "question" contains your recommended answer. For example, "Don’t you think that we should ask the management committee to support this change?"

Do not ask questions like a lawyer examining a witness. Your job is to bring out information that will help the team reach the desired outcome, not prove someone wrong. Stop yourself when you even think about asking a question that is something like, "Hans, isn’t it true that the research design was faulty from the very beginning of the study?"

While there is an intense tussle between certified Wireless USB and UWB Bluetooth for supremacy, neither of the two technology platforms is likely to lose out, according to ABI Research, a technology and market research firm.

"The application protocols that will run over WiMedia solutions are one of the most interesting and hotly-contested areas in the short range connectivity market place today," the research firm says. "Startups in this market are moving to all-CMOS implementations in order to drive down the cost of devices and stimulate volume growth. Unfortunately the result is that they need to realise volume shipments within a small window of time, since the margins per chip are extremely low. In essence, UWB vendors need to secure a vehicle to mass market and both Bluetooth and USB hold the key to that door in the form of cellular handsets and the PC peripheral markets, respectively."

So is it really a question of one over the other? Timing and potential are the critical notions in understanding this question. W-USB is here today and commercial product launches are imminent. Bluetooth over WiMedia is still two or three years away. The Bluetooth market realised 317 million unit shipments of ICs in 2005 and is set to reach over 500 million in 2006. But the USB market realises an installed base in the billions of ports.

This pattern of size and timing clearly illustrates that things are in the balance. ABI Research concludes that "W-USB will enable start-up IC vendors to carve out significant niches for themselves. Broad-line IC vendors will crash in as UWB hits the handset market with a vengeance, a development which will coincide with Bluetooth ratification of the high data rate standard. There will be room for both, especially in recognition of the ability of WiMedia to support multiple application protocols on the same IC."

Smart phones

Smart phones are finding wider uses among consumers, with many of them reporting that these devices are essential to their business than the users of PDAs or laptops. But this does not mean that there will be automatic acceptance of SmartPhones and widespread replacement of PDAs and laptops, according to a new report by In-Stat, a high-tech market research firm.

"Wireless manufacturers have more work to do before converged phones start taking market share from other devices instead of just complementing their sales," it says. "Users want a number of feature improvements including better keyboards, automatic synching and expandable screens."