I have been doing a particular seminar for years. One part of the seminar I cover the basics of how a process works; kind of a who, what, when, where, why section. I have a handout with those words listed and ask participants to fill in info they find interesting.
So, after all these years I tried to do something a bit different and it worked out really well.
I asked the participants to write down a question about the process. Something they had been wondering about was what I was after. Example: How many volunteers are in this program?
Then I challenged my colleague:
You know, Jennifer, I bet as we work through this information we will answer every single one of the questions that people wrote down on their sheets.
I played it up a bit, a bit of macho strutting, we can do it, etc. Then we covered the information.
At the end I said:
"Well, I am sure we have covered every question you had, right?" Set up time.
Of course we hadn't. People were now pleased to present their questions in a kind of "stumped the panel" part.
It worked out well and I will repeat it every time. I think I might even get chocolates for those who have questions left after our talk.
The key is to ask them to write down their questions at the beginning without telling them they are trying to stump us in any way.
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