Structure - Q & A

The last part of your presentation, the Question and Answer section.

Immediately following the previous section, you can start your Q & A session.  Again, do not allow for an awkward pause between the summary part and the Q & A sesson.

You can start with:

ex.) Now, I am happy to take your questions ... Does anybody have any questions?

When replying to a question, make sure to acknowledge the question.  And also it may be a good idea to repeat the question.

Take a look at this example:

Question:  How do you distinguish between a mid-large automobile and a large sized autombile?

Ansewer:  That's a great question.  How do we tell the difference between a mid-large and a large segment automobile?  In the automobile industry, there are several distinguishing characteristics between automobile segments.  While it is true that the mid-large and large segment vehicles look similar in size ...

Let's review the above.

Acknowledge the question:  That's a great question.
Repeat the question:  How do we tell the difference between a mid-large and a large segment ...
Answer:  In the automobile industry, there are several distinguishing characteristics ...

Once you have answered the question, you should ask to make sure they understand the answer.

ex.)  Is that clear? ... I hope that answers your questions ...

Once you have finished answering one question, you need to ask the audience if there are any more questions.

ex.)  Are there any more questions?

And you can repeat this until there are no more questions left.  Please note that if there is silence (no questions) for about 5-6 seconds, you can close the Q & A session and officially finish your presentation.  Just make your closing remarks and thank the audience again for attending.

ex.)  Again, thank you for attending my presentation.  I hope that this presentation has been informative. 

DEFLECTING A QUESTION

There may be instances where you cannot answer a question.  This may be due to a variety of reasons.  You should not in any case, tell your audience you do not know something.  Instead you should deflect the question.  This means that instead of answering thier question you are merely redirecting it.

Here are some examples:

I will have to get back to you after I double check.
Let me get back to you on that issue at a later time.
I will answer your question in an email.
That is not my area of expertise, let me refer you to ...
Unfortunately there is not enough time to answer your question now, let me ...
I will do some research and provide you the details later.