Industry panels and stakeholder forums
Turning a broad forum topic into answerable panel questions
Your forum has a big theme, and you need questions that produce answers rather than speeches.
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The short answer
A broad theme such as workforce readiness or digital regulation cannot be answered in 45 minutes. A panel question can: it names a decision, a group of people and a time frame, and a person at the table can answer it from what they know.
Work down from the theme to the decision the audience faces, then write three or four questions that each test one part of it.
Why broad topics produce speeches
Given a wide theme, each panellist prepares the part their institution wants to say. The result is a row of short talks that do not touch each other.
Questions fix this because they force panellists to answer the same thing, so differences between them become visible.
From theme to questions in four steps
- Name the audience's decision. What will people in the room decide or do differently in the next six to twelve months? Write it as one sentence.
- List the sub-decisions. Break it into three or four pieces, each owned by someone different.
- Write one question per piece, using the tests in the next section.
- Order the questions so the first is easy to answer and the last is the one that matters most, with time protected for it.
Tests for an answerable question
| Test | Weak question | Better question |
|---|---|---|
| Can it be answered in about four minutes? | What is the future of professional training? | What one change to how we recognise training hours would help your members most in the next two years? |
| Does it name who acts? | How should the industry respond? | What should a mid-sized member firm do in the first six months after the rule change? |
| Can panellists disagree usefully? | Is collaboration important? | Which part of reporting should be shared across firms and which should stay separate? |
| Does each panellist have standing to answer? | What will the regulator do? | From your own work, what have you seen go wrong in the current process? |
| Is it open rather than yes or no? | Should the standard be stricter? | What would you change in the standard, and what evidence would make you change it? |
Questions to avoid
- Questions that ask one institution to speak for another.
- Questions that need a legal or regulatory ruling. Put these to the competent party before the event, and use the panel for experience and views.
- Two questions joined by and, which let the panellist pick the easier half.
- Questions that ask for forecasts of numbers nobody can know.
Sharing questions with panellists
Send the questions in advance, with the time per question, so each panellist can prepare an example. Keep one or two follow-ups for the moderator and do not circulate them.
Add a short line on what is out of scope, so a panellist does not use the slot to make an announcement. The moderator's briefing carries the order and timing.
Worked example · Fictional example
A fictional forum on continuing education for accountants
Fictional organisation and figures, for illustration only.
The Persatuan Fiktif Akauntan Berkanun holds a half-day forum titled Future-ready accountancy. The audience decision is whether member firms change how they plan staff learning for next year.
The secretariat splits this into three questions of about ten minutes each: what skill gap is costing your firm most today, what has your firm stopped doing to make time for learning, and what would you ask the association to provide. Each question names a person who acts, and the third is saved for last with protected time.
Use this yourself
Topic-to-question rewrite sheet
Fill one row per question. If a question fails a test, rewrite it before it goes to the panellists.
| Theme part | Audience decision it serves | Draft question | Who must have standing to answer | Time (minutes) | Passes: named actor / open / four minutes? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | |||||
| 2 | |||||
| 3 | |||||
| 4 (optional) |
Handle it in-house, or bring in help?
Your team can usually handle this when
- The forum has one theme and one moderator who knows the field.
- Your committee agrees on what the audience should do afterwards.
- Panellists reply to emails and attend one briefing call.
Outside planning help earns its fee when
- The theme was set by a committee and nobody agrees what it means.
- Several institutions each want their own question included.
- The secretariat needs the questions turned into a moderator pack and a run order while delivering other parts of the event.
Need the theme turned into a panel plan?
A conference project lead can run a short session with your programme owner to settle the audience decision, draft the questions and build the moderator briefing with timings. The programme owner keeps the final say on every question.
Questions organisers ask
How many questions fit in a 45-minute panel?
Three or four main questions is typical once introductions and audience questions are counted. More than that tends to produce short answers with no disagreement. Check timings in your run-of-show.
Should the audience see the questions in advance?
Often yes, as it helps them prepare their own. Whether to publish or keep follow-ups private is the moderator's call, agreed with the programme owner.
What if panellists want to ask their own questions?
Invite suggestions before the briefing and fold the good ones in. After the briefing, changes go through the programme owner so the order and timing stay intact.
Related resources
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