Boosting the Instructional Effectiveness of Professional Conferences: Proven Tips for Facilitators

A how-to article of interest to businesspeople, especially all organizers of professional conferences and the experts they invite to deliver presentations and workshops. With limited monies available in today's cooled economy, corporate management cannot justify sending employees to typically far-away conferences unless the conferences provide real value. The article shows conference personnel how to deliver the results required.

(New York City, USA) As corporate budgets decrease, the need to justify expenditures increases. For many corporate decision makers, sending their people to three-day conferences in exotic locations is out of question. After all, what can conference participation do for the bottom line? Apparently plenty, if the conference is designed properly.

If conferences are to be of value, they need to inform and educate in ways truly tailored to their attendees needs and expectations," said Frank Troha, Ph.D., a New York-based expert in adult education and training. Nobody wants to travel to a conference to hear or learn about things they already know or have no interest in. But all too often thats the very kind of thing thats served up," he continued.

To help remedy the problem, Dr. Troha offers the following advice to conference presenters and workshop facilitators.

1. Know your audiences burning issues and exactly what they hope to get out of your session. Conduct interviews by phone with a random sampling of prospective or pre-registered audience members.

2. On the basis of your interview results, identify and organize what you will need to cover and how best to cover it. In doing so, first prepare an outline of pertinent key points or content. Afterwards, for each item listed, indicate the most appropriate means by which to communicate it (e.g., brief lecture, demonstration, mini-case study, video segment, question and answer, etc.).

3. Make sure that your workshop has an attention-getting, dramatic opener. Audience members need to be engaged from the start. A relevant anecdote, news clipping, provocative question or quotation -- anything that is likely to hit the audience where they live" can work.

4. Ensure that your workshop has the potential to deliver on-the-job results. In addition to providing the right material in the right manner, consider how you can help facilitate your participants transfer of learning from your workshop to their places of work. Prepare job-performance aids (i.e., templates, checklists and other quick-reference tools) your workshop participants can use during in-class exercises and on the job. Also, consider preparing a concluding activity in which participants individually plan and commit to addressing at least one on-the-job issue, using what they will have learned in your workshop.

5. Identify sources participants can turn to for further information on the topic of your workshop. The mention of relevant websites, books, journals, CDs, etc. should be a part of your workshops conclusion and provided in the form of a handout.

6. Conduct a dry run of your workshop, paying particular attention to its duration. If you exceed the allotted time, consider which elements of the workshop can be modified or dropped without significantly compromising its overall effectiveness.

7. After designing the session, go back to the same sample of audience members and walk them through what you intend to cover and how you intend to cover it. The feedback is likely to be invaluable. Just as Pepsi or Coca-Cola would not launch a new soft drink without first conducting consumer taste tests, you should not launch a workshop without first testing its value and appeal.

8. Finally, avoid going into the conference cold. A week or so beforehand, use e-mail or regular mail to send a note of personal introduction and welcome to each of your workshops registrants. Personal and organizational benefits to be gained by participating in the workshop may also be included.

Dr. Troha summed up his recommendations, saying: Theres nothing mysterious or debatable about my recommendations. But they represent the difference between a conference capable of delivering a return on investment and those that have corporate decision makers seeing conferences as an unnecessary expense that cannot be justified -- especially in todays economy."

Dr. Troha offers a free, detailed report on how to design conference sessions and workshops. To request it, write to: frank@franktroha.com.