Forum: workplace.stackexchange.com
Tags: <meetings><telecommute><remotework><online>
Title: How can we effectively organise Q&A in a teleconference?
Question: Due to COVID-19, the plenary meeting of our ICT department (30 people) will be on Skype.  How do we effectively organise the question and answer part ?   What is the best online equivalent of raising your hand?  How to avoid people interrupt each other (voluntarily or not)?  If you ask people to submit their questions in writing, should you still involve them in the discussion?  etc.

Answers:
sents: text: Keep it simple and get the questions on a side channel , for instance email,slack or SMS, when it is time for a question read out loud for everyone to hear it and answer it.
text: This way there will be no wasted time switching presenter, having problems to unmute the microphone or having a voice which no one can hear.
answer_details: author: workplace.stackexchange.com/users/97319/Simson
score: 12
sents: text: Since it's on Skype, use the instant messaging channel on the conference for questions.
text: Somebody can then pick and choose which to ask.
answer_details: author: workplace.stackexchange.com/users/29557/user1666620
score: 4
sents: text: Doing a Q&A without preparation can be very inefficient.
text: A Skype call with 30 people is VERY expensive.
text: A good way to get this done is: share a document with the proposal or topic of discussion to all 30 people, beforehand give all 30 people a time limit to read the document and send questions to you
text: use the call for your answers.
text: Control the time allowed by prioritising the questions you received, and make it clear that some extended discussions will be taken offline.
text: If people come up with new questions, go for a second iteration.
text: This will help the whole team participate in a scalable way, giving you control of how time is spent in the "big call", while making that time useful for your team.
answer_details: author: workplace.stackexchange.com/users/38290/Monoandale
score: 3
sents: text: Lots of video conferencing apps actually have a "raise your hand" function.
text: Someone clicks on "raise my hand" in their window, and the presenter sees it and can stop or not, as they choose.
answer_details: author: workplace.stackexchange.com/users/886/DJClayworth
score: 2
sents: text: I have had good luck with having people ask questions on https://cardboardit.com/ or another similar product.
text: It seems to get the best result if the person moderating the questions is "off camera".
text: Since we have a distributed team we would introduce the questions the way they did on the show Frasier.
text: This was useful when we needed to "prime the pump" with questions because we would have planted questions we could use if we did not have any from the group, or we wanted to reiterate an important point.
text: "John from the 6th floor break room asks; Can you clarify the new break room clean your own mess policy?"
answer_details: author: workplace.stackexchange.com/users/117047/bd_iii
score: 1

Summary of the answers:
Use instant messaging or email for questions. You could share a document beforehand and ask for questions in advance.
Firstly, it's important to control the time allowed for Q&A and be prepared to take longer discussions offline. You may want to consider asking people to submit their questions in writing either in advance or using a separate platform, like Slack or Cardboardit.com