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Thank You Any Questions Slide Templates With Samples and Examples

Naveen Kumar

The last impression carries as much weight as the first. Why?

Because the final interaction stays fresh in the memory, reinforcing the entire experience. As the opening of a presentation sets the tone, the closing solidifies the speaker's message, leaving a lasting impact. It influences the audience's perception and decisions well after the encounter. A strong, positive finale is crucial for maintaining lasting relationships and positive reputations in business and personal interactions.

Making the Last Impression Count

Presenters can create a lasting impression at the end of their presentations by crafting their closing remarks in a careful manner, incorporating a heartfelt slide that expresses gratitude and openness for further dialogue. Sharing contact details for follow-up discussions, personalizing the message to reflect on the presentation's key points, and inviting questions will encourage engagement and show audience appreciation. Tailoring the final interaction to be memorable ensures that the presenter's message resonates well beyond the presentation itself.

Sharing contact information, like email addresses, phone numbers, or social media profiles, with a note of gratitude, help presenters facilitate further communication and networking opportunities with their audience. It opens an opportunity to invite interested parties to connect post-presentation for more in-depth discussions or follow-up queries. This approach ensures the audience leaves with a positive impression and the means to engage further.

For this, the correct use of slides like Any Questions and Thank You holds excellent value.

Slides That Can Make or Break the Deal

Incorporating the "Thank You" and "Any Questions" slides at the end of presentations/topics can enhance the presenter's impression and meeting efficacy. The "Any Questions" slide promotes an interactive environment by inviting the audience to clarify doubts and engage with the presentation content.

The "Thank You" slide expresses gratitude, underscoring the presenter's appreciation for the audience's time and engagement. These slides leave a professional and courteous lasting impression and help lead smoother and more productive meetings.

An "Any Questions" slide can be particularly effective in business presentations after detailing a new project proposal and inviting stakeholders to clarify concerns or offer feedback.

Pre-designed Thank You Any Questions Slide Templates

While these slides look simple to create, finding the right balance of design elements, like colors, icons, text, etc., that match your presentation tone and energy is challenging. A presenter also doesn't want to spend much time and resources perfecting these two slides. That's where our pre-designed thank you any questions slide templates come in handy.

These content-ready designs provide presenters with much-needed structures required to create innovative thank you questions slides from scratch. The 100% customizable nature of these PPT Layouts will give the desired flexibility to create and re-edit the closing slides as per needs.

Let's explore these thank you any questions slide templates now!

Template 1: Any questions Slide Templates PPT Bundle

This comprehensive questions slide bundle will help presenters create interactive question-answer and discussion segments within presentations, such as risk analysis, marketplace engagement, business strategy suggestions, and more. These designs feature visually compelling graphics like bullseye boards, dialogue boxes, and creatively arranged icons to engage the audience in Q&A sessions, performance assessments, and brainstorming. It also includes a neatly structured slide for investment inquiries, a roadmap-style performance evaluation template, and a contact information-equipped thank you slide to end your business discussion by sharing information for future connections.

Download this template

Template 2: Thank You Presentation Slide Template

This PowerPoint Layout is designed to conclude interactions with a professional touch. It features a centered "Thank You" framed by contact details, including address, email, and numbers, and set against a deep blue backdrop. Speakers can leave a lasting impression while providing essential contact information using this thank you slide. The PPT Template is a seamless blend of appreciation and utility to share gratitude and a means for future connection with the audience.

Template 3: Thank You Slide Presentation Template

The PPT Design presents a polished and professional way to express gratitude after a presentation. It integrates a classic design with a streamlined geometric touch. Suitable for corporate and creative settings, it offers a visual end note that gracefully acknowledges audience engagement. Use this PowerPoint Layout to emphasize the presentation's conclusion with a memorable statement of appreciation.

Template 4: Any questions Slide Presentation Template

The slide is expert-designed to help presenters share a professional closing note while inviting queries and discussions toward the end. It shares a clear visual prompt symbolized by a silhouette with a question mark. This PPT Design will help facilitators create a dialogue post-presentation, addressing all thoughts and inquiries. With an easy-to-customize theme, this template can be part of your multiple presentations to start and handle audience questions.

Template 5: Any Questions Slide Template for Sharing Business Suggestions

This template is a streamlined guide for presenting business insights and suggestions. It features a clear, interconnected layout that prompts key queries and discussion points. The PPT Design accommodates analytical needs and facilitates audience engagement for complex business scenarios in easy visual formats. This question slide will help teams collectively discuss and work on strategic suggestions in a concise and impactful manner. Get it now!

Any Questions Illustration for Business Suggestions

Template 6: Key Questions Slide for Developing A Mission Statement

This presentation layout will guide the strategic outline of a company's purpose or mission statement. It features a bullseye graphic centerpiece that visually represents target objectives. The structured question prompts will allow exploring the organization's current operations, motives, stakeholders, and the advantages it offers. Discussion and answers to these questions in the next company meeting will aid in crafting a compelling mission statement. This design is ideal for corporate strategists and business leaders to align and communicate their corporate ethos. Download it now!

Key Questions for Developing a Mission Statement

The Last Slide!

In presentations, "Any Questions?" and "Thank You" slides are pivotal for concluding talks effectively. The "Any Questions?" slide invites the audience to engage and clarify doubts, fostering interaction and deeper understanding. The "Thank You" slide serves as a courteous closure, appreciating the audience's time and attention. Both slides ensure the presentation ends on a note of openness and gratitude, leaving a lasting positive impression.

Whether you want to facilitate a Q&A session or show gratitude after a long session, SlideTeam’s thank you any questions slide templates will help you create presentations that make the audience remember you and your efforts to engage with them. Download these templates now to make your presentation more interactive and linger in your audience's memories!

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The Throughline Blog

Practical Media Training and Public Speaking Tips

A Better Solution To "Do You Have Any Questions?"

If you’re like most speakers, you probably get to the end of your presentation and open up the floor by asking “Do you have any questions?”

Unfortunately, many people in an audience are uncomfortable being the first one to speak. Sometimes, no one says anything at all. You may pause for a few seconds in the hopes that someone will eventually break the silence—but sometimes they don’t.

Speakers can do several things in that situation, including these three techniques:

Say something like, “You know, one of the questions I’m asked a lot is…” and answer it yourself.
Ask an audience member a specific question, such as, “I spoke about Subject X earlier. What did you think about that?”
Use an icebreaker. I once read about a speaker who used this joke: “Since no one wants to ask the first question, does anyone want to ask the second one?”

“Does anyone have any thoughts ?”

That’s a subtle distinction, but possibly an important one. By asking for thoughts, he was allowing a much broader scope of interaction than he would have allowed by merely soliciting questions. He wanted to know if anything he had said had triggered an idea, surprised someone, or reminded someone of something related. And it seemed to work in that small group; almost every time he asked for thoughts, someone spoke up.

I’ve started experimenting with this slight linguistic twist. I don’t have enough data yet to know whether or not it makes a big difference. My early experiences suggest it may help—if not substantially, enough to warrant its usage.

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Comments (3)

Brad, one small psychological trick that can help in this situation is to change from the plural to the singular in your prompt. “Does anyone have any questions” is an abstract. Each audience member wonders right along with you.. “Yeah, I wonder if anyone does?” They have no personal responsibility to take action. Change to “Do you have a question?” or “What are your thoughts?” and it puts the onus back on the individual to do something. An even stronger cue is to give them a direct command to take action in a specific way. “Now it’s your turn to guide the discussion. Raise your hand and ask me what I should clarify or go into more detail on.” You are shifting the entire psychological dynamic from “Sit quietly and listen while I talk at you” to the reverse. That is hard inertia to overcome, and you need to be very specific about how they are to make the change.

Ken, Thank you so much for your comment – that’s terrific advice. I will begin experimenting with all of your suggested phrases during my media training workshop next Monday, and will report back about my experience. One of the best part of this blog is learning from readers who have more expertise on a given subject than I do. Thanks for taking the time to leave your comment and provide me with a quality education. Best wishes, Brad

Great suggestions for getting an audience to participate. I think the subtle psychological difference in asking for “thoughts” instead of questions is that many people wonder how their question makes them look. Is my question a dumb question or of interest to others? Is it too confrontational? Will I look smart or uninformed? Once the stage is set by a few questions or comments, people become a bit more brave.

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Wednesday, April 24, 2024

Do you end with a ‘thank you’ or ‘questions?’ slide?

February 9, 2011 Filed under Blog , Featured , Popular , Presentations

Of course, you should express your appreciation to your audience by thanking them for their attention, but I am not impressed by a speaker who thinks that a slide is the way to express such sincerity.

Likewise, everyone knows that when most speakers are done speaking, they are given time to answer questions. So, why show a slide stating just that?

Leaving your principal conclusions or take-home message for your audience on the screen while you answer questions allows the readers to focus on something meaningful. The longer that message sits in front of them, the more likely they will remember.

Take the pledge: Say no to “Thank you!” or “Questions?” slides.

(Image from SSW consultants from their Web page that advocates “Always end your presentation with a ‘Thank You’ slide. More than being polite, it makes clear that this is the last slide and presentation is over.” Duh.)

Thank you (!) for raising this topic. It’s also one of my presentation pet peeves, as is the “Outline” slide for a 15-minute talk, which is another waste of space. If you need a road map to where I’m going to take you for the next 15 minutes, maybe you should pick a different presentation to see.

Thanks, Tanya. I already had a blog entry on outline slides lined up. It’s now posted.

http://eloquentscience.com/2011/02/is-your-outline-slide-really-needed/

Hi, While I fully agree, I have a problem not having a ‘thank you. any questions’ slide. I always end with a graphical summary showing figures people have seen before, and say: ‘that’s it. any questions’ or something like that. The problem I’ve had is that the audience is often not sure that the talk is really finished. Have you had this problem? -Lucas

The graphical summary sounds like a great way to close your talks. When you said everything you are going to say, you could close with “Thank you for your time and attention, and I will now take any questions that you have.”

I find it hard to imagine that any member of the audience would not understand that the talk is finished at that point. 😉

I strongly disagree. Some talks are very amenable to having a summary at the end, while many don’t. In math, for example, it is not unusual for a talk to consist of a sketch of a proof of a theorem. What would the summary be? “I proved the theorem”? I have seen (and done) many talks ending with a “thank you”, and it never looked inappropriate.

Thanks for your comments and providing perspective from a different discipline. Although I appreciate what you’re saying, I still think that one does not need a “Thank you” slide in the situation you are describing.

The summary for such a talk could be a reminder of what the theorem was, the method that was used to prove it, and what the implications were of that theorem. Again, your closing should be about giving the audience a take-home message – leaving something substantive in front of the audience and helping them to remember why the presentation was given and what it’s main results are.

Even if you don’t think such a summary slide is necessary, I’m not sure what the advantage of a “Thank you” slide is in those situations. At best, such a slide is not effective for the reasons I talked about above.

Happy to hear back from you.

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The Right Way to do a Question Slide in your PowerPoint Presentation

01.20.20 • #powerpointtips #presentation #engagement.

You just finished your presentation. You’re asking your audience if there are any questions. Nobody, or one or two people at best raise their hands, but you’re quite sure that your audience actually has a lot more to ask. Does that sound familiar?

If it does (which is likely, as many presenters experience that phenomenon), you’re in the right place. Some may take the silence after asking the audience if there are any questions personal, as if they are not a good enough speaker or as if they just held a terrible presentation. Others may be happy and think that they explained everything so well that there are no more questions to ask. In reality, probably none of those is the case. It all comes down to the way you ask questions – and here’s how to ask them (well – first here’s how not to ask them!)

How not to ask Questions

The absolute worst, but sadly often used method to ask your audience about any questions they have is the “Any Questions?” – Slide, which is, like you may guess from the name, a simple slide at the end of the presentation with the words “Questions?” or “Any Questions?” on it. Why is it so bad? Well, first of all, it’s extremely unspecific. It’s likely to overwhelm your attendees. They will try to force their brains to think of something to ask, but due to the amount of information you just gave them in your presentation often can’t think of anything. Another factor is the fear of public speaking many have. There may be someone in the audience who wants to ask a question, but is too shy to raise their hand and actually ask it – often out of fear of asking a “stupid” question.

How to ask Questions (in order to get Questions)

So here is what you came for: Better ways to get your audience to talk to you and actually ask about what they would like to know.

1. Use a Q&A Tool

Let your audience ask questions via their smartphones or notebooks – even anonymously – and be sure no one ever holds back any questions. Q&A tools such as SlideLizard are integrated seamlessly to PowerPoint. Your attendees connect their devices with your presentation and are then able to send in as many questions as they want by simply typing them into their phones. The question will arrive directly at your presenter’s view. You’ll see it immediately after it has been asked. The huge advantage is that you can answer the questions even during the presentation, or wait until after you’ve finished. Also, be sure to invite your audience at the beginning to ask any questions they have via the Q&A tool, and inform them about when you will answer them.

2. Ask specific questions

We recommend leaving out the “Any Questions?” slide at the end, but if you still insist on using something similar, this is the way to go. It is an insanely easy tip, but it has great impact. Instead of just asking if there are any questions, you just assume there are some and ask your own questions accordingly. Here are some good examples:

What was unclear?
What else would you like to know?
What would you like to know more about?
What was missing in my presentation?
What was surprising for you?
What was new to you?
What did you find most interesting?

Notice how none of these questions can be answered with “Yes” or “No”. That is key to getting your audience to actually reflect on the input and talk. Also, don’t fill your slides with all of these reflective questions, as that may again overwhelm the audience. Decide what you would like to know and use 1 – 3 of the prompts.

3. Do a Poll/Quiz at the end

Even though this is not a conventional way of a Q&A session, it will still show you and your audience whether they have understood what you just talked about or not. Create a little trivia quiz and test your audience. By looking at the result of each individual question, you’ll see if you have to explain something again or if the majority already got it. For this method, you can again use tools like SlideLizard , that have an integrated poll function where you can analyze the results even after the presentation is done. Of course, you can also combine this third method with one of the previous ones.

Get Inspired

A good beginning and ending are essential for giving an awesome presentation – similar to a book. The beginning makes you want to keep on reading, and the ending makes it memorable. If you want to get some inspiration and learn innovative new ways for creating title and final slides, check out this guide: 10 creative ideas for title and end slides .

About the author.

Pia Lehner-Mittermaier

Pia works in Marketing as a graphic designer and writer at SlideLizard. She uses her vivid imagination and creativity to produce good content.

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Audience , Delivery

Presentations: When to Take Questions

Mannerofspeaking.

July 25, 2012

Questions from the audience are an integral part of most presentations and speakers should look forward to them. Questions mean that the audience is interested and wants to know more. And even if someone wants to challenge you on a point, at least it means that they were paying attention!

Many inexperienced speakers take questions at the end of their presentations. This is understandable, but it is also a mistake. Your conclusion is one of the most important parts of your presentation. It is your final opportunity to make an impact on your audience. You should guard it fiercely and not relinquish control over it. When you end your time on the stage in a question and answer (Q&A) format, the final impression that you leave is almost always diminished from what it might otherwise have been. This is especially so if you get questions that are off topic or meandering. The audience members start fidgeting or checking their email or even walking out.

So what to do? Not taking questions is always a possibility but rarely a good one. Depriving the audience of the opportunity to raise issues with you will frustrate some and could hurt your credibility. Fortunately, there is a simple and effective solution: Take questions just before your concluding remarks.

Suppose you have 45 minutes to give a presentation and you want to allow 10 minutes for questions. That leaves you with 35 minutes of speaking time. Here’s what you can do:

Structure your presentation so that you cover your points in 30 minutes.
At the 30-minute mark, say something like, “Before I leave you with my final thoughts, are there any questions?”
Respond to any questions for the next 10 minutes.
At the 40-minute mark, bring the Q&A session to a close.
Offer to speak afterwards with those who didn’t get a chance to ask their questions .
Give a powerful, memorable conclusion to your presentation.

Shifting the timing of the Q&A session by only five minutes allows you to maintain control over your conclusion. And that’s what you want.

Like this article?

Great article, John! Another approach, that I have seen, is to allow ask questions during the presentation. But sometimes it is really distracting for the speaker, because of the frequent interruptions. On another hand, as a listener you don’t want to wait until the end to ask a question. A listener could forget his question (because he will hear a lot of new info), and for a speaker it is hard to scroll over hundreds of slides to find some slide at the beginning (and to remember what he said about this slide). Can you take questions after the end of each logical part of your presentation? So your listeners can ask questions before you move on to the next part, and you still keep a control of the interruptions. Does this method work?

Andrii, thank you for the comment and thoughtful questions. The length of the presentation, the number of topics covered, the size of the audience, etc. are all factors to be considered. For long presentations, taking a few questions after each main section can be a good idea, for the reasons you state and also because it gives the audience a bit of rest. When I give a full day workshop, I use this approach. In fact, I tell the participants at the outset to stop me anywhere along the way if they have a question. When you have several hours, you have this kind of flexibility. But for shorter presentations — say, anything under an hour — I prefer using the method described in the post. Of course, if someone does throw out a question, I try to give a concise answer and then remind people that there will be time for questions towards the end of the presentation. Cheers! John

John, you raise a very important issue. Indeed it is a smart idea to pitch the final conclusion after the Q&A, and maybe add some constructive ideas from Q&A to the final conclusion (on the fly). It gives a sign to the audience that the presenter is very dynamic.

Thank you, Shashi. You make an astute observation about working something that was discussed during the Q&A into the conclusion. If a speaker can do it on the fly, and if it fits, so much the better. John

Taking questions immediately before the conclusion. Genius! I’m amazed that I’ve never heard of this before, or indeed that I’ve never thought of it before. Thanks, John.

Thanks for the comment, Peter. Sometimes the best ideas are the simplest ones. I can’t count the number of good ideas (speaking and non-speaking) that I’ve come across over the years and thought, It’s so obvious; why didn’t I think of that?!? Cheers! John

Brilliant idea. It also avoids a possible uncomfortable situation where you ask if there are questions, and all you hear is the sound of crickets chirping!

Thanks very much for the comment. One way to deal with the “crickets chirping” scenario is to have a couple of questions in your pocket. Then, if no one is willing to ask the first question, you simply say, after a long enough pause, “One common question I often get is X.” Then answer X. This technique will very often kickstart the questions.

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TA Leader, Gore and Associates

I first got in touch with John while preparing to speak at TED Global about my work on ProtonMail. John helped me to sharpen the presentation and get on point faster, making the talk more focused and impactful. My speech was very well received, has since reached almost 1.8 million people and was successful in explaining a complex subject (email encryption) to a general audience.

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John gave the opening keynote on the second day of our unit’s recent offsite in Geneva, addressing an audience of 100+ attendees with a wealth of tips and techniques to deliver powerful, memorable presentations. I applied some of these techniques the very next week in an internal presentation, and I’ve been asked to give that presentation again to senior management, which has NEVER happened before. John is one of the greatest speakers I know and I can recommend his services without reservation.

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Senior Data Scientist, Expedia Group

After a morning of team building activities using improvisation as the conduit, John came on stage to close the staff event which was organised in Chamonix, France. His energy and presence were immediately felt by all the members of staff. The work put into the preparation of his speech was evident and by sharing some his own stories, he was able to conduct a closing inspirational speech which was relevant, powerful and impactful for all at IRU. The whole team left feeling engaged and motivated to tackle the 2019 objectives ahead. Thank you, John.

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Home PowerPoint Templates Any Questions

Any Questions Slides for PowerPoint Presentations

Are you looking for a way to make your presentations driven by action? Then you are at the right place. Our Any Questions slide is a powerful tool that allows your audience to ask questions about the content of your presentation. You can foster deeper understanding, engagement, and retention of the information.

Creating an effective Any Questions slide is an art. It should be stunning and feature a clear message encouraging your audience to ask questions. Also, creating the slide from scratch might come with some hassle; instead, you can download our ready-to-use template. You can edit any of these templates to fit your preferences.

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The Any Questions slide is a vital element of a well-rounded presentation. This slide typically appears towards the end of the presentation and signals that the presenter has finished presenting their main points. It often incorporates graphics and images to engage the audience.

The benefits of using an Any Questions slide are numerous. It allows the presenter to address any confusion or misunderstandings the audience may have about the content. Additionally, it allows the presenter to demonstrate their expertise and knowledge on the topic, which can further establish their credibility with the audience.

Our Any Questions slides are compatible with various software, including Microsoft PowerPoint, Office 365, Keynotes, and Google Slides, for any Windows or Mac computer.

What is a Question Slide?

A question slide is a one-page part of your presentation that you can use to encourage your audience to ask questions. Its purpose is to facilitate an interactive and engaging session by providing a dedicated space for the audience to ask any questions they may have about the content you presented.

It is usually placed toward the end of a presentation after you have shared your main ideas or key information. It prompts the audience to reflect on the material and think of any uncertainties, clarifications, or additional insights they would like to seek.

How do you ask if there are Any Questions in a presentation?

To ask if there are any questions in a presentation, you can say something like “Does anyone have any questions?” or “I’d be happy to answer any questions you may have.” It’s important to give the audience enough time to think and formulate questions, so try to pause for a few seconds after asking the question to give them time to respond.

How do you present a Q&A Slide?

When presenting a Q&A slide, you can use a simple slide with a heading such as “Q&A” or “Questions and Answers,” followed by a blank space where you can display the questions the audience asks. Depending on the format of your presentation, you may choose to display the Q&A slide at the end of the presentation, or you may pause the presentation and switch to the Q&A slide to address any questions that arise during the presentation. It’s important to be prepared to answer a variety of questions.

What is the purpose of a Question Slide in a presentation?

The purpose of a question slide in a presentation is to foster interaction and engagement with the audience. Here are some key purposes for including a question slide:

It encourages participation among your audience.
It allows your audience to voice their uncertainties and seek clarifications.
It helps your audience to delve deeper into the topics you covered.
It helps tailor your discussion and provides you with valuable feedback.
It promotes engagement and interaction.
It helps you build a rapport between you and your audience.

When should I display the Question Slide?

The question slide is displayed toward the end of a presentation after you present all the key points. It allows your audience to reflect on the content and think of any questions they may have.

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How To Navigate Your Presentation Q and A Session Like A Pro

Table of contents.

Presentations are a pivotal part of professional life, an opportunity to share knowledge, influence decisions, and showcase expertise . But what truly separates the pros from the rest of the pack is not just the delivery of content but also their ability to master the art of the post-presentation Q&A session.

In this article, we’ll delve into strategies, tips, and insights that will empower you to confidently face any audience, tackle tough questions, and leave a lasting impression as a presentation maestro.

Is A Q & A Session At The End Of A Presentation Required?

A Q&A session at the end of a presentation is a common practice in many professional settings, including business meetings, academic lectures, and conferences. It provides the audience with an opportunity to seek clarification, engage with the speaker, and delve deeper into the topic discussed.

How Important Is Moderation In Your Q & A Session?

Moderation is highly important in a Q&A session, and its role cannot be overstated . Effective moderation ensures that the session runs smoothly, maintains a respectful and productive atmosphere, and maximizes the benefits for both the presenter and the audience.

Here Are A Few Tips On How To Moderate

Give audience members instructions on how to participate.

Encouraging audience participation as a moderator is vital for a successful Q&A session or discussion. Start by c reating a friendly and open atmosphere, setting clear expectations, and using open-ended questions that invite thoughtful responses. Actively engage with participants, ask follow-up questions, and acknowledge their contributions to foster a sense of inclusivity.

Rotate attention among panelists or presenters, promote written questions for larger or online sessions, and be patient, allowing participants time to formulate their thoughts. Summarize key points made by the audience and connect them to the main topic to reinforce the value of their contributions. Seek feedback at the end of the session to continually improve your moderation skills and enhance audience engagement.

Use a Moderating Tool To Improve Efficiency

Utilizing moderating tools is an excellent way to enhance the efficiency of discussions and manage interactions in online or live events. These tools typically offer features like question management, chat monitoring, and participant engagement tracking. To maximize their effectiveness, start by familiarizing yourself with the tool’s interface and capabilities before the event.

During the presentation or discussion, actively monitor incoming questions or comments, addressing them in real-time or queuing them for later. Use features like chat moderation to maintain a respectful and on-topic conversation, ensuring that disruptive or inappropriate content is promptly dealt with. Additionally, track participant engagement metrics to identify trends and areas that may need additional attention. By harnessing the power of moderating tools, you can streamline your role, keep the discussion on track, and create a more efficient and productive environment for all involved.

Prepare To Collect Unanswered Questions

You also need to be prepared to collect unanswered questions that you might not get to during the allotted time you have to present, have a system in place for noting down questions that couldn’t be addressed during the session, either submitted through digital tools or manually written, ensuring they are organized and ready for follow-up or future discussions. Make sure you have a clear and concise call to action in your presentation to achieve this.

Things To Think About Before Running Your Q & A Session

When running a Q&A (Question and Answer) session, there are several key considerations to keep in mind: Preparation, timing, audience engagement, question prioritization, complex questions, and audience diversity . Below, we will get into a few of these.

Let Your Audience Know In Advance When The Session Will Start

It’s essential to communicate the start time of the Q&A session to your audience effectively. By clearly indicating when the Q&A will begin, whether it’s at the end of a presentation or at a specified time during an event, you help attendees anticipate and prepare their questions. This proactive communication ensures that the Q&A session runs smoothly and that participants are ready to engage in meaningful dialogue when the time comes, enhancing the overall event experience.

Briefing Your Audience On The Format

At the beginning of the session, set clear expectations for audience participation. Explain the format, timing, and how questions will be received (e.g., raising hands, using a chat feature, or submitting questions in advance).

Leave Enough Time To Field Questions

Leavin g dedicated time during your presentation for a Q&A session is crucial as it allows for audience engagement, clarifications, and deeper exploration of topics, enhancing the overall impact and effectiveness of your presentation.

Stick To The Time Limit Allotted

Sticking to the time allocated for a Q&A session is of paramount importance as it respects both the audience’s and the presenter’s schedules. It ensures that the event remains organized, preventing sessions from running over and causing inconvenience. Efficient time management in a Q&A also allows for the inclusion of as many questions as possible within the allotted period, maintaining the engagement and interest of the audience. Additionally, adhering to the schedule demonstrates professionalism and consideration for attendees, making the entire event more enjoyable and productive.

Tips On How To Answer Questions In The Session

Navigating a Q&A session effectively is an art that requires both expertise and finesse. It’s not only about providing accurate information but also about engaging with the audience, addressing their queries thoughtfully, and managing the flow of the discussion. In the following tips, we’ll explore strategies for answering questions during a Q&A session that will help you enhance your presentation and foster a constructive and informative exchange with your audience.

Make Eye Contact With The Audience Member Asking The Question

Making eye contact with the audience member who is asking a question is crucial as it conveys attentiveness, respect, and a genuine connection, fostering a more engaging and interactive Q&A session.

Research Suggests Taking A Brief Pause Before You Answer

This momentary pause allows you to gather your thoughts, ensuring that your response is well-considered and accurate. It prevents rushed or impulsive answers, particularly to complex or sensitive queries, and demonstrates a sense of thoughtfulness and confidence to the audience.

Moreover, the pause offers your guests an opportunity to absorb the question fully and mentally prepare for your response. This moment of reflection can enhance clarity and comprehension, making the exchange between you and your audience more meaningful and effective. Ultimately, by incorporating a deliberate pause before answering questions, you not only improve the quality of your responses but also convey professionalism and a genuine commitment to providing valuable information. This article dives even deeper on the importance of a brief pause before answering a question.

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Make Sure You Understand The Question Asked Before Answering

Your confidence and expertise in the subject matter also matter. Check out our article to help guide you in being a better presenter . If you are well-prepared and knowledgeable about your topic you will easily be able to understand the questions being asked.

Additionally, knowing when you are being asked an irrelevant question, or a thoughtful question, is a key tool in helping you move through your Q&A’s. Be sure to hear what your audience is asking, and for any irrelevant questions, keep your answers short and move on to any potential questions that will bring your guests back to your key messaging.

Always Keep Cool, Calm And Collected

Maintaining a sense of calm during a Q&A is essential as it allows you to think clearly, respond confidently, and manage unexpected challenges or difficult questions effectively. It also helps create a positive and reassuring atmosphere, which can enhance your credibility and the overall experience.

If You Don't Know The Answer, Be Honest!

Confused,Caucasian,Bearded,Man,Scratch,Head,,Looking,Clueless,,Dont,Understand

Being honest when you don’t know the answer to a question during a Q&A session is vital because it builds trust with the audience, maintains your credibility, and opens the door for future opportunities to provide accurate information.

Feeling Like You've Got Your Presentation Q and A Covered? Awesome!

You are now fully equipped to run a Q&A and moderate effectively! You’ve learned the importance of clear communication, timing, creating a welcoming atmosphere, and using pauses for thoughtful responses . You understand the value of being honest when unsure of an answer and the role of audience engagement and moderating tools. These skills will enable you to confidently navigate Q&A sessions for productive and engaging interactions with your audience.

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Guide for Handling Questions after a Presentation

October 19, 2017 - Dom Barnard

The questions at the end of a presentation can be terrifying for many speakers as they can’t be controlled and are hard to prepare for. However, questions form an important part of the presentation for the whole audience as they allow for clarification and consolidation of learning.

The presenter can enhance the usefulness of the question and answer session by treating it as a formal part of the presentation that requires as much careful planning and control as the delivery of the core material.

Identify possible questions and scope in your preparation

The background work that you undertook whilst planning your presentation is the key to handling questions effectively and understanding what type of audience you’ll be faced with. If you have defined a focus for your presentation and have explored this thoroughly in your research and planning, you are more likely to be able to confidently respond to questions.

When planning your presentation, you will need to prepare prompts for questions that are open and straightforward, for example saying “That’s the end of my presentation. I’ll be taking questions for the next 10 minutes”.

You might also want to define topics for discussion before taking questions, by stating the areas you’re willing to field questions in. Your preparation will help you identify topics you are not confident with and want to avoid in the questioning.

Prepare for questions after the presentation

Set some rules for asking questions

At the start of your presentation, make it clear when you would prefer to deal with questions – as you go along or at the end of the presentation.

Some speakers prefer questions to be raised as they arise during the presentation. The advantage of this approach is that any misunderstandings can be dealt with immediately. However, there is also a danger that the question will disrupt or distract the speaker, or that questions are raised that would have been covered later in the presentation.

If you leave questions until the end, plan to leave plenty of time for questions so that the audience doesn’t feel rushed.

Framework for responding to questions

Answering questions under pressure can make you say things you shouldn’t have – the nerves can force you to give an inappropriate response. In your panic you might have misinterpreted the question or given away company information that was sensitive. Use the following framework to help you respond effectively to your audience.

Practice answering AI-generated questions on your speech or presentation with VirtualSpeech .

1. Listen to the whole question

You don’t have to answer a question immediately. Pause for a few seconds, actively listen to all parts of the question and think about the best way to answer.

Frequently questions can change direction at the last moment, particularly if the questioner is thinking on their feet. This can throw you if you have already started to prepare an answer. Remember that questioners will frequently try to make a point whilst asking their question – it’s therefore important to both hear the content of the question and try to decipher the questioner’s intention.

2. Understand the context

If you are worried that you haven’t understood a question, ask them to clarify what they mean. Check for confirmation by paraphrasing the question back to the questioner – “You want me to list the improvements of X?”.

3. Involve the whole audience

It is important to remember that even though you are taking a question from one member of the audience, you are still responsible for the interest of the other audience members. This is particularly important in large groups as the audience will become bored if the presentation descends into a series of one-to-one discussions.

To involve the rest of the audience, make sure the whole audience has heard and understood the question by repeating it or paraphrasing it to the audience.

4. Respond concisely

When you reply to a question, direct your answer to both the questioner and other members of the audience. Try to keep your responses as focused as possible, leaving space for other questions. To avoid going into too much detail, check back with the questioner to see if you have answered their query – “Does that answer your question in enough detail?”.

We’ll cover different ways to respond in a later section.

5. Allow follow-up questions via email

You can also encourage your audience to ask questions after the event has finished by providing your email address. This shows a high level of respect for your audience and implies that the topic still has much further scope for enquiry.

Two good resources for handling questions

What’s the art of answering a tricky question?
Dodging the Question

Practice Answering Questions

Practice answering questions after your presentation using a 4 step process. Learn More

Options for answering the question

There are five possible choices depending on how well you understand and can answer the question. It’s okay to say that you don’t know the answer to something. This can add to your credibility instead of trying to waffle through an answer you don’t really know.

If you have a good answer for the question from the audience, go ahead and answer it in a short and clear message.

Ask a question back the audience member, such as “Can you clarify what you mean by that”. You can also attack the question if it is not related to the issue, factually inaccurate, personal or based on false assumptions. Be careful with this method.

Ask the question back to the audience or pass it to another panel member if possible. If suitable, another technique is to imply the question has been asked already, with you stating you don’t want to cover old ground.

Tell the audience member you will talk to them after the event. This gives you more time to think of a good answer and there is less pressure to give a perfect answer.

Or mention that that point is coming up in a slide.

This involves answering the question but changing the subject. You can also give a partial answer or give a negative answer, saying that something else will happen instead.

Avoid answering questions that fall outside of the remit of your talk: “I’m afraid that really falls outside of my objectives for today’s presentation. Perhaps we can resume discussion of that particular point later?”

Framework for handling questions after a presentation

Diagram Explained : Once you receive a question, you’ll have a few moments to think about it and reframe it in a way that makes sense to you. This will give you five choices on how to react – you can answer, reflect, deflect, defer or change the scope of the question. Once you’ve answered concisely, you can then follow up to check if the person asking the question is satisfied and then continue with the presentation.

Strategies to use when struggling to answer

Here are some strategies to use when you are struggling to answer the question posed to you. For more information, read this article on Dodging the Question .

Acknowledge the question without answering it – “That’s a good question, let’s consider the impact by looking at…”
The question fails to tackle the important issue.
The question is based on a false assumption.
The question is factually inaccurate.
The question is too personal or objectionable.
Decline to answer. Refuse to answer on the basis that it is not your area of responsibility or it is sensitive company information – “You will have to ask [name] because I wasn’t involved in that particular project.”
Partial answer
Start to answer but change the subject
Negative answer. You state what won’t happen instead of what will happen
Answer a similar question
State or imply the question has already been answered – “We’ve already covered that topic”

Things to avoid

When handling questions and answers, you will still need to be as professional as you have been for the main delivery of your presentation. There are some common dangers to avoid.

Answering the question you wished you’d been asked

A common trick played by politicians, this strategy ignores the precise nature of the question and uses a predetermined answer to the broad topic area. If handled poorly, this technique is very obvious to the audience and frustrating to the questioner.

Giving a lengthy response

This is the process whereby you make a lengthy response, including all the information you’d left out in planning the main presentation. Your unplanned response will be unstructured and rambling, so keep things focused and brief. If you find yourself rambling, ask them to talk to you after.

Passing the blame

Passing the blame to others comes across as weak and evasive. If an idea from the audience is a good one, acknowledge its value. If it isn’t, make a polite rebuttal and move on.

Defensive answers

Occasionally, questions can really put you on the spot, but it is important to remain calm and in control. An aggressive or defensive reply will be seen as weakness on your part and will spoil the effect of an otherwise successful presentation.

Handling difficult questions

It is important not to start responding to a difficult question before you have thought about the answer. Repeating the question and asking for clarification will help create some space for your thoughts.

Sometimes you will need to think about a question for a moment before responding. You may be able to buy a little bit of thinking time to help focus your response. Useful strategies include searching for an appropriate visual aid to help focus your response or simply pausing for a moment or two to think. For even more time, suggest that you’ll come back to the topic later (but don’t forget to do this).

7 myths when answering tough questions during presentations

Sometimes questions are too difficult to answer. Don’t worry about admitting that you don’t know something or haven’t considered an alternative approach. An enthusiastic “That’s an interesting idea, I’d not thought of that” is much more positive than a mumbled “I don’t know ”. Remember that a presentation is a two-way process and it is important to show that you are learning from your audience as well.

Finally, you can come across a questioner who disagrees strongly with your argument. Although this can feel very awkward, remember that you are still responsible for the whole audience and that you cannot allocate all of your question time to one individual.

If you feel that you have answered the initial question, announce that you will move on and suggest that you might continue discussion after the presentation. If the questioner persists, assert your position calmly by saying “I’m afraid I need to move on”.

You can read more on this topic here: Responding to questions effectively (PDF)

5 Tips for Handling Questions During a Presentation
executive presentations

Slopegraphs Beat the Pants Off Other Charts

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Questions are a normal part of any presentation, whether you’re leading a workshop, speaking at an industry conference or presenting your marketing plan to an executive.

I’ve scoured the four dusty corners of the web to assemble this awesome list of tips for handling questions like a pro:

1. Program questions into your talk

Don’t let questions interrupt your talk and derail you. Instead, program Q&A into your talk. As you transition from one section to the next, ask for questions.
With executives especially, expect questions within 5 minutes. To appear like you’re controlling the presentation, ask for questions in the first 3 minutes rather than waiting for them to interrupt you.
Don’t end your presentation with Q&A. You’ll end up trailing off with “Well, if there are no more questions, thanks for having me.” Instead, plan a 2 minute wrapup at the end of Q&A so you restate your main points and end with a strong close, like a story or call to action.

2. Don’t ask “Are there any questions?”. Instead ask

What questions do you have? “Are there any questions?” is a yes/no question and people are less likely to ask. “What questions do you have?” presumes there most certainly ARE questions to be asked – what are they?
Have a question in your back pocket, in case you don’t get any questions. For instance, if you’re met with silence, offer “One question I’m often asked is: how does this work in other cultures” and then answer that.

3. Don’t use the phrase “Great Question!”. It’s condescending ( I know, that’s why I asked it ) and insults others in the room ( what was wrong with MY question? ). Instead train yourself to select from this menu of delicious options:

“I am glad that you asked that question.” “You raise an interesting point.” “Thank you for asking” “I wonder how many others in the room have the same question?” “I was hoping someone would ask that question” “Your question gives me a chance to … (clarify, emphasize, etc.)” “Let’s talk about that!” “That’s a good question because many people wonder if (a relevant point they might not have thought of) and the answer is…” or my PERSONAL favorite… “Ah! If I had a million dollars for every time I heard that question!”

4. Manage the Q&A period well

When multiple hands go up, say “I’ll take you first, you second and you third”
Repeat the question so others in the room can hear it
Ask the person to confirm: is that what you wanted to know?

5. If you expect hecklers or critics

Audiences are less likely to be hostile if they like you. Greet them at the door, chat with audience members.
Hold Q&A until the end. At the start, say “I only have 30 minutes to speak. I’m going to stay within that timeline but I’ll leave 5 minutes at the end for questions.”
To alert hecklers they can’t monopolize the floor, open the Q&A period with “I have 5 minutes for questions. Who would like to go FIRST?”

You may also want to check out the book In the Line of Fire by Jerry Weissman, with his advice for handling questions in high-stakes presentations, like investor pitches and political speeches. I hope some of these tips pay off for you during the Q&A of your next presentation.

About the author: Bruce Gabrielle is author of Speaking PowerPoint: the New Language of Business , showing a 12-step method for creating clearer and more persuasive PowerPoint slides for boardroom presentations. Subscribe to this blog or join my LinkedIn group to get new posts sent to your inbox.

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Related posts, 3 powerpoint myths from a master storyteller, how to handle clod questions that take your presentation sideways, win the audience over by using reluctant agreement.

[…] Treat your talk as a dialogue, like by asking your audience pertinent questions (as shown by Olivia Mitchell and Bruce Gabrielle). […]

[…] short-term workshops answer questions after the workshop. Believe it or not, you can easily get off track and end up answering questions […]

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Many otherwise extremely competent and confident presenters will tell you that they really dread the question and answer session of a presentation.

They seek ways to ‘avoid’ difficult questions. But it doesn’t have to be like that.

Dealing with questions in a presentation is a skill which anyone can master.

Perhaps the most important thing to understand is that, as a general rule, if people ask you questions, even hostile ones, it’s not to trip you up but because they genuinely want the answer.

Staying in Control of the Questions

Most people dread the question session because they fear losing control.

A little thought and some early planning can avoid this risk. But you can also avoid it by remembering that any presentation is an information exchange. It is as much for you to hear what people want to know as for them to hear from you.

However, if your presentation starts to get diverted by an interesting question, try saying something like:

“I think we’re getting a bit off topic here. Let’s put that to one side and you and I can chat about it later. Come and find me at the end and we’ll exchange contact details.”

“I’d really like to get on with the presentation, otherwise I may not have time to finish, but let’s talk about this later.”

Setting out some Ground Rules

At the start of your presentation, you should make it clear whether and when you would prefer to deal with questions - as you go along or at the end of the presentation.

Top tip! Categorising Questions

If you like to deal with questions as they arise, but you are concerned about the pitfalls, there is an easy way to handle this. In your introduction, explain that there are three types of questions:

The sort that seeks clarification of something that has just been said – you will answer those immediately;
The sort that asks a related question about something that you plan to cover later – you will answer those later in the presentation; and
The sort that is best dealt with offline because most of the audience probably won’t be interested, or it’s outside the topic of the presentation – you will make a note of the question and come back to the questioner afterwards.

When a Type 2 or 3 question is asked, you can then say something like:

“ That’s a Type 2 question, so I’ll park that for now, and cover it later. If you don’t think I’ve covered it by the end, remind me, and I’ll go over it.”

Other speakers prefer to deal with questions at the end of the presentation.

If you prefer this approach, ensure that you set aside sufficient time for questions but also limit the amount of time available. The amount of time will depend on the type of presentation you are giving but usually 10 minutes of question time should be sufficient.

The big advantage of this approach is that if you talk too quickly, you will simply have a longer question session: a big incentive to talk slowly and carefully, and make sure that your audience understands everything as you go.

You should not close the presentation with the question and answer session.

When you have finished answering questions, make sure that you have the last word with a strong assertion of your main message(s).

In other words, you can thank the audience for their questions and then summarise once again the main point or points that your presentation was designed to communicate.

An Introduction to Question Sessions

The main rule of question sessions is to treat your audience with the respect you would like to have shown to you, and answer their questions directly and honestly.

If they have asked a question, it is because they want to know the answer.

It is very unlikely that anyone will ask a question solely to trip you up, although this does happen.

If a question is provocative, answer it directly. Never be rude to the questioner or show you are upset. Do not compromise yourself but maintain your point of view and never lose your temper.

This tactic can be difficult to maintain but the key is being assertive.

Visit our section on assertiveness to learn some more tips, start with: Assertiveness - An Introduction .

Managing Questions

Listen carefully to the question and, if the audience is large, repeat it to ensure everyone in the audience has heard.

If you’re not sure you understood correctly, paraphrase it back to the questioner and check that you have it right. Answer briefly and to the point.

If you do not know the answer, then say so and offer to find out. Then ensure that you follow up . To be able to respond, you will need the questioner’s name and email address, so make sure that you speak to them before they or you leave.

“ I don’t know ” is a very acceptable answer to some difficult questions and it is much more acceptable than stumbling through an answer or making something up. “ I don’t know, but I’ll find out and let you know ” is even more acceptable.

Relax and do not feel as if you have to know everything. If you don’t know it is better to be honest than to try to pretend.

Trust takes a long time to build up, but it can be lost in moments, and audiences will almost always know when you are not being genuine.

An Alternative Tactic: Involving your Audience

If you are speaking to a well-informed audience, a professional group for example , and the question is a fairly general one to which you do not know the answer, consider asking the room if anyone else would like to respond. You may have the world expert on that subject sitting there who would be delighted to share their expertise with you all. If you have noticed someone in particular, you can even say:

“ I noticed that Professor X is in the room, so I wonder if he would like to comment on that to save me displaying my ignorance ”

“ My colleague over there is more familiar with that area than I am so, while I don’t want to put him on the spot, maybe he would be prepared to shed some light on this? ”

Most people will be fine with that approach, especially if they really do know more about it than you, and it will mean that the room gets a much better response. Yes, you’re the one standing at the front, but you don’t know everything.

You may also find our general pages on questioning useful see Questioning and Question Types .

Continue to: Coping with Presentation Nerves Managing the Presentation Event

See Also: Preparing for a Presentation | Organising the Material Deciding the Presentation Method Working with Visual Aids

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Insights & Ideas

Engage Your Audience with Three Types of Questions

George Torok February 13, 2021 Presentation Tips , Public Speaking , Virtual presentation Leave a Comment

Are you ready to make your presentation more engaging?

It’s simpler than you think. Simply use questions more effectively. Are you aware of the three distinct ways you can leverage questions in your presentation?

Did you know that questions engage your audience significantly more than statements? You can deliver a more engaging presentation when you inject three types of questions throughout your presentation.

Answer Questions from the Audience

This is an effective technique, yet it’s often handled poorly. Typically, the presenter finishes the presentation and then feebly asks, “Are there any questions?

Why is that a weak approach?

The end of the presentation appeared suddenly, and the audience was unprepared to ask a question. Typically, after an uncomfortable period of silence someone lobs a weak question.

Instead, invite questions at transition points during the presentation. Make the question and answer an integral part of the presentation – not an afterthought.

Tell the audience that you will take questions at transition points during the presentation. Allow them to prepare by announcing, “I’ll take questions on this part in about three minutes.” When you want questions ease them into asking questions with, “Who has the first question about this section?”

Ask Questions of the Audience

Probe your audience for answers. If they are interested in the topic, it’s likely that they have opinions, experience and knowledge. Harvest their wisdom and invite their participation.

Be sure to ask good questions. Contrary to popular myth, there are bad (annoying) questions. For example, “How is everybody today?” is a silly question.

Why is that a silly question? Because…

The speaker doesn’t really care how everybody is.
No individual in the audience can truthfully answer the question, because none of them speaks for “everybody”.

Also avoid fake polling questions, “How many like vacations?” “Who wants to make more money?”

Those questions indicate that the speaker doesn’t care about the answer and is simply manipulating the audience to suit the speaker’s purpose.

Pose Rhetorical Questions

This type of question could be your secret weapon because few presenters use it well.

It’s the easiest change to make to your presentation to enhance engagement. It’s also the least risky because you pose the question – and then you answer. There are no surprises. You state the question, pause for a second or two – long enough for the question to sink in but not so long that somebody shouts out an answer.

Rhetorical questions make effective transitions as you move from one point to the next.

Here is a series of effective transition phrases,

“What does the problem look like?”
“What options do we have?”
“What have we decided?”
“What’s the schedule?”
“What are the benefits?”
“What are the next steps?”

The audience hears a series of questions and answers which is more engaging that lecturing or pitching. The key is to ask questions that might be on their minds. You pose the question and they think, “That’s a good question. I what to hear the answer.” Imagine that.

Use questions in your presentation for engagement

Questions are much more engaging than statements. Use questions throughout your presentation to keep your audience interested.

Sprinkle these three types of questions within your presentation to make it feel more like a conversation instead of a lecture.

Use all three types of questions and you’ll keep your audience actively engaged during your presentation.

Can you do that? Of course, you can.

PS: These questions work well to engage your audience during virtual presentations.

©George Torok is The Speech Coach for Executives and creator of Superior Presentations. He coaches executives and trains professionals to deliver Superior Presentations.

Poor presentation creates stress, wastes time and loses money. George Torok, President of Superior Presentations, helps presenters deliver the intended message for greater success. You can arrange for individual coaching or team training – online or onsite.

Arrange Presentation Skills training for your team

http://superiorpresentations.net/

Connect with George Torok on Linkedin

https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgetorokpresentations/

Listen to the podcast – Your Intended Message with host. George Torok

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Presentation Guru

The most successful ways to answer questions from your audience.

Every presenter will eventually have to deal with questions from an audience, but what are the best ways to prepare for the questions they may ask? In this article Simon gives a few tips to make sure you’re always ready to answer your audience’s questions effectively, and with confidence .

Let’s face it, presentations are scary. And that’s quite right – they should be. Nerves show you care. If you’re not nervous, why are you bothering? I’ve met good presenters and I’ve met presenters who aren’t nervous: I can count the number of presenters who are in both camps on the thumbs of one foot.

So far, so obvious. But when I ask clients what the most scary bit of presentations is, they most common answer I get is, the questions section.

If I probe deeper, the reasons it’s the most nerve-wracking include things like:

I can control the rest of the presentation but not this bit
I can’t rehearse the questions – or the answers!
I have to think too fast
I might not know the answers
I might find out people didn’t like it
I might have made a mistake

The scary bit, then. The bit of the presentation which brings even experienced presenters out in a cold sweat. Before we get into the tools and techniques for handling questions, let’s look at some of these, very quickly. We can shoot a few of these issues down without breaking sweat – particularly the last few…

Get your ego out of the way

Let’s face it, if you’ve made mistakes, wouldn’t you like to know? If you’d rather people didn’t tell you that you’ve screwed up, you’re not ever going to get a job on my team. The same is true if you’d rather not know that people didn’t like it. Grow up.

And while we’re at it, if you don’t know the answers, that’s fine. Not ideal, but it’s not the end of the world. So long as you know enough, it’s okay. Not knowing the answers is only a problem if you don’t know too many of the answers.

So let’s move on and look at bit more at the ‘real’ issues.

The first thing to say is that more or less any and all of the tricks you learn as a presenter for handling nerves can be used at the start of questions. At the moment when you invite the questions, do your nerves-control-techniques , just like you did at the start of the presentation. (If you don’t have any, pay me to learn some 😉 )

The second key point is very simple. People only ask questions for one of two reasons. Firstly, to show off and secondly because they’re interested. The first group will be transparent to the audience, so don’t lose any sleep over anyone whose ego is bigger than their common sense. The second group, those who ask questions because they want to know more, are to be celebrated. They’re a good thing. Honestly.

Remember, people only ask questions if they care. The very fact that they’re asking questions is a great thing because it shows you did the key thing a presentation is supposed to do – you got them interested. When the questions happen, allow yourself a little smile inside. Result!

Predicting the future – and guessing the questions

But what about this idea that you don’t know what the questions are going to be?

Sorry, but that’s tosh. You might not be able to predict exactly what question, but you can certainly predict the sort of question. A structured, sensible process for designing your presentation – whatever process you use – will certainly throw up more content than you can fit into your presentation. The process of designing your presentation should start off by deciding what to remove.

Chances are, the questions you get will lie in that area you’ve cut out. And if that’s the case, you know what the content is, so you can design your answers just like you’d design the rest of your presentation . Simple.

Well yes… but just because it’s simple doesn’t mean it’s easy. Just ask anyone who’s ever tried to lose weight. The rules of “Eat less: move more” are simple – but not easy!

So let’s break it down a bit to make it more practical. I’m going to start by looking at how to handle the worst case scenario… the blank head where you just don’t know the answer. (Note, I’m dealing with it first because it’s easy to get out of the way, not because it happens often!)

I have no idea

The worst case scenario is simply not to know the answer, so let’s deal with that first. The best way I’ve ever found to handle this issue is to be honest about it, but to respond in a very structured way, so that my credibility stays intact. The formula is this:

I don’t know, but it’s a good point
so I’ll find out
and if you give me your email address I’ll get back to you about it
by lunchtime on Thursday

Obviously you change the time in the last part to be something you can handle. The first line is a simple admission that you’ve not got the answer to hand. The second part is where you start to recover. The last line is the critical one though. This is how you sound credible to the audience.

Try it for yourself: just say the first line and see how ‘shallow’ it sounds. Then start from the beginning and go through the first two lines. It’s better, but it’s not trustworthy. Finally, run through the whole set of lines and see how much more ‘weight’ the whole thing has when you make a specific promise.

It goes without saying that you need to deliver on that promise!

I still have no idea

A couple of alternative techniques are useful here, too… you can use these in a mix-and-match way.

Open up to the audience. Try something like “That’ a very good question – what does everyone else in the room think?”. If you do it with enough style and you’ve used an approach up until that point which has been sufficiently collaborative and informal, it can work seamlessly.
Use a broader-brush answer . Sometimes the question isn’t one that requires a very specific response. You’d be surprised how often one broad-brush answer can be applied to different questions. Take a few moments to consider if this is one of those times. If you’ve got (say) five or six such ‘generic’ answers sorted out in your head before you start your presentation you can often apply one of them instead of trying to improvise an answer.

Save yourself some thinking and PREP

Answering questions means you have to think hard and fast – about both the content of what you say and the way that you say it. One very handy trick is to use structured formulae to give your response a shape. That way you only need to think about the actual content – halving the work on your brain. Once you’ve learned these tools, not only will you love ‘em, you’ll spot them almost every time you listen to a political interview.

This formula is particularly handy for dealing with challenging questions: it stands for Past, Present and Future.

You use it like this:

“You’re absolutely right to point out that in the past our response times have been too slow. It often took us up to a week to get back to users who emailed in with questions – although the average response time was only 36 hours.”
“What we’re doing right now is investing in training 14 new members of the online help team. They’re all experts in the software already, so we’re just bringing them up to speed about how the helpdesk works.”
“What this means that starting next Monday we’ll have a bigger response team standing by, as these new people come on-stream: they should all be up-and-running within only ten days.”

(Numbers 1, 2 and 3 representing Past, Present and Future, in this example.)

This is the most subtle of the formulae, and it stands for Point, Reason, Example, Point. The last point is a restatement of the first one to really hammer it home, not a new point.

The Reason section of your response deals with big picture, data and statistical responses. It puts a logical set of facts to your audience. To make it more impactful with your audience you need to back it up with an Example . Finally you recap your Point .

This example shows you how I used it to respond to a challenging question about women’s rights from someone who was genuinely surprised that women and (more or less) equal rights to men in the UK, including being able to vote…

“Do I believe women should have the right to vote? Yes, absolutely!”
“Let’s face it, women make up a bit over half the population of the country and they bring in about forty-eight percent of our GDP – nearly half the money they country gets in.”
“In fact, in my own household, my wife has a great job and bring in nearly twice the amount I do. It makes her the economic head of the household, although we don’t think of it in those terms. It would seem daft to have the economic head of the household able to vote!”
“So yeah, absolutely, I think women should vote!”

I’ve labeled the PREP parts as numbers 1 to 4 so you can see what’s what, but the words should flow naturally.

That’s it. Actually it’s not – there’s always more to be said… but it’s a great start.

Predict your questions, prepare your answers. Celebrate them when you get them, and use formulae to help you structure your answers. You’ll be great!

Don’t finish with questions

It all too easily means your presentation gradually runs out of energy and finishes with a whimper. Better to end with a bang. What I do is to take the questions and then when there are (almost) no questions left, go back into ‘ delivery ’ mode to give a very (very!) brief summary before wrapping up with my trademark close. It means the presentation finishes with high energy, on my terms…

Latest Posts

Simon Raybould

+simon raybould, latest posts by simon raybould ( see all ).

Motivational Speakers – Are They All They’re Cracked Up To Be? - 4th April 2017
Do I Really Need Slides in Every Presentation? - 18th October 2016
The Most Successful Ways to Answer Questions From Your Audience - 8th September 2016

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Any Questions Slide

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In addition to the introduction, body, and conclusion, your presentation should include time for answering questions from the audience. While you should interact with the audience as you speak, there will be a separate time frame for answering the questions, depending on the purpose of your speech.

In addition, if the audience is small and familiar enough, you can allow them to ask questions during the presentation. However, it is best if you set aside a separate time for questions. This will help you better control your presentation and avoid jumping from topic to topic. Interrupting the flow of arguments will ruin the overall experience and risk losing control of the situation. So it is best to ask the audience to postpone their questions until the end of the presentation.

When preparing for this part of the speech, you must try to predict possible questions, try to give answers to them, so that the question does not catch you by surprise and does not throw you into long thinking.

Use of visual methods and materials. Visuals help both the presenter and the audience remember the main points of the talk. Most formal speeches and presentations involve the use of visual aids.

To make the audience feel like full participants in the presentation, invite them to send questions during the presentation, and then choose the most interesting ones by voting of the audience.

They appeal to both professional speakers because they help convince the audience of their point of view and help them remember the main points, and to beginners, because they distract the attention of the audience from the speaker’s figure.

The slides from this template can be used by business leaders in preparation for a strategic shareholder session. You can finish your presentation using one slide template. You can also use this template when preparing a presentation for an international conference.

Salespeople can also use the slides in this template when preparing product information for potential customers for the company. You can end your presentation by asking questions about a product or service.

Business trainers and university professors can also use this template when preparing their courses and trainings. Also, this template can be used when preparing for a quiz between employees of your company.

Occupational safety and health managers or HR managers can use the slides from this template when preparing materials for internal training. For example, you can use the slides in this template when explaining company policy or complex equipment requirements.

Any Questions Slide is a professional and modern template that contains four stylish and fully editable slides. If necessary, you can change all the elements of the slide in accordance with your corporate requirements. This template will be useful for startups, company executives, business coaches. Any Questions Slide template will organically complement your presentations and will be a great addition to your collection of professional presentations.

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How to handle questions during a presentation

Posted by Belinda Huckle | On January 29, 2022 | In Presentation Training, Tips & Advice

In this Article...quick links

1. Tell the audience in advance when you will be taking questions

2. anticipate questions in advance, 3. realise that questions are a good thing, 4. make eye contact with the questioner, 5. always take a brief pause before launching into your answer, 6. be sure that you understand the question they are asking or point that they’re making, 7. acknowledge how valuable the question they’re asking is, 8. always keep your cool, 9. be honest if you don’t know the answer, 10. answer in sections if the question is a long one, 11. check-in with the questioner after you have given your response, follow us on social media for more great presentation tips:.

You’ve prepared your presentation, practised it a dozen times and you’re ready to go. But what’s the one thing that might throw you off course, undermine your confidence and your credibility? An awkward question. One that comes at an inopportune time, or one that’s difficult, or one with a complicated answer, or one you can’t answer! So it will come as no surprise that a question we get asked frequently centres around how to handle questions during a presentation!

Think about your work or everyday life, when someone asks you a question, how do you usually respond? Do you take a minute to think about your answer before launching into an explanation?

Do you interpret their question as a challenge of your authority/knowledge/intelligence and become defensive? Do you answer a question with another question? Did you notice that we’re asking a lot of questions right now…?

There are seemingly a thousand ways to answer a question and the kind of answer you give and how you deliver it can go a long way in helping to build positive relationships with other people, as well as facilitating constructive and helpful debates and conversations about certain issues and topics.

handling questions during a presentation

This is especially true in workplace environments, where you may be giving a presentation to your client, or delivering the quarterly business results to your team.

Questions may arise from the audience , which do have the potential to throw your presentation off course or set a bad tone in the room if not handled well. Some people can even inadvertently come across as rude, curt or dismissive when answering questions, simply because they feel attacked or they’re rushing to get back to their presentation before they lose their train of thought.

So in today’s blog post you’ll learn how to handle questions during a presentation. We’ve given you some specific advice to follow when answering questions and how to always remain courteous, on-track and respectful of the question-asker – so that in turn, you look professional and knowledgeable.

One of things that can sometimes throw you off course is being asked a question when you are mid-flow through a presentation or least expect it. It can interrupt your train of thought and momentarily put you off balance.

One way to avoid this is to agree in advance when you will be taking questions; anytime, at the end of each section, or at the end of the presentation. This way you won’t be surprised when they come up.

Whilst you are preparing your slides or deck, think about the questions you might be asked around the content and formulate your answers ahead of time.

Look at the content through the eyes of the audience and try to anticipate where their views might differ or where they might need clarification. If you are presenting to your executive board , you might be questioned on how your ideas affect or support the bottom line. Whereas a presentation to middle management on streamlining processes might raise problems about additional resources for support.

Therefore, is there any additional data or information that you could take along to the presentation that might help you to answer some of these questions?

You won’t be able to predict every question in advance, but by giving it some thought it will give you a foundation on which to base your answers and hopefully make it clearer to you how to handle questions during a presentation that you might be expecting!

It’s important to remember first and foremost that the fact that people are asking you a question in the first place means that they’re interested and engaged in what you have to say.

Either they want more information, they need clarification, they’re curious to know more, or they want to test your thinking, logic, and recommendations.

So, a question should always be taken as a good sign, and met with an extra boost of enthusiasm and confidence on your side .

Unfortunately, we’ve seen all too many presenters use the fact that someone has asked a question as an opportunity to adjust their microphone, check their slides, straighten their clothes, drink some water, wander around the room or stage… And we can’t say how much of a big no-no this is! It is definitely not how to handle questions during a presentation!

Becoming immediately and significantly distracted when someone is asking you a question can make you look as though you don’t really care about the question being asked, and can be quite disrespectful.

So be sure to maintain eye contact, nod regularly , and give the questioner your full attention.

Remember that it’s not just about your verbal response, your body language can be a powerful tool or a dead give away if you are feeling anxious or unconfident.

So be sure to show your interest in the question and questioner.

Pausing before handling questions during a presentation

No matter whether someone is asking for some data or facts from you, questioning your way of doing things, or simply asking for more information, the first thing to do is to pause briefly after they’re finished asking their question, even if you know what your answer will be straight away.

There are 3 main reasons for this:

It gives the person time to finish their question, and add any clarifying points.
It shows that you are taking the time to consider the question, which shows respect.
It gives you time to think of the best answer, and deliver it eloquently, rather than launching in, rushing through, and coming across as confused or uncertain.

One of the best communication techniques in life and business is to clarify and even repeat or paraphrase a question or point someone is making to you, as it helps avoid misunderstandings.

This is no less true while giving presentations as well, so when needed be sure to ask the questioner to expand or fine tune their point.

Remember, if you don’t understand the question, chances are you’ll give the wrong answer.

Repeating or paraphrasing a question also has the added bonus of ensuring that everyone else in the room has heard the question as well. Plus it gives you some extra thinking time too!

Don’t forget, if there is someone in the room who can add additional weight to your answer or expand in another area which is relevant, don’t be afraid to invite them to contribute also.

The old saying, “There are no silly questions” definitely rings true here, so you need to communicate this by making the questioner feel that their question was valid and constructive.

This needs to be done genuinely, and there are plenty of good ways to express an acknowledgement before giving your response:

“That’s a question I asked myself”
“That’s a question a lot of people have asked us recently”
“I’m not surprised you’re asking that given …”
“I think the point you’re making is a good one”
“That’s a question we have discussed at length within our team”
“Many thanks for your question. You’ve reminded me to touch on …”
“In most situations, you’d be right, and I would agree with you”
“That’s a really interesting point and not one we had considered”

It’s a good idea to practise these regularly, but always make sure the way you acknowledge the question is genuine or you’ll sound rehearsed and not authentic or credible as a presenter.

If a question is off-topic and not relevant to the presentation you might want to ask where the question is coming from, answer briefly and offer to give a more detailed response at a later date.

When it comes time to actually give your answer don’t get angry or defensive, no matter what the question is. This is not how to handle questions during a presentation in a professional, credible way!

We’ve all seen those video clips of celebs or politicians losing their temper after an interviewer asks them a less-than-favourable-question, and the only one who almost always comes off looking silly is the interviewee themselves.

So if you find yourself in a similar situation, even if the question was intended to be intentionally provocative, losing it or getting visibly emotional will make you come across as immature and unprofessional. If you feel yourself getting emotional, simply ask if you can get back to them at a later time.

woman handling questions during a presentation

We all have to admit to bluffing our way through an answer to a question we’re just not 100% sure of every now and then… But a presentation is not the time to do it.

Making up an answer or trying to dance around the question completely is a surefire way to come across like you don’t know what you’re talking about, which can really undermine your confidence for the rest of the presentation. Instead, here are some options for managing questions when you don’t know the (entire) answer.

Tell them what you do know. E.g. if someone asks “What is the current rate of inflation?” you may not know the exact answer so you could reply by saying “I’m not sure of the precise rate of inflation right now, though I can look that up for you if you like. What I can tell you is that it is rising faster now than it has done for many years.”
Tell them why you don’t know. E.g. if someone were to ask the above inflation question, you could reply by saying “The rate of inflation is extremely volatile at the moment. Let me look up the most recent data and get that figure to you straight after the presentation.”
Tell them someone else knows. Again, using the inflation question, you might reply “That’s a hot topic at the moment and our CFO has just published a report looking at the current rate of inflation and the drivers behind it. I’ll email that report to you later this week.”
Tell them you don’t know. It’s not ideal to admit that you don’t have the answer to hand but it’s better than making up the answer. In this scenario it’s imperative that you acknowledge the question so that you still come across as confident and in control rather than nervous and on the back foot. E.g you could say “That’s a very valid question you raise. I don’t have that data with me but I will send that information to straight after this presentation.”

Curly questions can really rock our confidence so stay calm, take your time and remember that no one expects you to know everything. You’re only human after all!

If the question is a particularly long one, ‘chunk’ up your answer into sections so your answer stays clear and concise.

For example, if someone asks you when a project is going to be completed, you might say:

“That’s actually a critical question as timings on this project are particularly tight (acknowledging worth). Based on our last status update, stage 1 will be completed by xxx, stage 2 by xxx and stage 3 by xxx.”

Or, if their question is multi-part, answer each part separately before moving onto the next.

You could say something like “And to address the second part of your question…”

check in with the questioner during the presentation

After you finish your answer it’s important to check-in with the questioner to make sure that you’ve answered the question to their satisfaction. You can do this by simply asking:

“Does that answer your question?”
“Can I provide you with any more detail?”

Or, you can also check in non-verbally, such as by making eye contact with them and smiling. If you get a smile back, you can assume you’ve answered the question to their satisfaction. If you get a puzzled look or a frown, we recommend you follow up with a verbal check-in.

So, by learning how to handle questions during a presentation, following all these important points, and being thoroughly prepared before your presentation, it will help to calm your nerves and leave you feeling ready to engage with your audience, stimulate constructive conversations, all while looking confident, professional and in control.

And if you’re going back into the meeting room after a long period of remote working you can brush up on your in-person presentation skills by reading this blog .

Tailored and personalised presentation skills training

If you’re specifically looking to learn how to handle questions during a presentation, or more generally to build the presentation skills of your team (or yourself) through personalised training or coaching that is tailored to your business, we can help.

For nearly 20 years we have been the Business Presentation Skills Experts , training & coaching thousands of people in an A-Z of global blue-chip organisations – check out what they say about our programs .

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Belinda is the Co-Founder and Managing Director of SecondNature International. With a determination to drive a paradigm shift in the delivery of presentation skills training both In-Person and Online, she is a strong advocate of a more personal and sustainable presentation skills training methodology.

Belinda believes that people don’t have to change who they are to be the presenter they want to be. So she developed a coaching approach that harnesses people’s unique personality to build their own authentic presentation style and personal brand.

She has helped to transform the presentation skills of people around the world in an A-Z of organisations including Amazon, BBC, Brother, BT, CocaCola, DHL, EE, ESRI, IpsosMORI, Heineken, MARS Inc., Moody’s, Moonpig, Nationwide, Pfizer, Publicis Groupe, Roche, Savills, Triumph and Walmart – to name just a few.

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10 Better Ways to Say “If You Have Any Questions”

If you’re looking for a way to say “if you have any questions,” this article has you covered. We’ll help you understand some of the best synonyms you can use in formal emails or messages to people that might help you out.

The preferred synonyms are “if there’s anything else that you’d like to know,” “let me know if you think of anything else,” and “ do you have any questions?” These phrases work well to introduce the idea that someone is allowed to ask you questions without feeling bad about it.

If There’s Anything Else That You’d Like To Know

“If there’s anything else that you’d like to know” works well in formal situations. It shows that you’re willing to help out and answer questions wherever you can. It works in both spoken and written English.

It might help to see a quick email example to show you how it would look:

If there’s anything else that you would like to know, please respond to this email.
All the best ,

As you can see, it works well to allow people to open a communication channel with you directly. This should encourage them to ask whatever they need to ask.

If there’s anything else that you’d like to know, let me know. I’ll see whether I can answer your questions when I get a chance.
If there’s anything else that you’d like to know, I’m here to listen. I should have all the answers ready to give to you.
If there’s anything else that you’d like to know, don’t hesitate to ask! I’m only an office away, and I’ll be happy to answer your queries.

Let Me Know If You Think Of Anything Else

“Let me know if you think of anything else” is a slightly more informal synonym. It works well because it allows someone to ask you questions if they come up with anything that might relate to the situation.

“Let me know” is always an informal phrase. You will find that it’s used in business English, but it’s most common in spoken English when people are reminding others to let them know about something.

Let me know if you think of anything else. For the time being, I think this is a good point to end the meeting for today.
Let me know if you think of anything else. I’ll be around until the end of the day, so I’ll happily answer whatever questions you have.
Let me know if you think of anything else so that I can answer your questions before they develop into more issues.

Do You Have Any Questions?

“Do you have any questions?” is a simple question in itself. It asks people whether there’s anything they’d like to run through with you before you decide to end the topic.

You might see this one appear in an email, so it would help to have a quick look at that:

Dear Mario,
Do you have any questions?
I’m happy to answer anything you might ask.
Kind regards,

You will also find this simple question pop up in spoken English.

Do you have any questions? You know that I’m here to answer anything you might be struggling with. Just ask me!
Do you have any questions about this? I’d love to know whether everything has been covered or if you feel like you need more information.
Do you have any questions, though? If you have some or think of any, just pop into my office to ask me more about them.

Let Me Know About Any Questions

“Let me know about any questions” is another good option. It resorts to informal language like “let me know” to show someone that you’re on the same side as them and want to help them figure out the answer to something.

Let me know about any questions. I figured this wouldn’t be a simple one-and-done meeting, so I’m happy to answer anything else.
Let me know about any questions. I’ll be here all week, so if you think of something later, you can ask me while I’m around.
Let me know about any questions. I’ll see what I can do. I have all the documents ready to go to answer what I can.

I’m Here To Answer Any Questions You May Have

“I’m here to answer any questions you may have” is commonly used after business meetings. You won’t often see this one in emails because “I’m here” requires a physical presence (rather than an online one).

Once a business meeting has ended, someone might use this phrase. It lets the attendees know that they will stick around to answer any questions that might pop up.

I’m here to answer any questions you may have. All you need to do is ask. I’ll be around until the end of the shift today.
I’m here to answer any questions you may have. Hopefully, everything has already been covered, but that doesn’t mean you can’t ask more.
I’m here to answer any questions you may have. Let me know if you want to run through the details again before moving forward.

Any Questions?

“Any questions” is a great choice if you’re looking for a direct and informal question. It doesn’t use a questioning verb and is technically a sentence fragment (which wouldn’t make sense outside of certain contexts).

However, “any questions?” is one of the most popular questions asked in business English. It allows someone to be direct about whether there are any things that they might have forgotten to answer.

Any questions? I’ll let you know if I think of anything else, but I think we can end the meeting here unless you can think of anything.
Any questions? Anyone? I’d love to know what you think about the project. Let me know if there’s anything I can change.
Any questions? No? Well, if you think of anything, you know where to find me. I’ll see what I can do to answer you.

Is There Anything Else You Need To Know?

“Is there anything else you need to know?” works really well in many situations. It’s a great one to use formally because it asks whether everything was covered or if someone would like more information to help them out.

Is there anything else you need to know? I’m sure most of it has been covered, but I’m here to help, nonetheless.
Is there anything else you need to know? I’ll be around for a while yet. If anything comes to mind, be sure to come and see me.
Is there anything else you need to know about? If you’re struggling with this, I’ll do what I can to give the best answers possible.

Is There Anything Else I Need To Cover?

“Is there anything else I need to cover?” is a good question that puts the ball in the other person’s court. If you think you might have missed something, this could be a good question to ask.

For example, if you’re presenting something to a superior, you might have missed vital information. Nerves may have gotten the better of you during the presentation, so it’s always good to ask something like this before closing your presentation without answering everything.

Is there anything else I need to cover? I think I’ve run through the main talking points. I’ll let you know if there’s anything else.
Is there anything else I need to cover? If you think of any questions, come and find me! I’ll be there to help you out.
Is there anything else I need to cover? Let me know if you think of anything. For now, the meeting is dismissed.

If You Need More, Let Me Know

“If you need more, let me know” is a good informal approach you can take. It shows other people that you’re approachable and willing to answer any questions they might have. This is great for many situations where a positive and friendly attitude is needed.

If you need more, let me know. I think I covered most of it, but I’m sure there are a couple of questions on your mind.
If you need more, let me know. Don’t hesitate to contact me if you need anything. I’ll be around for most of the day today.
If you need more, let me know. You can either see me in person or email me about it. I’ll happily answer you ASAP.

Is That Everything You Need?

“Is that everything you need?” is a great question to make sure you’ve covered all angles. If you’re worried you might have missed something, it could be good to reiterate with a question like this.

Is that everything you need from me? I’d love to find out whether there are any questions that you’re struggling with.
Is that everything you need? Of course, if you think of anything else, you know where I am. I’ll do my best to answer you.
Is that everything you need? I don’t want you to be confused about the expectations here. Let me know if I can help.

Martin holds a Master’s degree in Finance and International Business. He has six years of experience in professional communication with clients, executives, and colleagues. Furthermore, he has teaching experience from Aarhus University. Martin has been featured as an expert in communication and teaching on Forbes and Shopify. Read more about Martin here .

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Are You Asking the Right Questions?

A conversation with IMD Business School’s Arnaud Chevallier on simple changes to improve your decision-making.

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Few leaders have been trained to ask great questions. That might explain why they tend to be good at certain kinds of questions, and less effective at other kinds. Unfortunately, that hurts their ability to pursue strategic priorities. Arnaud Chevallier, strategy professor at IMD Business School, explains how leaders can break out of that rut and systematically ask five kinds of questions: investigative, speculative, productive, interpretive, and subjective. He shares real-life examples of how asking the right sort of question at a key time can unlock value and propel your organization. With his IMD colleagues Frédéric Dalsace and Jean-Louis Barsoux, Chevallier wrote the HBR article “ The Art of Asking Smarter Questions .”

CURT NICKISCH: Welcome to the HBR IdeaCast from Harvard Business Review, I’m Curt Nickisch.

The complexity and uncertainty around business today demands a different skill in leaders, namely the ability to ask illuminating questions.

Jensen Huang, the CEO of chip maker NVIDIA has said that over time, his job has become less about giving answers to problems, and more about asking questions; that he wants his team to join that exploration with him. And it’s probably not a coincidence that his company operates at the heart of the artificial intelligence revolution. After all, now that you have the ability to basically talk to a database, it really does come down to the questions you ask of it. By the way, we talked to him on IdeaCast on episode 940, check that out.

But today’s guest says few business professionals are trained in the skill of asking questions. They don’t know the different types of strategic questions, and even when they do hang question marks, they often have blind spots.

Here to explain is Arnaud Chevallier, a professor at IMD Business School, with his colleagues Frederic Dalsace and Jean-Louis Barsoux he wrote the HBR article, The Art of Asking Smarter Questions. Welcome, Arnaud.

ARNAUD CHEVALLIER: Thanks for having me, Curt.

CURT NICKISCH: Why is asking questions, this basic conversational skill, so hard for people?

ARNAUD CHEVALLIER: Well, I think we’ve all heard it, asking more questions helps people make better decisions. But there’s a dark side. Because whenever you’re asking one question, you’re not asking another type of question. And so if you’re under time pressure, you might be probing one side of a problem or decision but not other sides. And if you look at managers compared to other professions, lawyers, physicians, psychologists, they’re trained to ask better questions. Managers, seems like we are supposed to learn on the job.

CURT NICKISCH: And many do learn it and perhaps learn a certain kind of question that seems to work for them for some time. You point out a lot of people don’t understand that there are different types of questions that you can be asking, and they just by their nature tend to ask a certain type of question but avoid other ones just because it doesn’t come naturally to them.

ARNAUD CHEVALLIER: Yeah. That’s what we find speaking with managers and leaders across organizations. I think when you start professionally, you develop your own mix of questions. Maybe you pick up a couple questions that you think are insightful from your boss perhaps. You get to learn and hone that mix and it gets you here but it’s unclear when you get promoted to your next job that what got you here will get you there.

We are trained, we are told, “Ask open-ended questions, ask follow up questions.”

CURT NICKISCH: Yeah, ask why. Ask the five why’s.

ARNAUD CHEVALLIER: The five why’s, absolutely. But what else? You get to the, “Sure, good idea. I should ask why. What else should I ask?” And usually the guidance falls flat. We’ve been speaking with hundreds of executives, trying to understand which questions they ask. We’ve been speaking with very senior people trying to understand what works for them. And out of that we came together with a taxonomy of questions that we believe are useful in making better decisions, in solving complex problems.

CURT NICKISCH: This taxonomy basically divides strategic questions into five types, investigative, speculative, productive, interpretive and subjective. It’s probably smart for us to go through them one by one.

ARNAUD CHEVALLIER: Let’s, because that’s a mouthful, right? Let’s project ourselves into big decisions that you have to make maybe as a manager or maybe as just a person. Perhaps you’re thinking about buying a new house, maybe moving the family. Maybe you’re thinking about acquiring a new firm. Whenever we’re faced with those complex decisions, pretty quickly we want to identify, “Okay, what is it that we want to achieve?”

But we realize we don’t have enough information to achieve it. We need to get into investigative mode by asking ourselves, what’s known? What’s known about the problem? For instance, the five why’s. Or what’s known about the solutions, the potential solutions by asking how may we do this? How may we do that? The first type of question is investigative, helps you probe in depth into the problem or into the solution.

CURT NICKISCH: Some of the questions that can be asked here are what happened? What is and isn’t working? What are the causes of the problem? Those are all examples of investigative questions. Are these questions that are typically asked at the beginning of a process, or can they be used anywhere in problem solving?

ARNAUD CHEVALLIER: Yes. What we’re finding out is it works better actually if we go back and forth. There’s no real segmentation because investigative gets you to a point: you drill deeper into the problem or into the solutions, but going deep is not the only way. You may want to speculate as well. The second type of question is speculative questions, epitomized by what if? Speculative questions are here to help you foster innovation by challenging the implicit and the explicit assumptions for the problem.

CURT NICKISCH: What if is really good. Examples of this are also what other scenarios might exist? Could we do this differently? That’s a way of just asking a simple question, but trying to open up a brand new avenue of thinking or problem solving.

ARNAUD CHEVALLIER: Exactly. And by doing this, you’re really expanding the space in which you operate. Investigative, you go deep. And speculative, you go wide, and you’re stretching a little bit the universe of possibilities.

CURT NICKISCH: Now, productive is the next type. Tell us about that.

ARNAUD CHEVALLIER: Yeah. Investigative, you go deep. Speculative, you go wide. If you’re a professor, that’s all you have to do. You can spend years and years on your problem but if you actually have a real job, chances are you’re asked to have some results, right? So productive is the now what questions. You’re adjusting the pace of the effort, deciding whether you know enough to move forward right away or perhaps deciding that you need to slow down a little bit before you make those decisions, to give you a chance to get even more insight into your problem.

CURT NICKISCH: Examples here that you list in your article are things like, do we have the resources to move ahead? Do we know enough to proceed? Are we ready to decide? Very tactical and the sorts of questions that bring everybody back to the realization of what needs to happen.

ARNAUD CHEVALLIER: That’s right. How are we doing across compared to project plan and should we accelerate or should we slow down?

CURT NICKISCH: I can definitely see certain types of managers would be really good at this. There are roles sometimes that are very operational or process oriented, and you almost have a traffic police officer managing a process, yeah. Interpretive was the next type.

ARNAUD CHEVALLIER: Investigative, what’s known. Speculative, what if? Productive, now what? All these gets me some information about my decision, about my problem. But information is one thing, but it’s not quite wisdom. The fourth type, the interpretative questions, the “so what” helps us convert that information into insight.

CURT NICKISCH: Examples here are questions like how does this fit with that goal? What are we trying to achieve – that really gets at so what? What did we learn from this new information? This seems very helpful at a transition point where you’ve … I don’t know, you’ve gotten customer data back or you have new information to process.

ARNAUD CHEVALLIER: I love how you phrased it because this is also what we’re discovering, the “so what” helps you transition from one type of question to another. So the five why’s, why aren’t we having better revenues? Because our clients are not buying enough of our products. Okay, so what? Maybe then that will help me transition from being investigative, asking why, to perhaps being speculative, thinking about how else we could get our clients to buy our products. It enables you to transition from one type to another.

CURT NICKISCH: Now, the last type of strategic question that you identify in your taxonomy is subjective, which was really interesting to me because it wasn’t one of the sorts of questions I expected to jump out in a strategy framework. Tell us a little bit more about subjective questions.

ARNAUD CHEVALLIER: Maybe it’s helpful to explain how we got to the first four types. We were very happy when we got there, we figured it was really clicking and then we had the catchy way of thinking about it. It’s four types but there are really three main ones, like the three Musketeers, that sort of thing. We thought we were done and then we started interviewing top leaders, people in charge of billion-dollar operations. And there was something else, and maybe this is best exemplified by this wonderful little cartoon by Jack Ziegler in the New Yorker a few years ago, where you see a little fish happily swimming around minding its own business, not realizing that right behind it there’s a huge fish about to eat it alive. And the small one is called agenda, and the big one is called hidden agenda. The last type of questions, subjective questions, are just realizing that we’re dealing with people. People have emotions, they have political agendas, and if we don’t embrace this we might just miss entirely what the problem is actually all about.

CURT NICKISCH: Examples of these questions are how do you really feel about this decision? Have we consulted the right people? Those are all things that do get at those emotions and just the real impact of business decisions.

ARNAUD CHEVALLIER: Right on. I remember specifically we were interviewing the CEO of a major airplane manufacturer. And brilliant fellow, mid 40s, everything … Former engineer, I think. We were expecting him to be very investigative. Nothing against engineers, I’m one myself. But turns out that he was saying after every big meeting he would sit down and reflect on was there a difference between what was said, what was heard, and what was meant? To him, what really mattered was that human component in the meeting.

CURT NICKISCH: Now that we have these five types, let’s go through some of the advice that you have in your article. Number one, is you really want people to understand what questions they tend to ask or what their own interrogatory typology is. Talk more about that.

ARNAUD CHEVALLIER: I think it’s fair to say that we all develop our question mix, the questions that have served us well, that we believe will serve us well in the future. I remember for example, interviewing the COO of a major car company. And he’s telling us how on Monday morning he meets his team and he’s asking them, “How was your weekend?”

But he also made it very clear that when he’s asking how was your weekend, he doesn’t want to hear about little Timmy’s baseball game, he wants to know whether we shipped on time, if there’s any issues with the manufacturers. In other words, he is in full productive mode. And that makes a lot of sense. Again, he’s a COO. His job is to get things moving. But we can also imagine that he’s doing such a good job at the COO level that he might be offered the CEO position. And here, if he’s using the same mix that is predominantly into productive, he might not see other areas, he might develop some blind spots.

CURT NICKISCH: And so number one, you can learn to mix it up yourself by understanding your type, basically keeping track of the questions that you ask and making a concerted effort to ask different kinds of questions so that you expand your repertoire. That’s one way to get started.

ARNAUD CHEVALLIER: Maybe another way is also to take the LQM test, the leaders question mix test that we are putting together on the IMD website. It takes five minutes and you’re given two batches of questions, and you tell us which one you prefer. And as a result, we help you identify what your preferred mix is. And back to your point, Curt, my preferred mix is one thing but I shouldn’t be … I need to realize as well that there are other questions, including some that I’m not familiar or comfortable with, and that what matters is not so much my preference, as much as what is needed for the specific decision or specific problem I’m facing.

CURT NICKISCH: So if you’ve assessed your current question style, you start to adjust your repertoire, it’s still a lot to keep track of. When you’re in conversations, it’s easy to remember afterwards, why didn’t I ask that question? While you’re in it, especially if it’s a heated exchange or a very pithy conversation, it’s hard to just do this in real time on the fly, really well.

So what advice do you have for somebody to practically keep track, and expand their repertoire, but also make sure that they’re not missing anything and that they still don’t have blind spots even after they try to expand the zone in that way?

ARNAUD CHEVALLIER: I think you’re describing situations that we see often with executives. And one way of doing this is by taking the LQM, the leader question mix assessment, you also get a list of questions. And you can take that list with you, especially if there are some types of questions you realize you don’t ask very naturally. You can also pick a couple of those ahead of the meeting, making a mental or written note to ask those questions over there and see what happens with those.

CURT NICKISCH: Does this work at all levels of the organization or are we really talking about leaders asking strategic questions?

ARNAUD CHEVALLIER: We’ve applied it at all levels, absolutely, and in fact what we’ve found is in teams it works even better, realizing first that we have different mixes and then identifying, so what? Being interpretive: what are we going to do with the fact that you and I, Curt, have different mixes? If I’m terrible at one type, for instance speculative, maybe I need to rely on my teammates who are better there. Or at the very least, learn to recognize the value of speculative questions, at least in some settings, not shutting down the door the moment I hear a speculative question.

CURT NICKISCH: And one point you make in the article too is that you can find people on your team to help compensate for you if you know that you have certain weaknesses. Let’s talk a little bit about the difficulty of asking questions though in business settings, because when you ask a question, in some ways you’re putting people on the spot. What advice do you have for managers and leaders asking questions in these settings where you can ask penetrating and provocative questions but not make them feel so hard edged?

ARNAUD CHEVALLIER: Yeah. I think, again, you’re putting your finger on it because if you’re the authority figure and you ask, “Why did you do this?” Chances are the person on the receiving end of that is going to feel threatened. There is what we ask and there is how we ask it and how we phrase it. And what we found with those leaders who are particularly good with these subjective kinds of questions is they’re very conscious of the way they ask things. For instance, you might not ask why did you do this, but perhaps what happened?

CURT NICKISCH: Can you give us some examples of where these questions or changing your mix, asking different types of questions, yeah, being more deliberate in your question asking, how that can lead to better business results?

ARNAUD CHEVALLIER: Well, my favorite of course is a Swiss cliche. IMD professors will tell you, of course we’ll bring it back to the Swiss army knife. And your mix really is a Swiss army knife. You should be able not to have just one blade but you have different mixes of questions and you use the mix that best fits whichever situations you’re in.

Take the example of an airline captain who’s about to land at Geneva airport. If I’m in the back of the plane, I do not want the captain to start thinking speculative questions. “Hey, what if I turn this knob here? What if I try to land the plane in a different way?” No, no, no, no. Her job at that time is to land the plane, be productive. You take the time you to decide, no more, no less, and you just get it done. But that same captain maybe a few minutes before might have to deal with an issue, maybe a passenger who had drunk too much alcohol and started to act up, and maybe she needed to on the spot think creatively and perhaps using seat belts to restrain the passenger.

And perhaps even earlier in the day when she first met the first officer who was going to assist her on the flight, she needed to create quickly an environment where they could work well together. She maybe needed to be very subjective in her question mix. We can see how the same person on the same job might have to fundamentally alter her mix just to be effective at all three decision points.

CURT NICKISCH: You also have a lot of good examples in the article of companies that … Or leaders that didn’t ask a certain type of question, and that led to a huge problem.

ARNAUD CHEVALLIER: Mmhmm. Being French, we can make fun of the SNCF who built …

CURT NICKISCH: This is the French rail company.

ARNAUD CHEVALLIER: That’s right. They ordered 15 billions worth of trains and design spec’d them on the assumption that all platforms were some standard size, only to realize that all the platforms, all 1300 of them were actually larger, needed to be respec’d. And I think in hindsight, it’s always easy to make fun and to look at deficiencies in the decision process.

However, we probably can safely assume that engineers on the problem did their utmost to get it done. Really, five question types as a way perhaps of having a checklist, of reducing the chances of having blind spots in our decision process, but realizing that those blind spots can happen even to the best organizations out there, and realizing then that if we’re not mindful about the questions we ask, we might just every now and then fail to check an important question category.

CURT NICKISCH: One question that you suggest asking is, “are we all okay with this?” Which is a powerful question. It also presupposes that you’ve got the psychological safety on the team for everybody to be able to speak up. So, questioning and asking the right questions at the right time still demands an awareness of the culture that you’re asking it in, and how these questions are going to come across, and whether you’ve created the climate for people to be able to give you the powerful answers that you’re asking for.

ARNAUD CHEVALLIER: This is a very good point. And we’ve worked with organizations where there was very little psychological safety, where admitting that anything might be less and perfect might be a big, big issue. And in those settings it’s much more challenging but there are ways of still eliciting the wisdom of the group.

One such way for instance, is to use pre-mortems and to project the organization, say, “Okay, let’s go with this decision. Let’s assume that we are picking option one and we are now three years from today and we realize it’s a total fiasco. It crashed down. What happened?” And that can help people who would probably not ask questions frontally, to put on the table some less than perfect aspects of the decision they’re seeing.

CURT NICKISCH: Yeah, that’s very clever. What could go wrong? What did go wrong with this fiasco? It’s almost like this article is giving advice for how to speak, how to talk. Asking a question, it’s a conversational device. And it might seem too basic to people, why is this important and why is this especially important now?

ARNAUD CHEVALLIER: Well, questions are ways to make better decisions. We’ve all heard it, asking better questions is a way forward. We probably all develop our own mix of questions, those questions that we like, but there might be three issues associated with that. First, how do you know that your mix is a good mix? Second, when you’re asking a question, especially under time pressure, you’re not asking another type of question. There’s a cost of opportunity of asking a specific question. And are you sure that you’re using the best question for the job? And third, maybe you mix got you here but if that means that you’re doing such a good job here, you’re getting promoted, then tomorrow’s universe for you is not the same as yesterday. How do you adapt your question mix to help you be successful in the future?

CURT NICKISCH: And is there anything different about today’s business climate or the oncoming opportunity with artificial intelligence, that amplifies the ability to ask questions?

ARNAUD CHEVALLIER: I think you’re spot-on. GenAI, especially since late 2022, enables you to be a sparring partner or to have a sparring partner in having back and forth. You can indeed have a conversation with the database now, and you can’t have that conversation by proposing answers. You need to be asking questions. Clearly asking more insightful questions might unlock some value you couldn’t otherwise.

CURT NICKISCH: So for a speculative question, what does that look like in a real business setting?

ARNAUD CHEVALLIER: You hear mid managers who are often risk-averse, and then you speak with their boss and the boss is always asking for taking more risk. And you can rationalize it from both sides. Because the boss has a portfolio of a project and if some of those fail, no big deal. But if I’m the manager in charge of a project and I have it fail, then pretty quickly I start thinking that people associate me with failure. And so asking what if, having that conversation between the top team and the manager saying, “What if we didn’t care about failure? What if we were looking for – each of us managers, some of us having some failure? What if we relaxed this constraint or that constraint?” – can help us realize and realign what would be individual objectives with organizational ones.

CURT NICKISCH: Do you remember any good stories from the executives that you talked to where asking some of these subjective, what’s unsaid questions really opened up new opportunities or changed things?

ARNAUD CHEVALLIER: Yeah. And this one really gets to the human dimension. If you ask me next Monday morning how I’m doing, and I reply, fine, fine can be a number of things. Fine can be my dog died yesterday. Or fine, can be life is beautiful. What we found with some of the execs who were really good at going to the essence of it is probing in a caring way to understand the meaning behind the words, what’s kept unsaid, and remembering that you have short post people and you have long post people, some people will say fine as just an introductory but if you give them a little bit more time, they might actually expand and through that unlock a set of information you wouldn’t have had access to.

CURT NICKISCH: Arnaud, I have to ask, you’ve done all this research, I’m curious if you have a favorite question that you never asked before that you’ve come out of this process with that you use in your work and your job.

ARNAUD CHEVALLIER: Putting me on the spot, huh.

CURT NICKISCH: A little bit.

ARNAUD CHEVALLIER: I really fell in love with that difference between what was said, what was heard, and what was meant. I really think this is something I need to be better at and reading the weak signals and understanding what’s behind the words. But whenever I take the test, and I’ve taken it several times, what comes out is I am terrible at productive questions. So maybe, just maybe I need to pay more attention to the pace of my decision making.

CURT NICKISCH: For a manager who’s not a leader yet, hasn’t developed their repertoire per se, what advice would you give to them? What can they do tomorrow to start asking more strategic and stronger questions?

ARNAUD CHEVALLIER: My advice to someone who feels they don’t have yet a mix is, first of all, you probably already have a mix. There’s probably a couple of questions that you’ve seen or heard and they feel very insightful. But maybe you want to do as I do, is I keep track. All the questions I hear on your podcast and elsewhere that I haven’t heard before, I keep a long list and then I categorize them under the five buckets and I have my favorite ones.

CURT NICKISCH: Arnaud, thanks so much for coming on the show and sharing this research with us.

ARNAUD CHEVALLIER: My pleasure, thanks for having me.

CURT NICKISCH: That’s Arnaud Chevallier, a professor at IMD Business School and a co-author of the HBR article, the Art of Asking Smarter Questions.

And we have nearly 1000 episodes plus more podcasts to help you manage your team, your organization and your career. Find them at HBR.org/podcasts or search HBR and Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

Thanks to our team, senior producer Mary Dooe, associate producer Hannah Bates, audio product manager Ian Fox, and senior production specialist Rob Eckhardt. Thank you for listening to the HBR IdeaCast . We’ll be back with a new episode on Tuesday, I’m Curt Nickisch.

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Cadence Design Systems Earnings Transcript (NASDAQ:CDNS)

Presentation.

Good afternoon. My name is Regina, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Cadence First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Thank you.

I will now turn the call over to Richard Gu, Vice President of Investor Relations for Cadence. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. I'd like to welcome everyone to our first quarter of 2024 earnings conference call. I'm joined today by Anirudh Devgan, President and Chief Executive Officer; and John Wall, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. The webcast of this call and a copy of today's prepared remarks will be available on our website, cadence.com.

Today's discussion will contain forward-looking statements, including our outlook on future business and operating results. Due to risks and uncertainties, actual results may differ materially from those projected or implied in today's discussion. For information on factors that could cause actual results to differ, please refer to our SEC filings, including our most recent forms 10-K and 10-Q, CFO commentary, and today's earnings release. All forward-looking statements during this call are based on estimates and information available to us as of today, and we disclaim any obligation to update them.

In addition, we'll present certain non-GAAP measures, which should not be considered in isolation from or as a substitute for GAAP results. Reconciliations of GAAP to non-GAAP measures are included in today's earnings release.

For the Q&A session today, we would ask that you observe a limit of one question and one follow-up.

Now, I'll turn the call over to Anirudh.

Thank you, Richard. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I'm pleased to report that Cadence had a strong start to the year, delivering solid results for the first quarter of 2024. We came in at the upper end of our guidance range on all key financial metrics and are raising our financial outlook for the year. We exited Q1 with a better-than-expected record backlog of $6 billion, which sets us up nicely for the year and beyond. John will provide more details in a moment.

Long-term trends of hyperscale computing, autonomous driving, and 5G, all turbocharged by AI supercycle, are fueling strong broad-based design activity. We continue to execute our long-standing Intelligent System Design strategy as we systematically build out our portfolio to deliver differentiated end-to-end solutions to our growing customer base.

Technology leadership is foundational to Cadence, and we are excited by the momentum of our product advancement over the last few years and the promise of our newly unveiled products.

Generative AI is reshaping the entire chip and system development process, and our Cadence.AI portfolio provides customers with the most comprehensive and impactful solutions for chip-to-systems intelligent design acceleration. Built upon AI-enhanced core design engines, our GenAI solution boosted by foundational LLM co-pilots, are delivering unparalleled productivity, quality of results, and time-to-market benefits for our customers. Last week, at CadenceLIVE Silicon Valley, several customers including Intel, Broadcom, Qualcomm, Juniper, and Arm shared their remarkable successes with solutions in our Cadence.AI portfolio.

Last week, we launched our third-generation Dynamic Duo, the Palladium Z3 emulation and Protium X3 prototyping platforms to address the insatiable demand for higher performance and increased capacity hardware accelerated verification solutions. Building upon the successes of the industry-leading Z2, X2 systems, this new platform set a new standard of excellence, delivering more than twice the capacity and 50% higher performance per rack than the previous generation. Palladium Z3 is powered by our next-generation custom processor and was designed with Cadence AI tools and IP. The Z3 system is future-proof with its massive 48 billion gate capacity, enabling emulation of the industry's largest design for the next several generations. The Z3, X3 systems have been deployed at select customers and were endorsed by NVIDIA, Arm and AMD at launch.

We also introduced the Cadence Reality Digital Twin Platform, which virtualizes the entire data center and uses AI, high-performance computing, and physics-based simulation to significantly improve data center energy efficiency by up to 30%. Additionally, Cadence's cloud-native molecular design platform, Orion, will be supercharged with NVIDIA's BioNeMo and NVIDIA microservices for drug discovery to broaden therapeutic design capabilities and shorten time to trusted results.

In Q1, we expanded our footprint at several top tier customers and furthered our relationships with key ecosystem partners. We deepened our partnership with IBM across our core EDA and systems portfolio, including a broad proliferation of our digital, analog, and verification software, and expansion of our 3D IC packaging and system analysis solutions. We strengthened our collaboration with GlobalFoundries through a significant expansion of our EDA and system solutions that will enable GF to develop key digital, analog, RF, mmWave, and silicon photonics design for aerospace and defense, IoT, and automotive end markets.

We announced a collaboration with Arm to develop a chiplet-based reference design and software development platform to accelerate software-defined vehicle innovation. We also further extended our strategic partnership with Dassault Systemes, integrating our AI-driven PCB solutions with Dassault's 3DEXPERIENCE Works portfolio, enabling up to a 5x reduction in design turnaround time for SOLIDWORKS customers.

Now, let's talk about our key highlights for Q1. Increasing system complexity and growing hyperconvergence between the electrical, mechanical, and physical domains is driving the need for tightly integrated co-design and analysis solutions. Our System Design and Analysis business delivered steady growth as our AI-driven design optimization platforms integrated with our physics-based analysis solutions, continued delivering superior results across multiple end markets.

Over the past six years, we have methodically built out our system analysis portfolio, and with the signing of the definitive agreement to acquire BETA CAE, are now extending it to structural analysis, thereby unlocking a multi-billion dollar TAM opportunity. BETA CAE's leading solutions have a particularly strong footprint in the automotive and aerospace verticals, including at customers such as Stellantis, General Motors, Renault, and Lockheed Martin.

Our Millennium supercomputing platform, delivering phenomenal performance and scalability for high fidelity simulations is ramping up nicely. In Q1, a leading automaker expanded its production deployment of Millennium to multiple groups after a successful early access program in which it realized tremendous performance benefits.

Allegro X continued its momentum and is now deployed at well over 300 customers, while Allegro X AI, the industry's first fully automated PCB design engine is enabling customers to realize significant 4x to 10x productivity gains.

Samsung used Celsius Studio to uncover early design and analysis insight through precise and rapid thermal simulations for 2.5D and 3D packages, attaining up to a 30% improvement in product development time.

And a leading Asian mobile chip company used Optimality Intelligence System Explorer AI technology and Clarity 3D Solver obtaining more than 20x design productivity improvement.

Ever increasing complexities in the system verification and software bring-up continued to propel the demand of our functional verification products, with hardware accelerated verification now a must-have part of the customer design flow. On the heels of a record year, our hardware products continue to proliferate at existing customers while also gaining some notable competitive wins, including at a leading networking company and at a major automotive semiconductor supplier. Demand for hardware was broad-based with a particular strength seen at hyperscalers and over 85% of the orders during the quarter included both platforms.

Our Verisium platform that leverages big data and AI to optimize verification workloads, boost coverage, and accelerate root cause analysis of bugs saw accelerating customer adoption. At CadenceLIVE Silicon Valley, Qualcomm said that they used Verisium SimAI to increase total design coverage automatically, while getting up to a 20x reduction in verification workload runtime.

Our Digital IC business had another solid quarter as our digital full flow continued to proliferate at the most advanced nodes. We had strong growth at hyperscalers and over 50 customers have deployed our digital solutions on 3-nanometer and below designs. Cadence Cerebrus, which leverages GenAI to intelligently optimize the digital full flow in a fully automatic manner now has been used in well over 350 tapeouts. Delivering best-in-class PPA and productivity benefits, it's fast becoming a integral part of the design flow at marquee customers, as well as in DTCO flows for new process nodes at multiple foundries.

In Custom IC business, Virtuoso Studio, delivering AI-powered layout automation and optimization continued ramping strongly, and 18 of the top 20 semi have migrated to this new release in its first year.

Our IP business continued to benefit from market opportunities offered by AI and multi-chiplet-based architectures. We are seeing strong momentum in Interface IPs that are essential to AI use cases, especially HBM, DDR, UCIE, and PCIE at leading edge nodes. In Q1, we partnered with Intel Foundry to provide design software and leading IP solutions at multiple Intel advanced nodes.

Our Tensilica business reached a major milestone of 200 software partners in the Hi-Fi ecosystem, the de facto standard for automotive infotainment and home entertainment. And we extended our partnership with one of the top hyperscalers in its custom silicon SoC design with our Xtensa NX controller.

In summary, I'm pleased with our Q1 results and the continuing momentum of our business. Spiraling chip and system design complexity and the tremendous potential of AI-driven automation offer massive opportunities for our computational software to help customer realize these benefits.

In addition to our strong business results, I am proud of our high-performance inclusive culture and thrilled that Cadence was named by Fortune and Great Place to Work as one of the 2024's 100 Best Companies to Work For, ranking number 9.

Now, I will turn it over to John to provide more details on the Q1 results and our updated 2024 outlook.

Thanks, Anirudh, and good afternoon, everyone. I'm pleased to report that Cadence delivered strong results for the first quarter of 2024. First quarter bookings were a record for Q1 and we achieved record Q1 backlog of approximately $6 billion. A good start to the year, coupled with some impressive new product launches, sets us up for strong growth momentum in the second half of 2024. Here are some of the financial highlights from the first quarter, starting with the P&L. Total revenue was $1,009 million. GAAP operating margin was 24.8%, and non-GAAP operating margin was 37.8%. GAAP EPS was $0.91 and non-GAAP EPS was $1.17.

Next, turning to the balance sheet and cash flow. Cash balance at quarter end was $1,012 million, while the principal value of debt outstanding was $650 million. Operating cash flow was $253 million. DSOs were 36 days and we used $125 million to repurchase Cadence shares in Q1.

Before I provide our updated outlook, I'd like to share some assumptions that are embedded in our outlook. Given the recent launch of our new hardware systems, we expect the shape of hardware revenue in 2024 to weigh more towards the second half as our team works to build inventory of the new system. Our updated outlook does not include the impact of our pending BETA CAE acquisition, and it contains the usual assumption that export control regulations that exist today remain substantially similar for the remainder of the year.

Our updated outlook for fiscal 2024 is: revenue in the range of $4.56 billion to $4.62 billion; GAAP operating margin in the range of 31% to 32%; non-GAAP operating margin in the range of 42% to 43%; GAAP EPS in the range of $4.04 to $4.14; non-GAAP EPS in the range of $5.88 to $5.98; operating cash flow in the range of $1.35 billion to $1.45 billion; and we expect to use at least 50% of our annual free cash flow to repurchase Cadence shares.

With that in mind, for Q2, we expect revenue in the range of $1,030 million to $1,050 million; GAAP operating margin in the range of 26.5% to 27.5%; non-GAAP operating margin in the range of 38.5% to 39.5%; GAAP EPS in the range of $0.73 to $0.77; non-GAAP EPS in the range of $1.20 to $1.24; and as usual, we published a CFO commentary document on our Investor Relations website, which includes our outlook for additional items, as well as further analysis and GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliations.

In summary, Cadence continues to lead with innovation and is on track for a strong 2024 as we execute to our Intelligent System Design strategy. I'd like to close by thanking our customers, partners, and our employees for their continued support.

And with that, operator, we will now take questions.

Questions and Answers

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Joe Vruwink with Baird. Please go ahead.

Great. Hi, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. Maybe just to start with your outlook for the year. Can you perhaps provide maybe your second half assumption before this quarter versus where it stands today in terms of just recalibrating around delivery schedules? And maybe a good way to frame it, I think in the past, you gave a share of this year's revenue that was going to come from upfront products. Is that still the right range? But if it is the right range, you can obviously see more is going to end up landing in the second half and so that kind of puts to your original views or how is that, I guess, skewed relative to what might have been the expectation a quarter ago?

It's a great question, Joe. And I think you've hit on the main point there. But upfront revenue is driving a lot of the quarter-over-quarter trends this year. But when I look at last year, you'll recall that we had a large backlog of hardware orders and we dedicated 100% of the production -- hardware production in Q1 to deliver that hardware in Q1 2023. As a result, in Q1 2023, 20% of our Q1 '23 revenue was from upfront revenue sources. But in contrast, Q1 this year, it's only 10% of the total revenue for this Q1 is coming from upfront revenue. But, again, last year, and to reflect on where we thought we were this time last quarter, that we still expect that upfront revenue will probably be 15% to 20%. I mean, around the midpoint there is 17.5%, and expectation for upfront revenue this year, and a midpoint of, say, 82.5% for recurring revenue. That's still the same as what we thought this time last quarter. But that contrast with last year was I think 16% of our revenue was upfront last year.

And to put dollar terms on it, last year, $650 million of our revenue was upfront. This year, we're expecting roughly $800 million to be upfront. But Q -- the first half versus first half last year, we had $350 million in the first half and $300 million in the second half because we had prioritized all those shipments in hardware and it skewed the numbers towards the first half last year. So, $350 million and $300 million, ending with the $650 million of upfront revenue last year. This year, it looks more like $250 million and $550 million at the back end. But I know that's largely as a result of, we had a record backlog -- record bookings quarter in Q1. We've got substantial backlog in IP that we're scaling up to deliver. A lot of that revenue falls into the second half. And also we launched these new hardware systems last week.

Hardware revenue is expected to be more second half weighted now because based on what we've heard and I'll let Anirudh chime in here on the technical aspects of the new hardware systems, but we expect them to be so popular that a lot of demand will shift to those new hardware systems and we'll have to ramp-up production to be able to deliver that demand. So, it shifts some of the upfront revenue to the second half. But -- so I think upfront revenue is really driving a lot of the skewed metrics.

Anirudh, do you want to talk about Z3?

Yeah, absolutely. So, we are very proud of the new systems we launched. As you know, we are a leader in hardware-based emulations with Z2, X2. And last time we launched them was in 2021. So, that was like a six-year cycle. Z1, X1 was 2015, and then Z2, X2 was '21. So, what I'm particularly pleased about is, we have a major, major refresh. It's a game-changing product, but it was also developed in only three years. So, in 2024, we have a new refresh, and it's a significant leap in terms of capacity. And even last week at our CadenceLIVE conference, for example, NVIDIA and Jensen talked about how they use Z2 to design their latest chip like Blackwell and it's also used by all the major silicon companies and system companies to design their chips. But what is truly exciting about Z3 and X3 is, there's a big leap. It's like Z3 is 4 times, 5 times more capacity than Z2. It's a much higher performance. So, it sets us up nicely for next several years to be able to design the several generations of the world's largest chips. Okay. So, that's the right thing to do.

And the reason we can do it in three years versus six years is, we use our own -- this is designed internally in Cadence for TSMC advanced node. So, we're using all our latest tools, all the latest AI tools. We are using all our IP. So, it's a very good validation of our own capabilities that we can accelerate our design process, but really sets up hardware verification and overall verification flow for using the new systems. Now, as a result, normally, there is a transition period when you have a new system and we went through that twice already in the last 10 years. And the customers naturally will go to the new systems and then we build them over next one or two quarters. But that is the right thing to do for the business long-term. The time -- it's good to accelerate the -- because these AI chips are getting bigger and bigger, right, so the demand for emulation is getting bigger and bigger and I can give you more stats later. So, we felt that it was important to accelerate the development of the next-generation system to get ready for this coming AI wave for next several years and we are very well-positioned. As a result, it does have some impact on quarter-to-quarter, but that's well worth it in the long run. Yeah.

That's all very helpful. Thank you. Second question, I wanted to ask how some of the things you just spoke of, but also AI start to change the frequency of customers engaging with you, how they approach renewals. So, you just brought up how the hardware platforms, the velocity there has improved from first-generation to next six years, now we're down to a three-year new product cycle. When I listened to your customers last week talk about AI, they're not just generating ML models that can be reused, but then, of course, each run becomes better if you're incorporating prior feedback. So, it would just seem like AI itself, not only it creates stickiness but there would be an incentive to deploy it maybe more broadly than a customer traditionally would think about deploying new products. Does that mean the average run rate of a renewal ends up becoming much bigger and we'll start to see that flow in the backlog?

Yeah, that's the correct observation. Like, what we have -- as you know, what we have said before, AI has a lot of profound impact to Cadence, a lot of benefit to our customers. So, there are three main areas. One is the build-out of the AI infrastructure, whether it's NVIDIA or AMD or all the hyperscalers. And we are fortunate to be working with all the leading AI companies. So, that's the first part. And in that part, as they design bigger and bigger chips, because the big thing in AI systems is they're parallel, so they need to be bigger and bigger chips. So, the tools have to be more efficient, the hardware platform has to support that. And that's why the new systems.

Now, the second part of AI is applying AI to our own products, which is the Cadence.AI portfolio. And like you mentioned, last week, we had several customers talking about success with that portfolio, including Intel, like I mentioned, Intel, Broadcom, Qualcomm, Juniper, Arm, and the results are significant. So, we are no longer in kind of a trial phase of whether these things will work. Now we're getting pretty significant improvements. Like we mentioned MediaTek got like 6% power improvement. One of the hyperscale companies got 8% to 10% power improvement. These are significant numbers. So it is leading to deployment of our AI portfolio. And I think we mentioned like the AI run rate on a trailing 12-month basis is up 3x. Okay? And I think design process already was well automated. EDI has a history of automating design over the last 30 years. So AI is in a unique position because you need the base process to be somewhat automated to apply AI. So, we were already well automated and now AI can take it to the next level of automation. So, that's the second part of AI, which I'm pretty pleased about, is applying to our own product.

And then the third part of AI proliferation is new markets that open up, which things like data center design with Reality that we announced, or Millennium, which is designing systems with acceleration, or Digital Biology. Those are like a little -- they take a little longer to ramp up, but we have these three kind of impact of AI. The first being direct design of AI chips and systems. Second, applying AI to our own products. And third being new applications of AI.

That's great. Thank you very much.

Your next question will come from the line of Charles Shi with Needham & Company. Please go ahead.

Hi. Thanks. Good afternoon. I just want to ask about the China revenue in Q1. It looks pretty light. I just wonder whether that's part of the reason that's weighing on your Q2. I understand you mentioned that you're going through that second-gen to third-gen hardware transition right now. Maybe that's another factor, but from a geographical standpoint, what's the outlook for China for the rest of the year, and specifically Q2? Thanks.

Hi, Charles. That's a great observation. If you recall this time last year, we were talking about a very strong Q1 for China for functional verification and for upfront revenue. I think those three things are often linked. But you contrast it with this year, China is down at 12%. Upfront revenue is lower at 10% compared to 20%. And functional verification, of course, is lapping those really tough comps when we dedicated 100% production to deliveries.

I think when you look at China, we're blessed that we have the geographical diversification that we have across our business. But what we're seeing in China is strong design activity. And while the percentage of revenue dropped to 12%, it pretty much goes in line with a lower hardware, lower functional verification, lower upfront revenue quarter would generally lead to a lower China percentage quarter, but we have good diversification. And while China is coming down, we could see other Asia increasing, and our customer base is really mobile. That geographical mix of revenue is based on consumption and where the products are used. But as we do more upfront revenue in the second half, we'd expect the China percentage to increase.

Thanks. I want to ask another question about the upcoming ramp of the third-generation hardware. What exactly is the nature of the demand? Is it the replacement demand, like your customers replacing your Z2, X2 with the Z3, X3, or do you expect a lot more greenfield customers adopting Z3, X3? And more importantly, I think you mentioned about 4 times to 5 times capacity increase. They can design a larger -- much larger chips with a lot more transistors. How much of an ASP uplift you are expecting from the Z3, X3 versus Z2, X2?

Yeah, Charles, all good observations. So, let me try to answer them one by one. So, I mean, in terms of your last point, we -- normally if the system has more capacity like this one has, it can do more. So it produces -- it gives more value to our customers. So we are able to get more value back. So typically newer systems are better that way for us and better for the customers. Okay? And to give you an example, these things are pretty complicated. So we'll just take Z3 for example. So Z3 itself, we designed this advanced TSMC chip by ourselves. And this is one of the biggest chips that TSMC makes. And one rack will have like more than a hundred of these chips. And then we can connect like up to 16 racks together. So if you do that, you have thousands of full radical chips emulating, that's -- and these are all liquid-cooled, connected by optical and InfiniBand interconnect. So this is like a truly a multi-rack supercomputer. And what it can do is just emulate very, very large systems very, very efficiently.

So even Z2, like NVIDIA talked about it last week, even Blackwell, which is the biggest chip in the world right now with 200 billion transistors, was emulated on few racks of Z2. Okay? So now with 16 racks of Z3, we can emulate chips which are like 5 times bigger than Blackwell which is already the biggest chips in the world, right? So that gives a lot of runway for our customers, because with AI, the key thing is that, the capacity of the chip needs to keep going up, not just a single chip. Look at Blackwell, they have two full radical chips on a package. So, as you know, you will see more and more, not just big chips on a single node, but multiple chips in a package for this AI workload, and also 3D stacking of those chips. So what this allows is, not just emulating a single large chip, but multiple chips, which is super critical for AI. Okay? So I think this is what I feel that this puts us in a very good position for all this AI boom that is happening, not just with our partners like NVIDIA and AMD, but also all the hyperscaler companies. Okay? And so, that will be the primary demand is more capacity chips require more hardware. Okay?

And then X3 will go for that with the software prototyping, which is used on FPGA. And then we have some unique workload capabilities apart from size of these big systems being -- the capacity being much better in performance. There are new features for low power for analog emulation that helps in the mobile market. So we talked about Samsung working with us, especially on this four-state emulation, which is a new capability in emulation over the last 10 years. So I think it's just -- it's a combination of new customers, it's a combination of competitive wins, but also continuing to lead in terms of the biggest chips in the world, which are required for AI processing now and years from now. I think the size of these chips, as you know, is only going to get bigger in the next few years. And we feel that Z3, X3 is already set up for that.

Your next question will come from the line of Lee Simpson with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Great. Thanks. And thanks very much for squeezing me on. And just wanted to go back to what you'd said last quarter, if I could, it did seem as though you were saying that there was an element of exclusivity around your partnership with Arm, and your EDA partnership around Arm Total Design. I wondered how that was developing. If indeed you're collaborating to accelerate the development of custom SoCs using Neoverse, it looks as though it's pulled in quite a lot of work or continues to pull in quite a lot of work around functional verification? And, I guess, as we look at now third-generation tool sets for Palladium and Protium, leaving aside some of the rack scale development that we're seeing out there, whether or not Arm's Total Design, I guess, development work is pulling in or is likely to pull in some of that second half business, and that means not just hyperscalers, but perhaps in AI PCs and beyond. Thanks.

Yeah. Thank you for the question. I mean, we are proud to have a very strong partnership with Arm and with our joint customers, Arm and Cadence customers. I think we have had a very strong partnership over the last 10 years, I would like to say, and it's getting better and better. And yes, we talked about our new partnership on Total Compute. Also, I think this quarter, we talked about our partnership with Arm on automotive, because what is interesting to see, which of course, you know this already, but Arm continues to do well in mobile, but also now in kind of HPC server, and automotive end market. So we are pleased with that partnership and they are also doing more subsystems and higher order development, and that requires more partnership with Cadence in terms of the backend Innovus and digital flow and also verification with hardware platforms and other verification tools.

Great. Maybe just a quick follow-up, we've seen quite a bit of M&A activity from yourselves of late including the IP house acquisition of Invecas, you've had Rambus bought, you've now acquired BETA in the computer-aided emulation space for the car, and there has been quite a lot of speculation in the market about the possibility of a transformative deal being done. I guess, given that we have you on the mic here, maybe if we could get a sense from yourself, what would be the sort of thing that a business like Cadence could look for? Would you look for a high value in a contiguous vertical to what you have already addressed, let's say, in automotive, or would it be something more waterfront, a business that spans several verticals, maybe being more relevant across the industrial software space? Could that be the sort of ambition that Cadence would have, given the silicon-to-systems opportunities that are emerging? Thanks.

Well, thank you for the question, and a lot of times there are a lot of reports, and we normally don't comment on these reports, and people get very creative on these reporting, but what I would like to say is that, our strategy hasn't changed, okay? It's the same strategy from 2018. First of all, I want to make sure that we are focused in our core business, which is EDA and IP. And yes, I launched this whole initiative on systems, and it's super critical, chips, silicon-to-systems. But what is one thing that I even mentioned last time, what is different from 2018 to now is that, EDA and IP is much more valuable to the industry. Our core business itself has become much more valuable because of AI. Okay? So, our first focus is in our core business. We are leading in our core business. Our first focus is on organic development. Okay? That's what we like. We always say that's the best way forward.

Now, along with that, we will do some -- we have done, like you mentioned, some opportunistic M&A, which is usually I would like to say is a tuck-in M&A in the past, and that adds to our portfolio. It helped us in system analysis. We also did it in IP because I'm very optimistic about IP growth this year, and we talked about our new partnership with Intel Foundry in Q1. Also, we acquired Rambus IP assets, which are HBM, and HBM is, of course, a critical technology in AI, and we are seeing a lot of growth in HBM this year. Now, we have booked that business. The deliveries will happen towards second half of the year, as John was saying earlier, but so that's the thing.

Now, in terms of BETA, it made sense because it is a very good technology. It's the right size for us and we are focused on finishing that acquisition and also integrating that. That will take some time. So, that's our primary focus in terms of M&A, and it's a very good technology. They have very good footprint in automotive and aerospace verticals. So, just to clarify, we have the same strategy from '18, and that's doing -- working as well. It's primarily organic with very synergistic computational software, mostly tuck-in acquisitions.

That's great. Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Ruben Roy with Stifel. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Anirudh, I had a follow-up on the Z3, X3 commentary that you had. And one of the things I was thinking about, especially as you talked about the InfiniBand low latency network across the multiple racks of Z3, you had mentioned that you're up to 85% attach rate of both systems with Z2, X2. I would imagine that would continue to go up, and if you can comment on if the new systems incorporate InfiniBand across Z3? And X3, and if so, do you expect that to be sort of a selling point for your customers that are designing these big chips, which in many cases these days have software development attached to the design process? Do you think that the attach rates continue to move higher for both systems?

Yes, absolutely. I think these -- this -- we -- I think I started this in, I forget now, '16 I think Dynamic Duo or '15 and '16, which is -- we have a custom processor for Palladium, and we use FPGA for Protium. Okay? So this is what we call Dynamic Duo because then Palladium is best-in-class for chip verification and RTL design, and Protium is best-in-class for software bring-up, okay, and with the common front end. So as a result, over the years, this has become the right approach, okay, and all -- and our customers are fully embracing both these systems as they invariably do both chip development and software development.

I mean, perfect example is, of course, our long-term development partner, NVIDIA. I mean, NVIDIA is no longer doing just chip development. They have a massive software stack, and that's true for all the hyperscalers. So we see that trend continuing, and now we do use NVIDIA's products like InfiniBand in our systems on Z3, to your question, which is because Z3 is a very unique architecture, so it requires very, very high speed interconnect. So, it's almost like a supercomputer. So, then it requires Optical and InfiniBand in Z3. Now, in X3, we are using AMD FPGAs, which are fabulous, but it does not require that tight interconnect speed. So, InfiniBand is more used in Z3 versus X3, but X3 is a great system, too. We're using the latest AMD FPGAs, it has 8x higher capacity than X2, and all kinds of innovation on the software side as well. So we are very pleased. I'm very confident that we have true leadership in these hardware platforms, both Palladium and Protium. And we are also pleased, like I said earlier, that we are able to refresh it much sooner than the market expected, given our track record. And then we are seeing a lot of demand for both of these systems together going forward. Yeah.

That's helpful. Thank you, Anirudh. And then a follow-up for John. Anirudh mentioned HBM, IP business booked and shipping in second half. I was wondering if you can kind of give us a bigger picture update on how you're viewing IP in general, in terms of bookings relative to sort of ramps of those IP sales. Is it sort of the entire segment, sort of a second half, should we think about a second half ramping at a heavier weight than first half or any update there would be helpful.

Yeah. Thanks, Ruben. I mean, Q1 IP performance and bookings were ahead of our expectations. And everything remains on track there for a very strong growth year for 2024 for the IP business. Of course, the timing of revenue recognition depends on the timing of deliveries. But we had a tremendous bookings quarter in Q1, and we're preparing to scale for a number of deliveries of IP in the second half. But we expect the IP to have a very strong year this year. We're pleased with the overall business momentum. But we need to scale up some headcount to prepare to deliver on some of the larger backlog orders.

One thing -- this is Anirudh, I want to highlight. I think you may have seen this. I just want to highlight our partnership with Intel and IFS, okay, that was concluded in Q1. And so, it's really good to see Pat and Intel investing more in the foundry business and also working more closely with us. So, that's also a key contributor to IP. But like John said, we have to hire the people, do the -- we need to forward our portfolio to the Intel process. Okay? And that takes some time. So that's more will come towards the end of the year and next year. But we are pleased with that new partnership on IP. Okay?

Very helpful. Thanks guys.

Your next question comes from the line of Jay Vleeschhouwer with Griffin Securities. Please go ahead.

Thank you. For you, John, first and then Anirudh. So, for John, thinking back to a recent conversations we had, could you comment as a measure of EDA market health or dynamics, what you're seeing or expecting in terms of intra-contract's new or expansion business? This is an ongoing phenomenon in EDA. Maybe talk about what you're seeing in that kind of business beyond the customary renewals schedule. And then relatedly, how are you thinking about pricing for this year, given that EDA generally has substantially better pricing capacity than you might have had in years past? And then my follow-up for Anirudh.

Sure. Thanks, Jay. Great question. Yeah, I think what you're getting at there is what we would call add-ons. Typically, we have the very predictable software renewal business. And you'll see in the recurring revenue part of our business, I think we're at double-digit revenue growth. But over the past few years, I think that's been at low-teens. But we're seeing that a number of customers that have adopted AI tools are maybe not coming back and purchasing add-ons as frequently. But right now we're focused on proliferating those AI tools into accounts. I think there's an opportunity to increase pricing there, but maybe now is not the right time. I think we have such strong momentum on the upfront revenue business. We're preparing for scale into the second half there, but we'll have plenty of revenue growth in the second half of the year. We can continue to focus on proliferating our AI tools and technology into accounts. And pricing is something certainly we can focus on more intently in future years. But right now the focus is on proliferation.

I don't know, Anirudh, if you have anything to add to that? No?

Yeah. Okay. So, Anirudh, thinking back to your conference last week, particularly the GenAI track, it was interesting, of course, to hear the adoption presentations by Renesas, Intel, and so forth. But what seemed to be taking place is a heavy focus on Cerebrus, which makes sense. It's the one longest in market. So perhaps you could talk about how you're thinking about the adoption curve for the other brands aside from Cerebrus? And are there any critical parts of the design flow that might not necessarily be amenable to AI enablement? We hear a lot about implementation, analog, verification, but we don't hear a lot about AIs being applicable to synthesis, for example. So, maybe talk about those areas where it makes a lot of sense and those where perhaps it will remain more or less conventional technology.

Yeah. Thanks, Jay, for the question. So, as you know, we have five major AI platforms with Cerebrus and digital implementation being the one that has been out the longest. And Cerebrus is doing quite well, like you noted, and we also commented on more than 350 tape-outs, a lot of PPA improvement. But all the other ones are doing well, too. Sometimes we have like too many products. We don't talk enough about the others. But like verification, like Verisium, is doing quite well. And I mentioned Qualcomm last week talked about pretty impressive results. Because verification, as you know, is an exponential problem, because as the chips get bigger, the verification tasks get exponentially bigger. So, the benefit of AI can be significant in verification. So, I think you will see that in the next few quarters and years, that verification will be as important as implementation in terms of benefits of AI. Okay?

And then the other area I would like to highlight is PCB and Allegro and packaging, because that area hasn't seen that much automation in PCB. And Allegro is a leading platform for packaging and PCB, but really proud of Allegro X AI. And we talked about several customers, including Intel last week talked about 4x to 10x improvement using X AI and PCB. So, apart from digital, I think the next two ones, I feel, are verification and Allegro and PCB.

And then the areas that haven't done as well, I mean, is more not design optimization is like design generation. And I think there, this LLM-based models do provide a lot of promise. So, historically, we haven't done as much design generation, which is -- this is like almost pre-RTL, right? Going from spec to RTL, that's the truly the creative part of the design process. And then once you have RTL, it's more optimization part and digital and verification. So, I think that's where we have to see, but it's some initial results, which we haven't talked -- I think mentioned last week, but we work with a -- but we have to see, still in early phases, but we work with one or two customers in which we took like a 40, 50 page spec document, this English document, and able to automatically generate RTL from it. Okay? And the RTL quality is pretty good. So, again, we have to see how that goes, but that requires these really advanced LLM capabilities. So, that's something to be seen, but if that works well, that could be another kind of very interesting kind of application of GenAI. Okay?

Very good. Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Gary Mobley with Wells Fargo Securities. Please go ahead.

Hey guys, thanks so much for taking my questions. John, I appreciate the fact that China revenue in the first quarter was down against a tough year ago comp on the hardware verification side as you worked on backlog. And I assume that you still expect China to be dilutive to overall Company growth in the fiscal year. Could you speak to whether or not you're starting to see US export controls begin to impact your ability to do business there, whether that be a function of restrictions around gate-all-around or certain China customers added to the entity list?

Hi, Gary. Thanks for the question. And just to clarify, I think last quarter, I said, I expected China revenue to be flat to down this year, I think we still expect that. And that's because last year was such a strong year and there was a lot of -- there was kind of an oversized portion of that hardware catch-up that we had that was delivered to China. So I think it skewed the China number higher last year. So we're lapping pretty tough comps, but design activity in China remains very strong though. And we're -- we have a lot of diversification, there's strength in other parts of the world that we're very comfortable with the 2024 outlook. And we factored all the impact of geopolitical risk in there to the best we can and try to de-risk China as much as we can in our guide.

Okay. The follow-up I want to ask about bookings trends for the balance of the year. You obviously highlighted better than seasonal Q1 booking trends. How would you expect the bookings to play out for the balance of the year? And to what extent will Z3 and X3 factor into that for the balance of the year? Thank you.

Yeah. I mean, it's hard to predict in terms of Z3 and X3, but we definitely need another quarter to see that. I expect -- I mean, we expect strong demand and we expect strong revenue growth into the -- like we're preparing for scale into the second half on the hardware side, but we need to at least see another quarter of demand. And normally with hardware, I don't like taking up the year for hardware until I see the pipeline in the summer. But -- so we're trying to be conservative there. But generally on the hardware side, yeah, we're basically preparing for scale. We're trying to build -- we'll build those systems as quickly as possible. We expect strong demand there.

Your next question comes from the line of Jason Celino with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Hey, thanks for fitting me in. And Anirudh, congrats to your R&D team. It is impressive that they reduced the cycle there, all while designing that M1 box, too, right? So maybe first, just how many of the -- for the Z3 and X3, does it become available in Q3? I guess, when can customers start putting orders into that?

Yeah, first of all, thanks. And yes, they become available in -- now. Okay? And it'll ramp in -- but it will ramp Q3 and then Q4. But we already have them running at several early customers. So, I mean, normally when you -- when we announce something, as you know, like at one of our lead partners, they'll be running for three months already and very stable. But in general, it will be more Q3 and then Q4 in terms of -- because normally in any system, there is like a three- to six-month kind of a overlap. So we will still sell Z2, X2, and then move to Z3, X3. So, that's a natural part. And that's also contributing to this quarter-by-quarter variation a little bit. But it will ramp and Q3 will be bigger, and then Q4 should be bigger than that.

Yeah. We've tried to de-risk the guide with the assumption that there's going to be strong demand for the newer systems. But it'll give us the opportunity to put some of the older systems into the cloud because we have a large underserved community that want to use our emulation capacity. But we haven't had a lot of capacity to share with them through our cloud offering. To the extent we do that, that will lead to ratable revenue, though, because I think when it's used in the cloud, you get revenue over time. Whereas when we deliver and they use it on-prem, we take revenue upfront. Yeah.

But the demand is good, but it takes like one to two quarters to ramp. Yes.

Okay. Yes. Because that's kind of what I was going to ask next, is I think last time in 2021, you had like a six-month period where you were selling both. And I think you were trying to clear inventory for the Z1 and X1. Doesn't sound like you'll be trying to do that again. Because when I think about this Q2 air pocket, is it a function of customers waiting for Z3, X3 or is it a function of they might not want to buy the older version?

Well, the guide -- we've given us the guide on the assumption that many customers might wait. But we intend to sell them side by side. But to the extent the customers wait, it will shift some hardware revenue into the second half of the year and we've anticipated that. So, that's within the guide. To the extent the customers continue to buy Z2 and we're not putting those into the cloud, but selling those outright as well, well, then that will change the profile or the shape of revenue. But we expect that this new system -- the strength of this new system will trigger a lot of demand for it.

Okay. Perfect. Thank you both.

Your next question comes from the line of Vivek Arya with Bank of America Securities. Please go ahead.

Thank you for taking my question. I think you mentioned second half growth will be driven a lot more by hardware. Do you think you will see all the benefit of the hardware refreshed within this year? Will it be done? Will it continue into '25?

I guess, my bigger question really is that, if I exclude the upfront benefits from last year and this year, your recurring business is expected to grow about 10%. And I'm curious, Anirudh, is that in line with the kind of recurring revenue growth you are expecting or we should be expecting going forward, right, along with periodic hardware refreshes? Or is that not the right way to interpret your core recurring part of your business?

Vivek, good question. First of all, in non-recurring, it's not just hardware, but it's also IP in terms of the second half. Because like we mentioned, we have new IP business driven by HPM and AI and also by Intel IFS. So that is also back-end loaded along with hardware. And then hardware, normally when we launch a new system, it takes one or two years for it to fully -- so, even though we are not commenting about next year, I'd be surprised if this time it's only a six-month impact. So I expect like these things is built for, to be used in design for next five, seven years. So the impact will be also, not just this year, but following years.

And in terms of recurring revenue, I think the best way, like we have said is to look at a three-year CAGR basis, because there could be some fluctuation and all. And overall, we are pleased with the recurring revenue growth and we go from there. Yeah.

And Vivek, if I could, I'd like to kind of carry in some of Gary's question earlier that I don't think I addressed, because he was asking about the bookings profile for the year. Q2 for software renewals, I think is our lightest software renewals quarter for the year. But we -- I think we explained last quarter that we expect the weighting of bookings, first half to second half to be about 40:60 this year. But the recurring revenue right now in the guide is about double digits, about 10%. And in the past, it's been about 13%. Now, we're not really anticipating a huge number of add-ons, but to grow that above 10%, to the extent that that comes through, it'll be upside to the guide. But what we try to do when we do the guide is de-risk to -- for the risks that we can see.

Thank you. For my follow-up question on incremental EBIT margin, do you think this greater mix of hardware is impacting the incremental EBIT margin? I think if I calculated correctly, the new guidance is still below the 50% incremental, right, or right about, which is lower than what you have had the last two, three years? Is that the right interpretation? And what can change that?

Yeah, Vivek, I think what you're referring to really is that, I mean, for what, seven years in a row now, we think we've been achieving over 50% incremental margins. It's a matter of pride here. We try to achieve that every year. We'll certainly be trying to achieve that this year. I think we're in the high-40s, probably about 47% when you look at this guide right now. I think one of the biggest challenges with something like that is, you know we do small tuck-in M&A, but I don't want to go over Lee Simpson or the answer Anirudh gave to Lee Simpson, but organic is delicious here at Cadence. We focus on innovation and growing with organically-driven products and then with small tuck-in M&A. But to the extent that we do some larger M&A, and of course, we have BETA CAE, which apparently is a gold standard in structural simulation. So that's a big acquisition for us. But now I think the size of that probably still qualifies as a small tuck-in. But when you do something like that, that -- those M&A transactions typically are headwinds to that incremental margin calculation in the short-term. They'll be beneficial in the long-term, but in the short-term, M&A can be dilutive pretty much in the first year and then becomes accretive later.

When we look at our incremental margin, that's a headwind, but we try to overcome that headwind because normally all we do was these small tuck-in M&As. But -- so, I haven't given up on 50% incremental margin for this year. It's a challenge, but we'll do our best to achieve this.

Your final question will come from the line of Harlan Sur with J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. After a strong 2023, SDA is starting the year relatively flattish and down about 5% to 6% sequentially. I think it's in -- it feels like it's in an unusual starting point for SDA, especially given all of the drivers that you guys have articulated. Is SDA expected to also be more second half loaded? And do you expect SDA, this is ex-BETA CAE, but do you expect SDA to grow in line or faster than your overall corporate growth target for the full year?

Yeah, Harlan, that's a great question. And thanks for highlighting that because I had that on my list of things to say. I think there's something funny going on with the rounding on when you kind of apply the growth rates for SDA for Q1-over-Q1. The actual growth rate is probably high single digits, Q1-over-Q1. Now, I know that's lapping tough comps against Q1 '23. I think if you look on a two-year CAGR basis, I think it's up about 17% per annum on a two-year CAGR basis for SD&A. And the -- but we're expecting strong SD&A growth again this year and it'll be higher than the Cadence average. That's our expectation.

Great. Thanks for that. And then, Anirudh, lots of new accelerated compute AI SoC announcements just even over the past few weeks, right? We saw flagship Blackwell GPU announcement by one of your big customers, NVIDIA. But we've actually seen even more announcements by your cloud and hyperscale customers bringing their own custom AI ASICs to the market like Google, with TPU v5, Google with their ARM-based CPU ASIC, Meta unveiled their Gen2 TPU AI processor chips as well. And in addition to that, like their roadmaps seem to be accelerating. So can you give us an update on your systems and hyperscale customers? I mean, are you seeing the design activity accelerating within this customer base? And is the contribution mix from these customers rising above that sort of roughly 45% level going forward?

Yeah, Harlan, that's a very good observation. And the pace of AI innovation like is increasing and not just in the big semi companies, but of course, in these system companies. And I think several announcement did come out, right? And including, I think now Meta is public that Meta is designing a lot of silicon for AI. And, of course, Google, Microsoft, Amazon. So all the big really hyperscaler companies along with NVIDIA, AMD, Qualcomm, all the other kind of Samsung has AI phone this year. So, I mean, there is a lot of acceleration both on the semi side and on the system side. And we are involved with all the major players there and we're glad to provide our solutions.

And I do think -- and this is the other thesis we have talked about for years now, right, five, seven years that the system companies will do silicon because of a lot of reasons for customization, for schedule and supply chain control, for cost benefits if there is enough scale. And I think the workload of AI, like if you look at, I think some of the big hyperscaler and social media companies, they're talking about using like 20,000, 24,000 GPUs to train these new models. I mean, this is an immense amount.

And then the size of the model and the number of models increase, so that could go to a much, much higher number than right now that is required to train these models. And, of course, to do inference on these models. So, I think we are still in the early innings in terms of system companies developing their own chips and at the same time working with the semi companies. So, I expect that to grow and those that -- our business with those system companies doing silicon, I would like to say is growing faster than Cadence average. But the good thing is, the semi guys are also doing a lot of business. So I don't know if that's 45% will -- because that's a combination of a lot of companies, but overall the AI and hyperscalers, they are doing a lot more and then so are the big semi companies.

Perfect. Thank you.

I'll now turn it back over to Anirudh Devgan for closing remarks.

Thank you all for joining us this afternoon. It's an exciting time for Cadence as our broad portfolio and product leadership highly positions us to maximize the growing opportunities in the semiconductor and systems industry.

And on behalf of our employees and our Board of Directors, we thank our customers, partners, and investors for their continued trust and confidence in Cadence.

[Operator Closing Remarks]

Participants

Corporate executives.

Richard Gu, Vice President, Investor Relations
Anirudh Devgan, President and Chief Executive Officer
John Wall, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Joe Vruwink, Robert W. Baird & Co.
Charles Shi, Needham & Company
Lee Simpson, Morgan Stanley
Ruben Roy, Stifel
Jay Vleeschhouwer, Griffin Securities
Gary Mobley, Wells Fargo Securities
Jason Celino, KeyBanc Capital Markets
Vivek Arya, BofA Securities
Harlan Sur, J.P. Morgan

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Key facts about the abortion debate in America

A woman receives medication to terminate her pregnancy at a reproductive health clinic in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on June 23, 2022, the day before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which had guaranteed a constitutional right to an abortion for nearly 50 years.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2022 ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade – the decision that had guaranteed a constitutional right to an abortion for nearly 50 years – has shifted the legal battle over abortion to the states, with some prohibiting the procedure and others moving to safeguard it.

As the nation’s post-Roe chapter begins, here are key facts about Americans’ views on abortion, based on two Pew Research Center polls: one conducted from June 25-July 4 , just after this year’s high court ruling, and one conducted in March , before an earlier leaked draft of the opinion became public.

This analysis primarily draws from two Pew Research Center surveys, one surveying 10,441 U.S. adults conducted March 7-13, 2022, and another surveying 6,174 U.S. adults conducted June 27-July 4, 2022. Here are the questions used for the March survey , along with responses, and the questions used for the survey from June and July , along with responses.

Everyone who took part in these surveys is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the ATP’s methodology .

A majority of the U.S. public disapproves of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe. About six-in-ten adults (57%) disapprove of the court’s decision that the U.S. Constitution does not guarantee a right to abortion and that abortion laws can be set by states, including 43% who strongly disapprove, according to the summer survey. About four-in-ten (41%) approve, including 25% who strongly approve.

A bar chart showing that the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade draws more strong disapproval among Democrats than strong approval among Republicans

About eight-in-ten Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (82%) disapprove of the court’s decision, including nearly two-thirds (66%) who strongly disapprove. Most Republicans and GOP leaners (70%) approve , including 48% who strongly approve.

Most women (62%) disapprove of the decision to end the federal right to an abortion. More than twice as many women strongly disapprove of the court’s decision (47%) as strongly approve of it (21%). Opinion among men is more divided: 52% disapprove (37% strongly), while 47% approve (28% strongly).

About six-in-ten Americans (62%) say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, according to the summer survey – little changed since the March survey conducted just before the ruling. That includes 29% of Americans who say it should be legal in all cases and 33% who say it should be legal in most cases. About a third of U.S. adults (36%) say abortion should be illegal in all (8%) or most (28%) cases.

A line graph showing public views of abortion from 1995-2022

Generally, Americans’ views of whether abortion should be legal remained relatively unchanged in the past few years , though support fluctuated somewhat in previous decades.

Relatively few Americans take an absolutist view on the legality of abortion – either supporting or opposing it at all times, regardless of circumstances. The March survey found that support or opposition to abortion varies substantially depending on such circumstances as when an abortion takes place during a pregnancy, whether the pregnancy is life-threatening or whether a baby would have severe health problems.

While Republicans’ and Democrats’ views on the legality of abortion have long differed, the 46 percentage point partisan gap today is considerably larger than it was in the recent past, according to the survey conducted after the court’s ruling. The wider gap has been largely driven by Democrats: Today, 84% of Democrats say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, up from 72% in 2016 and 63% in 2007. Republicans’ views have shown far less change over time: Currently, 38% of Republicans say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, nearly identical to the 39% who said this in 2007.

A line graph showing that the partisan gap in views of whether abortion should be legal remains wide

However, the partisan divisions over whether abortion should generally be legal tell only part of the story. According to the March survey, sizable shares of Democrats favor restrictions on abortion under certain circumstances, while majorities of Republicans favor abortion being legal in some situations , such as in cases of rape or when the pregnancy is life-threatening.

There are wide religious divides in views of whether abortion should be legal , the summer survey found. An overwhelming share of religiously unaffiliated adults (83%) say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, as do six-in-ten Catholics. Protestants are divided in their views: 48% say it should be legal in all or most cases, while 50% say it should be illegal in all or most cases. Majorities of Black Protestants (71%) and White non-evangelical Protestants (61%) take the position that abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while about three-quarters of White evangelicals (73%) say it should be illegal in all (20%) or most cases (53%).

A bar chart showing that there are deep religious divisions in views of abortion

In the March survey, 72% of White evangelicals said that the statement “human life begins at conception, so a fetus is a person with rights” reflected their views extremely or very well . That’s much greater than the share of White non-evangelical Protestants (32%), Black Protestants (38%) and Catholics (44%) who said the same. Overall, 38% of Americans said that statement matched their views extremely or very well.

Catholics, meanwhile, are divided along religious and political lines in their attitudes about abortion, according to the same survey. Catholics who attend Mass regularly are among the country’s strongest opponents of abortion being legal, and they are also more likely than those who attend less frequently to believe that life begins at conception and that a fetus has rights. Catholic Republicans, meanwhile, are far more conservative on a range of abortion questions than are Catholic Democrats.

Women (66%) are more likely than men (57%) to say abortion should be legal in most or all cases, according to the survey conducted after the court’s ruling.

More than half of U.S. adults – including 60% of women and 51% of men – said in March that women should have a greater say than men in setting abortion policy . Just 3% of U.S. adults said men should have more influence over abortion policy than women, with the remainder (39%) saying women and men should have equal say.

The March survey also found that by some measures, women report being closer to the abortion issue than men . For example, women were more likely than men to say they had given “a lot” of thought to issues around abortion prior to taking the survey (40% vs. 30%). They were also considerably more likely than men to say they personally knew someone (such as a close friend, family member or themselves) who had had an abortion (66% vs. 51%) – a gender gap that was evident across age groups, political parties and religious groups.

Relatively few Americans view the morality of abortion in stark terms , the March survey found. Overall, just 7% of all U.S. adults say having an abortion is morally acceptable in all cases, and 13% say it is morally wrong in all cases. A third say that having an abortion is morally wrong in most cases, while about a quarter (24%) say it is morally acceptable in most cases. An additional 21% do not consider having an abortion a moral issue.

A table showing that there are wide religious and partisan differences in views of the morality of abortion

Among Republicans, most (68%) say that having an abortion is morally wrong either in most (48%) or all cases (20%). Only about three-in-ten Democrats (29%) hold a similar view. Instead, about four-in-ten Democrats say having an abortion is morally acceptable in most (32%) or all (11%) cases, while an additional 28% say it is not a moral issue.

White evangelical Protestants overwhelmingly say having an abortion is morally wrong in most (51%) or all cases (30%). A slim majority of Catholics (53%) also view having an abortion as morally wrong, but many also say it is morally acceptable in most (24%) or all cases (4%), or that it is not a moral issue (17%). Among religiously unaffiliated Americans, about three-quarters see having an abortion as morally acceptable (45%) or not a moral issue (32%).

Religion & Abortion

Jane Doe is a a research analyst focusing on social and demographic research at Pew Research Center

What the data says about abortion in the U.S.

Support for legal abortion is widespread in many countries, especially in europe, nearly a year after roe’s demise, americans’ views of abortion access increasingly vary by where they live, by more than two-to-one, americans say medication abortion should be legal in their state, most latinos say democrats care about them and work hard for their vote, far fewer say so of gop, most popular.

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ABOUT PEW RESEARCH CENTER Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts .

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2024 federal budget's key takeaways: Housing and carbon rebates, students and sin taxes

Budget sees nearly $53b in new spending over the next 5 years.

What's in the new federal budget?

Social sharing.

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland today tabled a 400-page-plus budget her government is pitching as a balm for anxious millennials and Generation Z.

The budget proposes $52.9 billion in new spending over five years, including $8.5 billion in new spending for housing. To offset some of that new spending, Ottawa is pitching policy changes to bring in new revenue.

Here are some of the notable funding initiatives and legislative commitments in budget 2024.

Ottawa unloading unused offices to meet housing targets

One of the biggest pillars of the budget is its housing commitments. Before releasing the budget, the government laid out what it's calling Canada's Housing Plan — a pledge to "unlock" nearly 3.9 million homes by 2031.

A man in a hooded sweatshirt walks past a row of colourful houses

The government says two million of those would be net new homes and it believes it can contribute to more than half of them.

It plans to do that by:

Converting underused federal offices into homes. The budget promises $1.1 billion over ten years to transform 50 per cent of the federal office portfolio into housing.
Building homes on Canada Post properties. The government says the 1,700-plus Canada Post offices across the country can be used to build new homes while maintaining postal services. The federal government says it's assessing six Canada Post properties in Quebec, Alberta and British Columbia for development potential "as a start."
Rethinking National Defence properties. The government is promising to look at redeveloping properties and buildings on National Defence lands for military and civilian use.
Building apartments. Ottawa is pledging a $15 billion top-up to the Apartment Construction Loan Program, which says it will build 30,000 new homes across Canada.

Taxing vacant land?

As part of its push on housing, the federal government also says it's looking at vacant land that could be used to build homes.

It's not yet committing to new measures but the budget says the government will consider introducing a new tax on residentially zoned vacant land.

Freeland's new federal budget hikes taxes on the rich to cover billions in new spending
Are you renting with no plans to buy? Here's what the federal budget has for you

The government said it plans to launch consultations on the measure later this year.

Help for students

There's also something in the budget for students hunting for housing.

A student with short black hair and wearing a denim jacket reads through university course materials in a seated indoor area on campus, with other students seated and working behind them.

The government says it will update the formula used by the Canada Student Financial Assistance Program to calculate housing costs when determining financial need, to better reflect the cost of housing in the current climate.

The government estimates this could deliver more aid for rent to approximately 79,000 students each year, at an estimated cost of $154.6 million over five years.

Updated Federal budget's funding boost for defence spread out over multiple years
Liberals pledge $9B in new money for Indigenous communities in 2024 budget

The government is also promising to extend increased student grants and interest-free loans, at an estimated total cost of $1.1 billion this year.

Increase in taxes on capital gains

To help cover some of its multi-billion dollar commitments, the government is proposing a tax hike on capital gains — the profit individuals make when assets like stocks and second properties are sold.

The government is proposing an increase in the taxable portion of capital gains, up from the current 50 per cent to two thirds for annual capital gains over $250,000.

New investment to lead 'housing revolution in Canada,' Freeland says

Freeland said the change would impact the wealthiest 0.1 per cent.

There's still some protection for small businesses. There's been a lifetime capital gains exemption which allows Canadians to exempt up to $1,016,836 in capital gains tax-free on the sale of small business shares and farming and fishing property. This June the tax-free limit will be increased to $1.25 million and will continue to be indexed to inflation thereafter, according to the budget.

The federal government estimates this could bring in more than $19 billion over five years, although some analysts are not convinced.

Disability benefit amounts to $200 per month

Parliament last year passed the Canada Disability Benefit Act, which promised to send a direct benefit to low-income, working-age people with disabilities.

Budget 2024 proposes funding of $6.1 billion over six years, beginning this fiscal year, and $1.4 billion per year ongoing, for a new Canada Disability Benefit.

Advocates had been hoping for something along the lines of $1,000 per month per person . They'll be disappointed.

According to the budget document, the maximum benefit will amount to $2,400 per year for low income individuals with disabilities between the ages of 18 and 64 — about $200 a month.

Federal government plans to lease public lands for construction through new housing strategy
Alberta premier says she's prepared to take Ottawa to court over housing deals

The government said it plans for the Canada Disability Benefit Act to come into force in June 2024 and for payments to start in July 2025.

Carbon rebate for small businesses coming

The federal government has heard an earful from small business advocates who accuse it of reneging on a promise to return a portion of carbon pricing revenues to small businesses to mitigate the tax's economic costs.

What's behind the carbon tax, and does it work?
Federal government scales back carbon tax rebates for small businesses

The budget proposes to return fuel charge proceeds from 2019-20 through 2023-24 to an estimated 600,000 businesses with 499 or fewer employees through a new refundable tax credit.

The government said this would deliver $2.5 billion directly to Canada's small- and medium-sized businesses.

Darts and vape pods will cost more

Pitching it as a measure to cut the number of people smoking and vaping, the Liberals are promising to raise revenues on tobacco and smoking products.

Just Asking wants to know: What questions do you have about quitting smoking or vaping? Do you think sin taxes will encourage smoking cessation? Fill out the details on this form and send us your questions ahead of our show on April 20.

Starting Wednesday, the total tobacco excise duty will be $5.49 per carton. The government estimates this could increase federal revenue by $1.36 billion over five years starting in 2024-25.

A man exhales vapor while using a vape pen in Vancouver.

The budget also proposes to increase the vaping excise duty rates by 12 per cent effective July 1. That means an increase of 12 to 24 cents per pod, depending on where you live.

'Stay the hell away from our kids': Health minister vows to restrict nicotine pouches — but how?

Ottawa hopes this increase in sin taxes will bring in $310 million over five years, starting in 2024-25.

More money for CBC

Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge has mused about redefining the role of the public broadcaster before the next federal election . But before that happens, CBC/Radio-Canada is getting a top-up this year.

The budget promises $42 million more in 2024-25 for CBC/Radio-Canada for "news and entertainment programming." CBC/Radio-Canada received about $1.3 billion in total federal funding last year.

The government says it's doing this to ensure that Canadians across the country, including rural, remote, Indigenous and minority language communities, have access to independent journalism and entertainment.

Last year, the CBC announced a financial shortfall, cut 141 employees and eliminated 205 vacant positions. In a statement issued Tuesday, CBC spokesperson Leon Mar said the new funding means the corporation can balance its budget "without significant additional reductions this year."

Boost for Canada's spy agency

A grey and white sign reading Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

As the government takes heat over how it has handled the threat of foreign election interference, it's promising more money to bolster its spy service.

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service is in line to receive $655.7 million over eight years, starting this fiscal year, to enhance its intelligence capabilities and its presence in Toronto.

CSIS chief defends his spies' work after PM casts doubt on reliability of agency's reports
Trudeau says it's his job to question CSIS intelligence, call out 'contradictions'

The budget also promises to guarantee up to $5 billion in loans for Indigenous communities to participate in natural resource development and energy projects in their territories.

These loans would be provided by financial institutions or other lenders and guaranteed by the federal government, meaning Indigenous borrowers who opt in could benefit from lower interest rates, the budget says.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Catharine Tunney is a reporter with CBC's Parliament Hill bureau, where she covers national security and the RCMP. She worked previously for CBC in Nova Scotia. You can reach her at [email protected]

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Thank You Any Questions Slide Templates With Samples and Examples
Template 4: Any questions Slide Presentation Template. The slide is expert-designed to help presenters share a professional closing note while inviting queries and discussions toward the end. It shares a clear visual prompt symbolized by a silhouette with a question mark. This PPT Design will help facilitators create a dialogue post ...
A Better Solution To "Do You Have Any Questions?"
Speakers can do several things in that situation, including these three techniques: Say something like, "You know, one of the questions I'm asked a lot is…" and answer it yourself. Ask an audience member a specific question, such as, "I spoke about Subject X earlier. What did you think about that?".
Do you end with a 'thank you' or 'questions?' slide?
While I fully agree, I have a problem not having a 'thank you. any questions' slide. I always end with a graphical summary showing figures people have seen before, and say: 'that's it. any questions' or something like that. The problem I've had is that the audience is often not sure that the talk is really finished.
Better Question Slides for PowerPoint Presentations
2. Ask specific questions. We recommend leaving out the "Any Questions?" slide at the end, but if you still insist on using something similar, this is the way to go. It is an insanely easy tip, but it has great impact. Instead of just asking if there are any questions, you just assume there are some and ask your own questions accordingly.
PDF starting and ending presentations simplest responses
If the phrase can be used both at the beginning and end of a presentation, hold up both cards. If it is only used in the middle of the presentation, leave both cards down. Label the sections below with Start/ End/ Both/ Middle. Label the beginning and ending sections above with their functions, e.g. "Getting people's attention".
Presentations: When to Take Questions
Fortunately, there is a simple and effective solution: Take questions just before your concluding remarks. Suppose you have 45 minutes to give a presentation and you want to allow 10 minutes for questions. That leaves you with 35 minutes of speaking time. Here's what you can do: Structure your presentation so that you cover your points in 30 ...
Any Questions Slides for PowerPoint Presentations
The Any Questions slide is a vital element of a well-rounded presentation. This slide typically appears towards the end of the presentation and signals that the presenter has finished presenting their main points. It often incorporates graphics and images to engage the audience. The benefits of using an Any Questions slide are numerous.
How To Navigate Your Presentation Q And A Session Like A Pro
Encouraging audience participation as a moderator is vital for a successful Q&A session or discussion. Start by creating a friendly and open atmosphere, setting clear expectations, and using open-ended questions that invite thoughtful responses. Actively engage with participants, ask follow-up questions, and acknowledge their contributions to ...
Guide for Handling Questions after a Presentation
Some speakers prefer questions to be raised as they arise during the presentation. The advantage of this approach is that any misunderstandings can be dealt with immediately. However, there is also a danger that the question will disrupt or distract the speaker, or that questions are raised that would have been covered later in the presentation ...
5 Tips for Handling Questions During a Presentation
Greet them at the door, chat with audience members. Hold Q&A until the end. At the start, say "I only have 30 minutes to speak. I'm going to stay within that timeline but I'll leave 5 minutes at the end for questions.". To alert hecklers they can't monopolize the floor, open the Q&A period with "I have 5 minutes for questions.
Dealing With Questions
Some speakers prefer questions to be raised as they arise during the presentation. The advantage of this approach is that any misunderstandings can be dealt with immediately. However, there is also a danger that the question will disrupt or distract the speaker, or that questions are raised that would have been covered later in the presentation.
Engage Your Audience with Three Types of Questions
The key is to ask questions that might be on their minds. You pose the question and they think, "That's a good question. I what to hear the answer.". Imagine that. Conclusion. Questions are much more engaging than statements. Use questions throughout your presentation to keep your audience interested. Sprinkle these three types of ...
How to Handle Questions During a Presentation
by lunchtime on Thursday. Obviously you change the time in the last part to be something you can handle. The first line is a simple admission that you've not got the answer to hand. The second part is where you start to recover. The last line is the critical one though. This is how you sound credible to the audience.
Tips for Managing the Q&A Part of Your Presentation
Try to give a brief summary at the time. Relevant Repeat the question for those who may not have heard it. Answer it simply and concisely; thank the questioner. Inappropriate Try 'I don't think that question is appropriate here. As time is short, perhaps you would care to come and see me afterwards to discuss it.'.
How to Handle Questions and Answer Sessions During Presentations
4 Schedule your Q&A session. The majority of Q&A sessions take place at the end of a presentation, but sometimes they happen in the middle. Then again, maybe the speakers right before you invited people to ask questions all throughout their presentations. Tell your audience up front when the Q&A session will take place.
Any Questions Slide
In addition to the introduction, body, and conclusion, your presentation should include time for answering questions from the audience. While you should interact with the audience as you speak, there will be a separate time frame for answering the questions, depending on the purpose of your speech. In addition, if the audience is small and … Continue reading "Any Questions Slide"
How to handle questions during a presentation
1. Tell the audience in advance when you will be taking questions. One of things that can sometimes throw you off course is being asked a question when you are mid-flow through a presentation or least expect it. It can interrupt your train of thought and momentarily put you off balance. One way to avoid this is to agree in advance when you will ...
How to Use Open-Ended Questions in Presentations
To ask effective open-ended questions, start by establishing a clear and specific goal such as exploring a problem, generating ideas, assessing knowledge, or soliciting opinions. Consider the ...
Any Question Google Slides and PowerPoint Templates
Questions are the keys that unlock doors to new knowledge, ideas, and insights. Engaging your audience is an essential aspect of any presentation, and any question slide is an excellent tool for achieving this goal. The purpose of this slide is to encourage your audience to participate actively in the discussion and share their thoughts and ...
The 5 Questions to Ask About Every PowerPoint You Make
By contrast, putting each slide's point into the title space vastly improves the chances that your audience will realize and remember that point. Consider these slide title evolutions from ...
160 Questions to Ask After a Presentation
Demand questions after a presentation isn't right one formality; it's a keyboard to deeper understanding, reflection, and connection. Or you're seeking gloss, offering feedback, alternatively probing into the thoughts and processes behind the content, the right questions can turn a setup presentation into a lively discussion.
10 Better Ways to Say "If You Have Any Questions"
The preferred synonyms are "if there's anything else that you'd like to know," "let me know if you think of anything else," and " do you have any questions?". These phrases work well to introduce the idea that someone is allowed to ask you questions without feeling bad about it.
Editable Any Questions PowerPoint Template and Google Slides
Any Questions PowerPoint Template is a powerful presentation creation tool that allows you to create a custom presentation in no time. It is a well-designed template and ready for use. It also includes many features like the ability to change the background, apply different effects, and the option to include animation, transitions, etc.
Are You Asking the Right Questions?
April 16, 2024. Few leaders have been trained to ask great questions. That might explain why they tend to be good at certain kinds of questions, and less effective at other kinds. Unfortunately ...
Cadence Design Systems Earnings Transcript (NASDAQ:CDNS)
After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Thank you. ... it was interesting, of course, to hear the adoption presentations by Renesas, Intel ...
Key facts about abortion views in the U.S.
Here are the questions used for the March survey, along with responses, and the questions used for the survey from June and July, along with responses. ... There are wide religious divides in views of whether abortion should be legal, the summer survey found. An overwhelming share of religiously unaffiliated adults (83%) say abortion should be ...
2024 federal budget's key takeaways: Housing and carbon rebates
Budget 2024 proposes funding of $6.1 billion over six years, beginning this fiscal year, and $1.4 billion per year ongoing, for a new Canada Disability Benefit. Advocates had been hoping for ...

Thank You Any Questions Slide Templates With Samples and Examples

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