Are you harnessing the power of panel discussions as a cost effective way to spark ideas and create dialog amongst your internal team?

What is a panel discussion?

Panel discussions are often the centerpiece of modern conferences, events, and virtual events that create conversation between experts or industry thought leaders, so that the audience can learn from their discourse and interaction. 

The panel discussion format usually goes like this: subject matter experts gather on stage or in front of the camera to discuss a specific topic and offer their perspectives. The panelists share facts and experiences, express opinions, and answer questions from the moderator and each other. The moderator keeps the momentum going, facilitates discussion, and manages questions from the in person or virtual audience. 

Why host a panel discussion for your business? 

Success in your business can be dependent on communicating and inspiring their team members to keep everyone rowing the boat in the same direction. Holding business panel discussions is a way to accomplish engaging, thought provoking discussion of topics that affect different parts of business operations. They can be used to present technical topics, disseminate big ideas or promote company culture and values.

A well run panel discussion should be: 

• Be thought-provoking and insightful

• Present smart perspectives on a companywide issue

• Educate, inspire, and spark audience curiosity

Set your agenda and purpose

Decide what goal you hope to achieve with your panel. Your purpose could be anything from bringing a deeper understanding of company ethos, showcasing a new product or service to employees (just like every Marine is a rifleman, every employee is a salesperson), to providing updates on the competition or industry trends. Panels can even be used for team building or showcase your brand’s personality and strengthen the brand connection with employees.

Choose the right panelists

Once you’ve got your topic of discussion, choose your speakers so that they’ll be able to cover different angles and unique perspectives to keep the conversation interesting to listen to. For example, if you are using your panel discussion to introduce your team to a new product, you should have speakers from different departments with different perspectives on the product. You may have an engineer with understanding of its features, someone from marketing with knowledge of the public facing marketing campaign, someone from sales that knows how to sell it and an operations person who understands the logistics. At the end of this discussion, anyone on your team should have a holistic understanding of your new product and all the important details that might get left out of a simple product launch announcement.

Have a strong moderator

The moderator controls the conversation, prompts discussion and keeps the panelists on time and on topic. A good moderator can turn a simple sharing session into an active and fascinating discussion by asking open ended, thought provoking questions. 

Other moderator responsibilities include:

• Managing the time and keeping the conversation moving 

• Preventing any one panelists from dominating the discussion 

• Steering the discussion in the right direction and keeping things from getting off topic

• Clarifying jargon, terminology, or concepts the audience may not be familiar with

• Facilitating any Q&A sessions

Engage the audience

Panel discussions benefit immensely from being audience-focused. Event planners should try to find ways to get audiences to participate in the discussion as often as possible through live polls or Q&A with the panelists. This is especially important if the panel discussion will be streamed.

One simple but impactful thing you can do is to start with a poll to set context for the discussion. For example, if your panel is about company social responsibility, you could run a multiple-choice poll at the start to see what sorts of activities your team supports, and then use that as a jumping-off point for the panelists to comment on. 

Summary

Panel discussions are a relatively simple, cost efficient way to keep your team informed and engaged. They promote understanding and discussion as well as allow you to solicit feedback from your employees in real time.  If you’re interested in filming or live streaming your company panel discussion, contact Max Lux Media today to set up a discussion at your headquarters, or schedule a panel in our business studio.