NLPES Question of the Month Forum

The NLPES Executive Committee places information on the NLPES web site that highlights good practices, helps members to improve their day-to-day work, and encourages professional development. The Question of the Month is one way to accomplish this professional development.

Each month, NLPES listserve members will receive a "Question of the Month" about evaluation or management practices via e-mail, and members will be invited to submit responses. Each email contains a link to this page where you can input a response and/or read responses from others. You may also expand the discussion by responding to comments by others. Please do not feel limited by the scope of the initial question.

If you have suggestions for a new Question of the Month, contact Joel Alter, Minnesota Office of the Legislative Auditor (651-296-8313). Responses to previous Questions of the Month can be viewed in the Previous Questions Archive.

Q&A Postings

Apr-2008: Advice for testifying
WHAT ARE SOME GOOD RULES TO REMEMBER WHEN TESTIFYING BEFORE A LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE? (Feel free to discuss specific experiences--good or bad--you've had when testifying before committees. Offer some advice or rules of thumb that might be helpful to your colleagues.)

Submitted By: David Juppe from Md Dept of Legislative Services, MD Date Posted: 04-23-08
1. Know your material 2. Keep it brief. The committees are very busy. 10 minutes is a good target but obviously it depends on the number of issues or findings. 3. Hit the main points. You don't need to cover every single finding (we see many people who do) 4. Use PowerPoint. Create a more user friendly presentation document. It will help you focus your thoughts and pick the main points that you want to emphasize 5. For earth shattering findings ask committee staff to set up a pre-meeting with the chairs to discuss. Committee members don't like surprises and like a venue to ask some questions or hear about the item before the formal presentation 6. Jot down follow up questions, including who asked them. After the presentation prepare a letter with any responses addressed to the chair and cc all members. 7. Be conversational and look at the members as you speak. DO NOT READ. Nothing is more painful to sit through. Some chairs actually will stop a presentation and ask you to summarize your main points if they see a presenter reading. 8. Take something to drink. If you get nervous take a drink. It's a natural looking break in the presentation. 9. If you don't know an answer to a question, just say you'll get back to the member. Don't free lance an answer. It can hurt your credibility and members can always sniff out a fraud. 10. Be mindful of your pacing. Members don't get anything out a presentation that's delivered at a breakneck speed.
That's all I can think of off the top of my head, based on giving, watching, and training folks on presenting reports before legislative committees for 19 years.
David

Submitted By: John Sylvia from Performance Evaluation & Research Division, WV Date Posted: 04-23-08
I tell staff here that you can spend months on producing a good report, but if the testimony to the committee is not very good, then it is like fumbling the football on the one yard line. First and foremost I would encourage everyone to try to develop the ability to present your report without a written script. Reading your testimony entirely from a script is simply not the best way. Develop the ability to speak from an outline or list of the highpoints. This will allow you to make good eye contact with your audience, which is important. 2) PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE. Do not think you can go before a group and do a good presentation without having done the presentation several times prior to the meeting. Even when you are not using a script, practice how you are going to speak on each point. If you must use a script, read it so frequently prior to the presentation that you almost have it memorized and you can take your eyes off the script and not lose you place. Our staff will practice their presentations before other staff and we try to anticipate questions from legislators. 3) VOICE INFLECTION is extremely important. When you are at transitional points, or when you are about to say something important, change the pitch of your voice! Keep their attention! 4) After you have made an important point, PAUSE to give listeners a few seconds to think about what you just said. Do not speak too fast. People need time to receive and process information. 5) When answering questions, be very attentive to the questions, and be very succinct in your answers. If you do not know the answer, SAY YOU DON'T KNOW. 6) Use visual tools in your presentations. In most cases, the report itself is the most convenient and effective visual tool to use as a basis for your presentation. Direct their attention to information in the report, such as quotes, graphs, tables, etc., and then explain the material. Give them time to find the pages. Using the report as your visual tool helps them become more familiar with the report. The report becomes more meaningful. Use Powerpoint only when it is necessary. If the report has everything in it (visually speaking), then it is generally a better visual tool than Powerpoint. The report is more convenient for you to present and for legislators to follow. Legislators can read the report during your presentation at their own pace, and mark the report for future reference, which is not always the case in Powerpoint presentations. If you want to make points in more detail or more graphically than the report provides then Powerpoint may be best.
There are obviously other tips that can be given in making effective presentations to legislative committees. Those listed above are some of the important ones.

Submitted By: Melanie M. Chesney from Office of the Auditor General, AZ Date Posted: 04-23-08
When testifying before a legislative committee, I always keep these main rules of thumb in mind and ask my staff to do the same: 1) Be concise in your response and related to that, be sure that the response actually addresses the question and 2) If you do not know the answer, let the legislators know that and offer to get back to them later with the answer - never make something up or just take a guess.

Submitted By: Kathy McGuire from OPPAGA, FL Date Posted: 04-24-08
In addition to David's good advice, I would add to be careful about when a question posed by a legislator is not a question! Many times during testimony, a legislator will appear to pose a question, but as the question continues, it becomes clear that in fact he or she is making a rhetorical comment and making any response other than a nod would not be appropriate.
Also, in Flordia it is generally appropriate to ask the chair's permission before responding to a question during testimony.

Submitted By: Joel Alter from Office of the Legislative Auditor, MN Date Posted: 04-25-08
The suggestions above are good ones--I'll add a few thoughts and try not to duplicate what's been said. (1) Be prepared for "worst case scenarios." For example, what happens if you get in front of the committee and your Powerpoint machine doesn't work? (Yes, it's happened to me...) It's one reason I distribute paper copies of slides to supplement the slides on the screen--but, as David said, there's no excuse for "knowing your material" when problems arise. Also, be prepared to turn what you thought would be a 15-minute presentation into a 5-minute one, if the committee is squeezed for time. (2) Know your committee members, to the extent you can. This might mean finding out what bills members have authored on your topic in the past, or reminding yourself what questions certain members posed to you at the outset of your evaluation. Or, it might mean tailoring your presentation to include/exclude examples that relate to certain members' regions.
(3) Kathy made the good observation that some "questions" from legislators are rhetorical and don't necessarily require a response. Very true--but there are also occasions when legislators' comments are factually incorrect, and finding a diplomatic way to respond with evidence from your report may be appropriate. (4) Finally, sometimes it may be necessary to clarify to a committee why you are testifying. A legislator drafted a bill intended to address issues raised in a report by our office, and it was even listed on the committee agenda as the "OLA Bill"--giving the impression that our office drafted the legislation (which we don't do, and it was debatable whether some parts of this bill were the best way to accomplish what we recommended). The author asked me to testify on the bill when it was presented in committee. I did--mainly to answer questions about our report's findings and clarify how the bill related to our specific recommendations. I also tried to clarify (tactfully, I hope) that the provisions of the bill were one of several ways that the issues raised in our report could be addressed.

Submitted By: Greg Fugate from Office of the State Auditor, CO Date Posted: 04-25-08
Most of our audit staff present before our Legislative Audit Committee, and the Committee and staff have developed a relationship and standard presentation format. Staff have training, including a mock LAC Hearing, to emphasize many of the points that others have made. Personally, I've found that testifying before other committees in the legislature is often more challenging because they (1) aren't as familiar with our audits, (2) don't operate the same way the Audit Committee does, and (3) have other business they are trying to accomplish. So, part of the preparation when testifying is to know who is on the committee (including party affiliations and districts represented). Party politics are generally not overtly at play on the Audit Committee, but you don't want to get caught off guard by this in another committee. Know why they are asking you to testify and what they expect you to cover. Are they looking for a quick summary of the report, a status update on the implementation of recommendations, or do they want you to go through each finding? I've also found that when other committees request us to testify about our reports, some type of proposed legislation may be the end goal. Know what the committee's goal is and how they might use your testimony. Be careful not to cross the line from being an auditor to being a lobbyist. Finally, be careful when presenting or answering questions not to disclose information not included in the report. Our auditors are instructed to stick to the facts, findings, and recommendations as outlined in the report.

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