We’ve spoken about the power of questions. But while you know the right questions (in the right order) can lead to answers that stimulate learning, the exchange of ideas, and fuel innovation and performance improvement–HOW do you develop these questions?

Below we offer up three proven methods for developing questions that include conversations, brainstorming, and changing perspectives. Questions, that when applied properly, ensure Meetings That Get Results.

CONVERSATIONS

The quickest and simplest method of developing questions relies on having conversations with others, especially your meeting participants.  Develop a list of questions that all stakeholders would like to answer by asking them what questions they would like to answer. Our conversations are considered CONFIDENTIAL so that no one is at risk when ‘speaking their mind.’ 

Use the following set of stress-tested questions to use during conversations with potential workshop participants, before the session. They are open-ended, precise, and optimally sequenced.

• • “What do you expect from the session?”
  • “What will make the workshop a complete failure?”
  • “What should the output look like?”
  • “What problems do you foresee?”
  • “Who should attend the workshop? Who should not? Why?”
  • “What is going to be our biggest obstacle?”
  • “What questions do you think we should answer?”
  • “What should I have asked that I didn’t ask?”

Example

During our preparation phase, we conducted conversations with meeting participants from a nationally recognized and respected client. After the conversations concluded and duplications were eliminated we developed a list of 39 discrete questions participants were hoping to answer throughout a two-day workshop.

By working with the executive sponsor (e.g., product owner), we developed nine distinct questions that needed to be answered during the workshop, in addition to standard activities like Introduction, Updates, and Conclusion. By distributing a Participant’s Package in advance, we were able to manage expectations. We shared the final questions that would be addressed while letting them know that other questions they raised would not be answered within the two-day timeframe.

The driving question for the session was to determine what could be done to improve client penetration. But we viewed that question as too broad and difficult to answer. The answers would be unstructured and difficult to prevent scope creep. Yet, from conversations in advance, we began to sense how ‘improving client penetration” (Y) was a function of many (Xs).

Nine Stakeholder-Driven Questions

Here are nine of the major questions that our conversations yielded:

1. What can we do to improve insights on where clients need to improve? In response, what steps should both we and they take?
2. What can we do to improve the quality of our presentation deck as a pre-read, presentation support, or as a stand-alone, leave-behind document?
3. What can we do to improve client engagement and satisfaction during our presentation of insights and recommendations?
4. What should we do to demonstrate the impact of improvements in customer experience on business results for individual clients?
5. What is required to illustrate the impact of customer experience on stockholder value?
6. What needs to be done to develop an approach for prioritizing clients with the highest potential for additional sales?
7. What might a model of client interaction look like before, during, and after the presentation?
8. What model might create thought leadership content for multi-channel distribution that identifies urgent and pervasive issues, risks/rewards of not taking/ taking action, and solutions?
9. What should we do to create written stories that increase the perception of our expertise and solutions?

BRAINSTORMING FOR QUESTIONS

Hal Gregerson, Executive Director of the MIT Leadership Center and co-author of “The Innovator’s DNA” and four other books has his clients focus on questions for breakthrough insights.

“Brainstorming for questions rather than answers makes it easier to push past cognitive biases and venture into uncharted territory.”

Staging

Gregerson suggests a straightforward three-step approach that supports the tri-part approach we’ve always advised; i.e., diverge, analyze, and converge. Once a challenge has been identified and articulated, he suggests setting the stage with a heterogeneous group that offers unique perspectives.

Ideating

Leverage the various perspectives using at least two of our Ground Rules of Ideation, namely high energy and no discussion. Stress the latter to provide highly effective facilitation. Do NOT be the first one to violate the rule of no discussion by asking for clarification or additional information when you are in the listing or ideation mode. 

Don’t forget to enforce the rules for all other participants as well. Stick to verbatim for the time being, that will probably not exceed six to eight minutes. Enforce participant contributions to come in the form of questions and prohibit answers and ALL discussion during this step. Do not permit framing or justifying the questions during the ideation mode. Strictly enforce contributions that are provided exclusively as questions.

Encouraging

Experience shows that not all questions offer equal value, therefore encourage participants with principles such as:

• Suggest divergent thinking by assigning different perspectives (more on this in the next section)
• Ask for open-ended questions keeping in mind that shorter may be better, but eventually understand that complex questions will yield richer insight than simple questions
• Encourage speculative questions (e.g., What might be?”) rather than simple descriptive questions (e.g., “What’s working?”)
• Strive for evidence-based angles meaning facts, examples, and objective characteristics rather than accusatory or based on WHO rather than WHAT
• Remove fear and any sense of reprisal, providing permission to speak freely

Analyzing

Facilitative tools that help sharpen the questions rely on challenging participants to make their thinking clear. Consider the Five WHYs and SCAMPER as immediate and appropriate challenges.

Keep your challenges focused on the WHY, WHAT, and HOW by de-emphasizing or prohibiting input about WHO, WHEN, and WHERE. Generously challenge modifiers such as adjectives and adverbs with the two best challenge questions:

• What is the unit of measurement of ________________ ?
• To what extent does ______________________________ ?

Consider multiple rounds by using the Perspectives approach explained in the next section. Remember that when a group is in the ideation phase, it is important to elicit ideas from all members of the group.  Additionally, consider using break-out groups and mixing them up from round to round.

Testing

Here are some questions you might ask yourself as you develop powerful questions. They are modified from research done by the Public Conversations Project, a group that helps create constructive dialogue on divisive public issues (Adapted from Sally Ann Roth Public Conversations Project c. 1998)

• Is this question genuine—a question to which we don’t know the answer? 
• To what extent is this question relevant to the real work of the people who will be exploring it? 
• What assumptions or beliefs are reflected in the way this question is worded? 
• To what extent is this question likely to invite fresh thinking/ feeling? Is it familiar enough to be recognizable and relevant—yet different enough to demand a new response? 
• To what extent will this question generate hope, imagination, engagement, creative action, and new possibilities rather than increase a focus on past problems and obstacles?
• What “work” do we want this question to do? What type of conversation, meanings, and feelings will be evoked by those exploring it? 
• To what extent does this question leave room for new and different questions to be raised as the initial question is explored?

CHANGE PERSPECTIVES

In addition to Conversations and Brainstorming, Change Perspectives to develop sharper questions. To prevent or refine questions that are too broad (e.g., “How do we solve global hunger?”), carefully manage the scope of the question. We can more easily develop solutions for hunger among children in coastal Somalia than addressing all of humanity at once. The following is based on the Perspectives Tool found in Chapter Eight of Meetings that Get Results.

Perspectives Tool 

This approach to building questions is remarkably powerful and severely underused. When you ask your participants to “walk in someone else’s shoes” by embracing a new perspective, you stimulate participants to change their point of view. More perspectives create more ideas, and more ideas drive decision quality. 

The inputs provided by shifting perspectives are not necessarily definitive. By challenging and exploring them, we can surface questions and problems that were not previously considered. 

You may ask individuals or Breakout Teams (Chapter 6) to take on new perspectives. I’ve personally witnessed remarkable success using two specific Breakout Teams: monasteries and organized crime (it can be like night and day). I’m also aware of alumni who love contrasting the Apple, Linux, and Microsoft perspectives.

BREAK OUT TEAMS PERSPECTIVES 

• WW_D: What Would Do? Insert analogs of famous people, organizations, or teams. Ask, “What questions would be asked from the perspective of ?” (fill in the blank using one of the items found later in this section). 
• Use Breakout Teams to develop questions contrasted with other specific points of view, such as the following: 

• • • A college or university compared with the military-industrial complex 
    • A monastery compared with the Mafia or organized crime
    • Bill Gates (or Microsoft) compared with Steve Jobs (or Apple)
    • Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Sergey Brin (Google), or Mark Zuckerberg (Meta)
    • Genghis Khan (warlike) compared with Mohandas Gandhi (peaceful)

• • Or create your own based on driving forces in your situation, such as antifragile technology (gets stronger), ants (collaborative), Drake or Lizzo (unrepresented voices), or weather (unpredictable yet returns to homeostasis) 

NOTE: Use any of the perspectives suggested or make up your perspectives to help participants focus their input from a specific point of view. 

INDIVIDUAL (OR TEAM PERSPECTIVES)

The 6-M’s, 7-P’s, or 5-S’s are frequently used as the main “bones” in an Ishikawa diagram. Take and choose from among the following 30 perspectives that are most germane and compelling to your situation to develop sharper questions, namely, what should be asked from each perspective? Take only the most pertinent perspectives related to your situation. For example, asking about machines may be irrelevant to a policy consulting firm, or packaging irrelevant to an organization that provides only services.

The 6-M’s perspectives: 

• • Machines
  • Manpower
  • Materials
  • Measurements
  • Methods
  • Mother Nature 

The 7-P’s perspectives: 

• • Packaging
  • Place
  • Policies
  • Positioning
  • Price
  • Procedure
  • Promotion

The 5-S’s perspectives:

• • Safety
  • Skills
  • Suppliers
  • Surroundings
  • Systems

Perspectives (trends) from the World Future Society

• Demographic perspectives:

• • • Family composition
    • Public health issues
    • Specific population groups (and so on)

• Economic perspectives: 

• • • Business 
    • Careers 
    • Finance 
    • Management 
    • Employment (and so on)

• Environmental perspectives: 

• • • Ecosystems 
    • Habitats 
    • Resources 
    • Species (and so on)

• Governmental perspectives: 

• • • Laws 
    • Politics 
    • Public policy 
    • World affairs (and so on)

• Societal perspectives: 

• • • Culture 
    • Education 
    • Leisure 
    • Lifestyle 
    • Religion 
    • Values (and so on)

• Technological perspectives: 

• • • Discoveries and effects 
    • Innovation and effects 
    • Science and effects (and so on) 

Six value or utility lever perspectives: 

• Convenience
• Customer productivity
• Environmental friendliness
• Fun and image
• Risk
• Simplicity

By shaping your questions around the most appropriate of these 37 Perspectives, you are assured of narrowing scope creep and minimizing wasted time in your meetings.

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Don’t ruin your career by hosting bad meetings. Sign up for a workshop or send this to someone who should. MGRUSH workshops focus on meeting design and practice. Each person practices tools, methods, and activities daily during the week. Therefore, while some call this immersion, we call it the road to building high-value facilitation skills.

Our workshops also provide a superb way to earn up to 40 SEUs from the Scrum Alliance, 40 CDUs from IIBA, 40 Continuous Learning Points (CLPs) based on Federal Acquisition Certification Continuous Professional Learning Requirements using Training and Education activities, 40 Professional Development Units (PDUs) from SAVE International, as well as 4.0 CEUs for other professions. (See workshop and Reference Manual descriptions for details.)

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