30 Powerful Questions to Change the Point of View in Meetings

Too often, we rush straight to asking for the deliverable. For instance, if the goal is to develop a plan to mitigate burnout in the IT Service Department, we tend to jump to ‘solving’ by immediately asking for ideas on what actions to take.

MG RUSH structured facilitation embraces an evidence-based management approach that says Y = f (X + X + x + x), where ‘Y’ is a function of ‘X’ and there are big ‘Xs and little ‘x’s. The following perspectives change the point of view of your participants and create higher quality big ‘Xs and little ‘x’s.

point of view, participants’ point of view, Point of View in a Meeting

30 Questions to Transform Points of View

Therefore, we are going to draw upon five established approaches to derive 30 different ways to refocus a point of view, namely:

  1. The 6 M’s

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

  2. The 7 P’s

    • Packaging, People, Place, Policies, Positioning, Price, Procedure[2], Product/ Service, Promotion

  3. The 5 S’s

    • Safety, Skills, Suppliers, Surroundings, Systems

  4. Six Trends from the World Future Society (WFS)

    • Demographic—covers specific population groups, family composition, public health issues, etc
    • Economic—includes finance, business, work and careers, and management
    • Environmental—includes resources, ecosystems, species, and habitats
    • Governmental—includes world affairs, politics, laws, and public policy
    • Societal—covers lifestyles, values, religion, leisure, culture, and education
    • Technological—includes innovations, scientific discoveries, and their effects

  1. Six Purchasing Value/ Utility Levers and Potential Bottlenecks

Idea Generation

Use an idea-generating technique to identify the factors within each category that could cause the problem, issue, and/ or effect being studied. For example, to change the point of view, the facilitator could ask . . .

“What are our methods affecting/ causing _______ ?” or,

“What is the impact of convenience given _______ ?” or,

“How might our skills be leveraged against _______ ?” etc.

Changing Perspective or Point of View

The first eighteen above are frequently used when conducting root cause analysis (RCA). We’ve found them helpful in a variety of situations, enabling us to ask sharper questions. When you consider all 30 points of view collectively, it’s unlikely that any critical factor in your business situation would fall outside their scope.

While you may not use all 30 at once, focusing on a few of the most relevant perspectives will deepen your group’s understanding. This approach shifts the conversation from superficial ‘Y’ questions to the more essential ‘X’ factors. By identifying the key drivers in advance, you can also organize more effective breakout sessions that target the most important aspects of your situation.

[1] IT = Information Technology

[2] Potentially the same or certainly similar to ‘methods’ mentioned in ‘The 6 M’s’.

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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 and methods daily during the week. While some call this immersion, we call it the road that yields 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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