Discovery and Innovation Questions
Discovery Questions
Assumptions
– What assumptions do you hold about the team?
– What if your assumptions weren’t true?
– What assumptions held about project’s success?
– What assumptions might develop & impede success?
Situations
– What is the situation?
– Who is impacted by this situation?
– Who is not impacted by this situation?
– What is important in this situation?
– What challenges exist because of this situation?
– You are not sure you understand what?
Sharing feelings & implications
– What issues concern you?
– What can we do to build trust in this situation?
– What are you afraid might happen?
– What are the implications you fear?
– How does that make you feel?
– How is that impacting you?
– What shared will help understand your perspective?
Sharing facts & experiences
– What is your experience with this?
– What are the facts as you see them?
– What circumstances took you down that path?
– What situation influenced your thinking?
– Have you any other experiences that differ?
– What led you to this belief?
Idea explorations
– What is your idea?
– What is your thinking behind this idea?
– What is the problem that this idea addresses?
– How important to you is this idea?
– What led you to this idea?
– How attached are you to this idea?
Desire Explorations
– How would you describe success in this situation?
– How can it come to different, new, +ve outcome?
– What is desired outcome, best of all outcomes?
– What is greatest desire?
– What would indicate success?
Innovation Questions
Insight building – what can we do to
– combine the best of our thinking?
– arrive at the best outcome?
– merge our ideas?
– build common ground in this situation?
– get the best result?
– build on other people’s ideas
Possibilities – what if we
– could wish for the impossible, what would we want?
– had unlimited resources, what would we do?
– held the view that the opposite were true?
– knew money wasn’t a problem, what would we do?
– had everyone supporting us, what would we do?
– could choose any solution, what would we go for?
– had no limitations, what would we do?
Perspective shifting
– What would a significant breakthrough look like?
– If we were someone else what would we do?
– If we started backwards what would we do?
– How would our customers see this?
– What if our assumptions weren’t true?
– What if the opposite were true?
– What other alternatives might work?
– If we had no vested interest, how would it look?
Thought provoking
– Who can you ask a question to move this along?
– What questions might move situation along?
– In best of all worlds, what do you want to happen?
– What is your desired outcome?
– What do we want to create?
– What ideas could we merge to move situation along?
Idea development
– What don’t we know?
– Where is this idea taking us?
– What will activate this opportunity?
– What intrigues us about this idea?
– How can we broaden our perspective?
– How can we build on this?
– What’s another perspective yet to be considered?
From: Conversational Intelligence for Coaches
Judith E Glaser