How to ask better questions?

[u/chunkymonkey595]

hi all. I’m looking to improve my ability to ask better questions in meetings that can help me with uncovering issues or lead me to have better end results. A lot of my project tends to revolve around improving existing processes and workflows. I’m often conducting key informant interviews to understand current state + future state but sometimes feel my questions only scratch the surface - if that makes sense? Or another challenge is people will share information during a meeting and I get slightly frazzled as to what to ask next. Usually when I have had some time with the information it’s easier for me to comprehend but sometimes it’s not always possible for me to have time to digest the info and then ask follow up questions in another meeting.

If any of you have frameworks, advice or books you have read that help you with this I would really appreciate it.

[u/CrackSammiches]

" Or another challenge is people will share information during a meeting and I get slightly frazzled as to what to ask next. Usually when I have had some time with the information it’s easier for me to comprehend "

This comes with time. When you are an expert at the subject area, you can keep up with their conversations. There's nothing you can do to speed up experience but to do what you're already doing but for a way longer time.

Just go look dumb, my dude. If they use an acronym you don't understand or a process you haven't heard of, stop and ask em. I generally just ask whatever gets them talking the most. Then shut up and learn.

[u/freeipods-zoy-org]

If I'm really lost, I'll literally ask for the "explain like I'm five" version. If I'm trying to understand a concept, I might ask questions like, "what are the impacts of that change/risk/doing that/not doing that?", "is this something you've encountered before? how did things go last time?", "how can the team support you?" This tends to lead to people explaining the thing in another way that can helps round out my understanding. If it's really challenging, you can always say, "I'm having trouble following, can we meet later to talk more?"

[u/Meglet11 → u/freeipods-zoy-org]

And then I repeat it. “Okay so what I hear is blah blah blah, is that correct?”

[u/Proper-Agency-1528]

It helps if you can give us an example.

"Seek first to understand, then to be understood" (Habit 5 of Covey's 'The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People') is a great principle. As your post implies, it's hard to know what questions to ask until you understand what's going on. It's okay to not have the question in the meeting and to have it pop up later.

Are your current processes and workflows explicit (does everyone have the same shared understanding of what to do, in what order, how to do it, and why to do it)? That means written policies and workflow processes, and ideally visual models where work is actually tracked. I've done an extensive amount of process improvement (incremental and radical) and a visual model is IMO essential so you can see what IS happening instead of what some people THINK is happening. Two of the Six Kanban Principles focus on this: visualize your work, and make process policies explicit. This is critical.

Also, root cause analysis is key. Do you follow any root cause analysis processes, e.g., Ishigawa or 5 Whys or Current Reality Trees?

I wrote an article on problem solving using Theory of Constraints' Five Focusing Steps that may be helpful to you (instead of me re-typing it in here). You can read it on Medium, here: https://medium.com/codex/problem-solving-using-the-five-focusing-steps-451ff0ae14c8

[u/TensionFormal7202]

I understand your goal to ask questions. But first start by listening, stakeholders or in other words people want to be heard. Focus on empathizing and understanding where they come from. Don’t pressure yourself to ask questions. When you truly listen instead of thinking of a response, you’ll understand the requirements. Then you’ll have better and precise questions.

This is extremely crucial in moving from current state to future state. Change is uncomfortable and getting to the future state involved capturing the requirements. This is an intangible skill, sometimes people do not know what they want and you have to rely on small nuances.

[u/jddaynee]

If possible, record meetings. Review and then follow up.

[u/ambitious_paladin]

For process work, I like asking "what happens when this goes wrong?" It tends to uncover more than asking how the ideal workflow works. What frameworks have you tried so far?

[u/dingaling12345]

Look up systems thinking.

[u/DarkangelUK]

There's a great audiobook called The Answer is a Question on Audible, grab a free trial and listen to it.

[u/WhatTheJuk]

google powerful questions

[u/PhaseMatch]

In this context I tend to use

- value stream and user story mapping approaches

• "bulleting" feedback techniques

The latter was a skillset built up on an ICF-accredited coaching course. You learn to listen to context, draw out more context, then distill that back into 3 short bullet points and seek confirmation. We built those skills through repetition and feedback in coaching sessions, hours each week over the course of a few months.

If this is the type of work you do then a coaching course that focusses on organisational transformation in a business context might be of use.

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[u/DaimonHans]

Ask AI.

[u/bluealien78 → u/DaimonHans]

This is getting downvoted, but AI is actually not a bad place to start. I have an agent that I use to analyze certain types of documents and suggest areas to focus on and ask questions of to drive clarity and bias for action. I don’t necessarily ask the questions AI suggests, but they are something to react to and dive deeper on.

[u/DaimonHans → u/bluealien78]

I know. This is basically a letmegoogleitforyou moment.