When you are joining a discussion for the purpose of elicitation, be it an interview, a daily work conversation, and so on. To make the discussion as productive as possible:
- How can you decide what questions to ask?
- How can you find the right people to ask?
- How can you decide the right moment to ask?
Latest comments (3)
I always like to dig a little deeper with Why? just like when doing a Root Cause Analysis. When you know why something is, you know what other questions are relevant to ask 😉
A great question/non-question is "Tell me more about that!" This is a means of encouraging the speaker to dig a little deeper; and may begin leading to more natural questions.
Great point! I also use this as an one trick to continue the flow of conversation. If I don't have a plan before hand, then this is a passive/natural way to create questions.
That said, I'm still learning to become more active in a discussion. Let's say I'm going to meet a client to discuss product feature, or going to a job interview and trying to learn more about the company, how should I ask the questions?
I believe there is no one-way-fit-all solution (e.g., you cannot always ask the same question), but I wonder if there exists some sort of framework, or mindset that helps me approach these situations (like STAR interview method).