QUESTION GUIDE
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DIAGNOSTIC QUESTIONS
Before you can fix a problem, you need to know what it is. Get it right, and
you’re on your way. Get it wrong and you face the consequences, and they can
be costly. These questions help identify a problem with precision, on several
levels, separating the symptoms from the disease. Start broad, zero in. Describe,
compare, and quantify. Listen for detail and patterns.
Open-Ended Problem Questions:
What’s going on here?
What’s the matter?
The first step is to ask what’s wrong. Using broad, open-ended questions, ask for
a description of the problem—what it looks, sounds and feels like. Ask where it
manifests itself, when, and in what ways. Ask about what seems to make the
problem better or worse. These are present-tense questions designed to get a full
and accurate description of the problem from all angles.
History Taking: When did this problem begin? How has it changed? How does
it compare? History repeats itself. Learn from it. Look for comparisons,
parallels, patterns. Ask about previous experience with the problem—when it
was first detected, how it’s changed over time, what’s been done to address it in
the past. Ask whether it’s gotten worse and in what ways. Ask what’s been tried
in the past and with what effect. Compare then and now. Use the past to inform
the present. These questions use history to seek detail to understand what
happened, under what conditions, and with what result.
The Mystery: What are we missing? Now that you know the present and the
past, drill deeper and ask what don’t we know. What else could be at work here
to cause the problem? Is there a dirty little secret, a hidden agenda, a mistake, or
an unintended action that has made the situation worse? Did a shortcut become a
short circuit? These are beneath-the-surface questions that ask about miscues,
mistakes, and missed signals.
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