Questions are crucial to engage constructive conflict, that opens up exploration, brings in new information, and reframes any debate. A rich debate in any organization can surface fears and doubts, and they reveal ideas.
Here is a collection of some perennial questions that I collected and came up with to help bring clarity and encourage creative conflict:
- Who needs to benefit from our decision? How?
- What else would we need to know to be more confident of this decision?
- Who are the people affected by this decision; who have the least power to influence it?
- How much of this decision must we make today?
- Why is this important? And what’s important about that?
- If we had infinite resources — time, money, people — what would we do? What would we do if we had none?
- What are all the reasons this is the right decision? What are all the reasons it is the wrong decision?
- For critical discussions, appoint a devil’s advocate whose specific task is to probe for disconfirmation, argue opposite positions, and surface data or arguments that have been trivialized, minimalized, and marginalized.
No remarks, just clear suggestions.