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“Ask the right questions!” is advice that product people, especially business analysts, get quite often. I know because I’ve been known to hand out that advice quite frequently myself.
Except no one seems to follow that rallying cry with any helpful information such as what the right questions might be.
I know… details.
Well I thought I’d use this issue of the KBPUpdate to suggest the right questions, or at least give you some things to think about when you’re trying to figure out what the right questions are.
Why did I pick this particular issue to share ideas on the right questions? The timing happens to coincide with a talk I’m giving at the Central Iowa IIBA Chapter, so I thought I’d tackle a few things all at once.
Enjoy,
Kent J. McDonald
KBP.Media
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Socratic Questioning Technique Brief
Socratic questioning applied to projects and product development relates to finding the real need by establishing a thesis of what your stakeholder thinks their need is (usually expressed as a solution). You then engage in a dialog structured as a series of questions in an attempt to refute or disprove the thesis and get to the actual need.
How to Ask Better Customer Interview Questions
Customers can tell you a lot about your product. Yet so many product managers stop short of asking probing, insightful questions when interviewing customers, and as a result, they get shallow, rote answers in return. How might you ask productive, provocative questions which lead to insightful answers from customers?
20 Questions Every Product Manager Should Ask Their Users—Not Their Team
By getting fast user feedback, you can validate your product ideas with your target customer base instead of trusting your gut. You don’t need to be an expert researcher to get great insights from remote user research. You just need to know what you’re trying to learn. Here are 20 sample questions you should ask users in your target market in three stages of product development.
10 Great Customer Interview Questions
A few well-phrased questions can yield fantastic customer insights. But asking the right questions during customer conversations takes a lot of practice and a healthy dose of curiosity. Here are ten open-ended questions that have worked well for Jim Semick, Founder/Chief Strategist at ProductPlan.
Great help content starts with great questions
The other resources in this newsletter focus on uncovering the underlying need. Asking the right questions can also be helpful for ensuring that your customers can use what you build. Creating great help content is a dialogue between your content team and your product team. It starts with asking the right kind of questions to get the best content out of them.