How to Find the Real Need with Socratic Questioning
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A common piece of advice is that your team should discover the true need of your project. Unfortunately advice on how to make that happen isn't as prevalent. In this session you'll have a chance to practice a simple technique to get to the core of what your stakeholders need that has been around for over 2000 years - Socratic questioning. Kent McDonald and Heather Mylan-Mains walk you through a technique aimed at uncovering the (not intentionally) hidden need that your stakeholders are trying to satisfy, without asking "why?" five times in a row. Kent & Heather describes the questions, why they work and in what context they work based on their experience with IT organizations. You'll then have a chance to practice them out to find out about a real project. The line of questioning was inspired by Brennan Dunn who uses them to understand the true needs of his web development consultants. Come learn about and practice this technique so you can use it back at the office to drive toward the right outcome.
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How to Find the Real Need with Socratic Questioning
- 1. How to Find the Real Need with Socratic Questioning Kent J. McDonald kent@kbp.media @beyondreqs Heather Mylan-Mains mylanmains@msn.com @heatherm_m https://www.kbp.media/real-need-with-socratic-questioning/
- 2. Pair up. One person (A) think of a project.
- 3. Person without a project (B) find out about (A)’s project.
- 4. Discover the true need of your project
- 6. I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think. -Socrates
- 7. Socratic Questioning is a dialog structured by a series of questions intended to draw out answers.
- 8. Potential series of questions 1. What is the project? 2. When did you realize you needed to do this project? 3. What problem does this project solve? 4. What is the impact to your organization of that problem? 5. How much is that problem costing your organization? 6. How should tomorrow look after we’ve solved this problem? 7. What are the next steps?
- 10. Person (B) use Socratic Questioning to find out about Person (A)’s project
- 11. Discover the real need Gain deeper understanding about assumptions Help your team solve a problem.
- 12. Six Types of Questions
- 14. If you remember nothing else… Socratic questioning provides answers through a series of questions 14 Discover the true need of your project in order to understand the outcome you want to deliver
- 15. Photo Credits Slide Photo Discover the true need of your project https://unsplash.com/@evankirby2 Deliver Outcomes, not Output https://unsplash.com/@camadams Bust of Socrates http://www.bigstockphoto.com Ask More Questions https://unsplash.com/@jdsimcoe If you remember nothing else https://unsplash.com/@dnmgns Photo Credits https://unsplash.com/@chancema
- 16. Don’t Forget to Leave Feedback Kent J. McDonald kent@kbp.media @beyondreqs Heather Mylan-Mains mylanmains@msn.com @heatherm_m https://www.kbp.media/real-need-with-socratic-questioning/
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- A common piece of advice is that your team should discover the true need of your project. Unfortunately advice on how to make that happen isn't as prevalent. In this session you'll have a chance to practice a simple technique to get to the core of what your stakeholders need that has been around for over 2000 years - Socratic questioning. Join Kent McDonald as he walks you through a technique aimed at uncovering the (not intentionally) hidden need that your stakeholders are trying to satisfy, without asking "why?" five times in a row. Kent describes the questions, why they work and in what context they work based on his experience with IT organizations and Agile Alliance. You'll then have a chance to practice them out to find out about a real project. The line of questioning was inspired by Brennan Dunn who uses them to understand the true needs of his web development consultants. Come learn about and practice this technique so you can use it back at the office to drive toward the right outcome. Learning Objectives: Learn what Socratic questioning is Learn how to identify your stakeholders needs using Socratic questioning Practice Socratic questioning with your peers Determine when Socratic questioning is an appropriate technique to use Introduction - 5 minutes The session will start out with an introduction to why it’s so important to get to the underlying need to satisfy (to make sure you’re clear on the outcome you are trying to deliver instead of just getting a solution handed to you to implement) and introduce Socrates and the concept of Socratic questioning. Find Pairs and Determine Example - 5 minutes Ask the attendees pair up or get into groups of three. One person (A) picks something they are working on, and the other person (or people) (B) will ask them about that work. End result of this timebox is that everyone is paired up, and have an example to discuss. Discuss the Candidate Work - 5 minutes I’ll ask the pairs to pretend that B is going to work on the project for A and it’s their responsibility to find out what A’s needs are. The expectation here is that B will use the approach they commonly use to find out about need and will end up with something that looks a lot like the solution. I’ll ask B to write down what they think A needs and will ask for some of the groups to share. Introduce Socratic Questioning - 10 minutes I’ll then walk through the seven steps to socratic questioning as briefly described below. Step 1 - What is the project? Step 2 - When did you realize you needed to do this project? Step 3 - What is this project solving? Step 4 - What is the impact to your business of that problem? Step 5 - How much is that problem costing your business? Step 6 - How should tomorrow look after we’ve solved this problem? Step 7 - What are the next steps? Practice Socratic Questioning - 10 Minutes Have the groups go through the Socratic questioning where B walks A through the series of questions listed above. At the end of the questions, I’ll ask B to write down what they think the project is about now, and then we’ll have them compare before and after. Discussion and Q& A - 10 Minutes Once the groups are done going through the Socratic Questions, Each table group will have 10 minutes to share their experiences with each other, then we’ll spend the final 10 minutes debriefing as a larger group and addressing any Q&A that comes out.
- Find Pairs and Determine Example - 5 minutes Ask the attendees pair up or get into groups of three. One person (A) picks something they are working on, and the other person (or people) (B) will ask them about that work. End result of this timebox is that everyone is paired up, and have an example to discuss.
- I’ll ask the pairs to pretend that B is going to work on the project for A and it’s their responsibility to find out what A’s needs are. The expectation here is that B will use the approach they commonly use to find out about need and will end up with something that looks a lot like the solution. I’ll ask B to write down what they think A needs and will ask for some of the groups to share.
- Photo Credit: https://unsplash.com/@evankirby2 Pick someone from the audience and demonstrate Socratic Questioning while also driving the point home why it’s important to discover the true need of your project. What does this mean? What assumptions underpin this statement? Why do you want to do this?
- Photo Credit: https://unsplash.com/@camadams You want to discover the true need to make sure you’re clear on the outcome you are trying to deliver instead of just getting a solution handed to you to implement Point out that what I just did was do Socratic Questioning.
- Socratic questioning is named after the Greek philosopher and teacher, Socrates (ca. 470 – 399 B.C.) who taught his students through the use of questions to involve them in a thoughtful dialog. Socrates’ questions allowed his students to examine ideas logically in order to determine the validity of those ideas. This is a great way to explore ideas in depth which also drives the “student” to deeply consider, evaluate, and analyze their ideas. Socratic questioning incorporates six types of questions which you’ll use to varying degrees during your conversations. Those six types of questions an examples of each follow:
- Socratic questioning applied to projects and product development is a dialog structured by a series of questions intended to draw out answers. You first establishing a thesis of what your stakeholder thinks their need is (usually expressed as a solution). Then you 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.
- At the core, Socratic questioning involves starting a conversation with your stakeholder at a level they are comfortable talking. Ask a question, listen to their response, and use that response to prompt your next question. To give you a head start, here is a line of questioning inspired by Brennan Dunn who uses them to understand the true needs of his web development clients. I’ve revised his line of questioning to get at the real need for an internal product or project. What is the project? Listen to your stakeholder/customer/user about what they think they need. This is very similar to what many product people do currently and often results in the stakeholder describing the solution they want. When did you realize you needed to do this project? You’re trying to determine the event that sparked the project. It could be a series of events, or could there be that one straw that broke the camels back. This question helps you get to any time constraints and may also indicate why the project is important. What problem does this project solve? This is the blunt question to get at the need the project is intended to satisfy. Your stakeholder probably has a solution in mind, so getting them to walk back to the underlying need will help you to understand what you are really trying to accomplish, and will allow you to have a working definition of success that provides options for how you can proceed. What is the impact to your organization of that problem? This gets at whether the need is worth satisfying. If the unsatisfied need is a mere annoyance, you may find that any solution would cost more than the benefit you experience. If on the other hand the need is a really big deal, and you can solve it with a very simple change to a process, it’d be silly not to make the change. How much does that problem cost your organization? Quantify the benefit of satisfying the need as a followup to the previous question. This is especially helpful for those people who prefer quantitative measures. How should tomorrow look after we’ve solved this problem? What do things look like if the need is successfully satisfied. It provides an opportunity to express the desired outcome in more concrete terms than “the problem is solved”. What are the next steps? Let the stakeholder know that you heard them, that you are focused on satisfying their need (although chances are you won’t deliver the exact solution they originally approached you with) and give them an idea about next steps.
- Caveats and Considerations While Socratic questioning seems simple, it can be quite rigorous because you need to have a goal in mind, listen carefully to the person you are talking to, and use the response to their questions to guide your next question and ultimately to gain a shared understanding of the outcome that they seek. Start the discussion with a list of questions (such as the set of questions listed above) that you can use to structure the discussion, but be willing to explore an idea that comes up if it seems relevant. Make sure that you ask clear, specific questions. Allow time for the person you are talking with to answer. You may have periods of uncomfortable silence. That is ok. The person you are talking to may need to talk some time to silently formulate their answer. Follow up on responses and encourage elaboration where you feel more information is necessary. Periodically summarize the conversation, either by sketching on a white board or stating “we agree that…” in order to make sure that everyone in the conversation has a shared understanding.
- Have the groups go through the Socratic questioning where B walks A through the series of questions listed above. At the end of the questions, I’ll ask B to write down what they think the project is about now, and then we’ll have them compare before and after.
- Use socratic questioning to determine the real need behind a request for a project or a change to a product. You can also use socratic questioning to gain deeper understanding of assumptions that your team or stakeholders have or to help your team solve a problem.
- Socratic questioning incorporates six types of questions which you’ll use to varying degrees during your conversations. Those six types of questions an examples of each follow: Clarification What problem are you trying to solve? Could you give me an example of that? What do you mean when you say…? How is that idea relevant to our conversation? How would you summarize the problem? Probe Assumptions What are your assumptions? How could you confirm or disprove that assumption? How did you arrive at those assumptions? Are there any assumptions we have not discussed? What would happen if…? Probe reasons and evidence Pop the “why stack” (5 Whys) Why does that happen? Is that a good enough reason to do that? Is that problem worth solving? Why? What did you observe when you tried it out? Viewpoints and perspectives Why is this change necessary, and who benefits? What is the difference between (A) and (B)? How are (A) and (B)? Is there a different way to look at this? What would (different stakeholder) say about? Implications and consequences What are the consequences of that assumption? Why is (A) important? How does (A) affect (B)? What is the affect of (A) on (B)? What are the implications of (A)? Questions about the Question Why do you think I asked that question? What was the point of that question? How does (A) apply to this particular situation? What other questions should I ask? What have we not discussed that we should?
- Once the groups are done going through the Socratic Questions, Each table group will have 10 minutes to share their experiences with each other, then we’ll spend the final 10 minutes debriefing as a larger group and addressing any Q&A that comes out.
- Photo Credit: https://unsplash.com/@dnmgns
- www.kbp.media/real-need-with-socratic-questioning/