Precision questioning is a technique to motivate a person (or a team) to more fully explore a problem space. Precision questioning is broadly useful, but there are a few instances when it is my tool of choice:
- When you know that there is a better answer but need everyone to come along for the journey to that same conclusion.
- When a proposal, thesis, or analysis is “almost” there but something feels a little wrong and you can’t quite put your finger on it.
HOW TO DO IT
Break down the space: Ask questions that logically sub-divide the problem space. A variety of fields share the concept of breaking a problem space into logical structures. Binary space partition trees from computer graphics, mutually exclusive comprehensively exhaustive frameworks from management consulting, and option/criteria frameworks from product management are very similar cognitive tools. Shishir Mehrotra, CEO of Coda, calls these “Eigenquestions“.
Litmus tests: Try to find a common scenario that exposes a flaw in the reasoning. This is not about nit picking or picking extreme edge cases and going “haha! Gotcha!”. This is about choosing or designing a mainstream scenario that is a watershed point in a thesis or argument.
ELI5: Explain like I am 5. We work in complex spaces. It is easy to get caught up in our own jargon. I often catch myself saying things like “optical modulation transfer function”, “late-stage reprojection”, and “rotationally invariant feature descriptor”. Ask the presenter to explain the concept as if to a child. They might find flaws in their own reasoning without any further prompting.
What must be true for … It can be useful to enumerate what must be true for an overall thesis to be true. Then address recursively process each predicate point-by-point. This forces an explicit enumeration of unspoken assumptions all the way down to first principles.
HOW NOT TO DO IT
Do not ask “Have you thought about X?”. This is condescending. The person who did the work probably understands the space better than you do and has almost certainly thought about X. In fact, it is probably addressed in the pre-read and you didn’t bother to read the pre-read: “Why, yes. I have thought about X. My thoughts are in paragraph 2 on page 1”.
Do not drop knowledge. Precision questioning is about gaining knowledge or the group expanding its knowledge together. It is not about showing off how smart you are or how much you know. Resist the urge.