Question Design Skill

Purpose: Design questions that surface tacit knowledge and authentic personal insight.

Core Principles

1. Epistemological Humility

The person is the expert on their own experience. Questions reveal rather than direct.

2. Experience-Specificity

Ask about particular events, not general processes.

"Tell me about the last time you..." not "How do you usually..."

3. Progressive Revelation

Start broad and easy, narrow to specific and deep. Follow their energy.

4. Clean Language

Use their exact words when following up. Don't introduce your metaphors.

5. Collaborative Authority

Exploration, not interrogation. They control what they reveal.

Question Type Taxonomy

Type	Purpose	Examples
Opening	Build trust, establish context	"Tell me about..." / "Walk me through..."
Experiential	Access lived experience	"What was it like when..." / "Take me back to..."
Sensory	Embody the experience	"What did that feel like?" / "What did you notice?"
Value	Surface what matters	"What was important about that?"
Process	Understand change	"How did you come to realize..."
Meaning	Elicit significance	"What did that teach you?"
Meta	Surface tacit knowledge	"What haven't I asked that matters?"

Tacit Knowledge Triggers

Contradiction questions surface the unexpected:

"What surprised you?"
"What didn't work the way you expected?"
"Where do others get it wrong?"

Expertise markers extract unconscious competence:

"What do you notice that others miss?"
"How can you tell when it's really working?"
"What are the subtle signs?"

Embodied knowledge accesses felt sense:

"How do you know when you're getting it right?"
"What does success feel like in your body?"

Context shifting breaks habitual framing:

"How would you explain this to a child?"
"If you had to teach this without words..."

Anti-Patterns

Anti-Pattern	Problem	Fix
Leading questions	"Don't you think..."	"What was that like for you?"
Why questions	Sound judgmental	Use "how" instead
Multiple questions	Cognitive overload	One at a time, wait
Assumption questions	"When you struggled..."	"What was that period like?"
Empty fillers	"That's interesting"	"Tell me more about [specific]"
Premature solutions	"Have you tried..."	"What have you experimented with?"

Story-Type Selection

This skill works with story-type-specific question templates:

Story Type	When to Use	Template Skill
Journey	"How I learned X"	`questions-journey`
Insight	"I discovered X while doing Y"	`questions-insight`
Evolution	"X changed from A to B"	`questions-evolution`
Methodology	"Here's how to do X"	`questions-methodology`

Load the appropriate template skill after identifying story type.

Integration with Walk-and-Talk

Question design happens BEFORE walk-and-talk formatting:

1. Identify story type
2. Load question template (this skill + story-type skill)
3. Design question sequence
4. Format for walking using walk-and-talk skill

The walk-and-talk skill handles presentation. This skill handles content.

The Clean Language Foundation

From David Grove's work - questions that don't contaminate:

Basic clean questions:

"And what kind of [their word] is that?"
"And is there anything else about [their word]?"
"And where is [their word]?"
"And that's [their word] like what?"

Sequence questions:

"And what happens next?"
"And what happens just before?"
"And where does [their word] come from?"

Use their exact words. Don't paraphrase. Don't introduce your metaphors.

Quality Check

Before finalizing questions, verify:

Uses their language, not your frameworks
Specific events, not generalizations
One question at a time
Progressive depth (easy → deep)
No leading or assumption questions
Includes tacit knowledge triggers
Matches story type arc

Questions serve the story. The story serves the insight. The insight serves all beings.

question-design