Probing Questions to Get Beneath the Surface
Last updated: September 30, 2021
Estimated reading time: 1.5 min
When you’re invested in a project or assignment (as the manager, a direct report, or a colleague) but are slightly removed from it, it can be hard to feel fully tapped into what’s going on. Probing questions are a handy tool for getting beneath the surface to really understand how a project is progressing.
Probing questions serve three main purposes:
- Information.At the most basic level, asking good questions gets you more information that can help you identify looming obstacles, opportunities to leverage, and foreshadow outcomes.
- Relationship-building.对别人的工作表现出真诚的好奇表明了对他们的兴趣和投资。深入了解可以帮助你更好地理解同事的想法和方法，这样你们就可以更好地一起工作。
- Results.花时间来调整、预测挑战、讨论方法和决策，会使过程更加严格，最终会产生更好的结果。
Here are some questions that can help you get beneath the surface. Most of them can be used in any “direction”—that is, you can use these questions not just with a direct report, but also with a colleague or a manager (in fact, we encourage you to!).
General questions
- What indicators are you looking at to see if things are on or off track?
- How are you handling X [a specific element]?
- What seems to be working well? Why?
- How is this impacting you, your work, or your relationships with colleagues/partners/members?
Getting aligned
- 你能告诉我X对你意味着什么吗?
- 当你说Y时，我想象的是ABC(影响，步骤等)。你怎么看?
Anticipating challenges
- What could go wrong? What do you have the most concerns about?
- Have you thought about what you’ll do if Y happens?
- 你在过去的类似项目中看到过哪些陷阱?你是如何应对的?
- Do you anticipate any disparate impacts based on identity?
- How do you plan to mitigate them?
- Do you have any suggestions for how to mitigate them?
Strategy and approach
- What led you to make that decision? How are you making sure that the process and outcome will be equitable?
- 你能分享一下你对此的看法吗?你还考虑/正在考虑什么?
- Are there any new approaches or tactics you’re trying out?
- 在所有这些潜在的方法中，你认为哪一种可能是最有效的?
- Is there any bigger picture context I should keep in mind as I work on this?
Your role
- 我还能怎么支持你呢?
- 你还需要我做些什么?
- Is there anything you’d like me to do differently to support you?