Transcript

Last week. I was asked if I also take questions and answer them here in my podcast. And the answer to that question of course, is yes, let's have this be a conversation you can get in touch with me on Twitter at Thomas underscore SL or better yet subscribe to my newsletter, seven things and put your question into a reply to it.

[00:00:22] You can do that@seventhingsdotthomasessel.com. Looking forward to it.

[00:00:38] This is the second part of a mini series on stakeholder interviews. If you haven't listened to the first episode, probably makes sense to go back and listen to that one. You'll check it out.

[00:00:55] hello and welcome to product nuggets. My name is Thomas sr. No previous [00:01:00] episode. We talked a little bit about why stakeholder interviews are important and how you can structure them. And today we'll be diving into what are some really good and powerful questions you can ask to get some great insights from them.

[00:01:25] One question that I believe I've always asked is what does success look like for you and your team? Pretty much everybody has some kind of evaluation that will be done on them. At some point in time, people are responsible for driving certain kinds of improvements. And if you understand what those measurements are and how, what you are planning to do on a given project relates to those metrics, then that is something you can draw some really important insights from.

[00:01:59] And if you [00:02:00] can demonstrate to a stakeholder that what you are doing is not just something that, it's another thing that takes up their time and you know, them sitting there. Being a kind of waste of time on, on their behalf, a favor that they're doing for, you know, this project is something that will actually help them improve those metrics that they themselves get evaluated by.

[00:02:23] Then you have another champion for this project in your corner, and you can tie your success and the project success to theirs. Then here's another collaborator. And that can be really important throughout the entire project. One slightly more contentious question that I tend to ask later in an interview is whose interests might interfere with yours, especially when you're working with large organizations, internal politics can do a project.

[00:02:55] There is often just nothing you can do, especially if you're coming from an outside [00:03:00] agency angle. That will make your project succeed. If you having people on the other side or technically on your side, who are actually working against what you're trying to achieve, that's not even if it's something that directly goes against your project, but also conflicts between different kinds of stakeholders.

[00:03:21] That can be really detrimental as you can probably see. So make yourself aware of any problems that might arise from this. And like I said, in the previous episode, what's really interesting is that you might expect that people are just not going to tell you right. That, you know, you're just kind of external person sometimes again from an agency side and you're asking them those really personal questions.

[00:03:45] Who's going to answer to that. Surprisingly though, a lot of people are because those are things that they have been potentially frustrated about for a really long time. And then here you [00:04:00] are listening to them and that can really open some folks up much more than you would expect. And so it's really worth asking those questions.

[00:04:11] And the worst thing that can happen is. That they don't answer this question. I've also had situations where somebody. So that's something like, well, I, you know, there is something, but I can't really tell you without exposing myself. I mean, there's a few things you can do around that. I mean, you can emphasize, again, the confidential nature of an individual interview and reassure them that, you know, that that's the case, or you can try and ask around that and say like, well, why.

[00:04:44] Is that something that you wouldn't be able to share with me? And maybe that leads you down. Another interesting path. Just ask those kinds of questions. Once you've built some rapport with the person that you're interviewing. And I think [00:05:00] you'll be surprised with how much detail they're willing to give you.

[00:05:04] Next question is in your words, what are the problems we should be trying to solve? Now, this isn't really about the classic sort of the thing that you shouldn't do, which is asking users what they want, asking stakeholders, what they want on the surface. That's what you're doing, but that's not the information you want to get.

[00:05:24] You're just trying to find a starting point. To drill down into what their real problems and pain points and beliefs are. And often your interview part, this might simply recite the brief that was sent around the company. However their view might be a very different one. So try to get a feel for what they really think.

[00:05:46] If, if they just recite the sort of official message you can say, well, do you agree with that? Is that your opinion? Again, that goes into getting, getting down to the root of what they're actually saying, [00:06:00] and if they disagree, then. You can, you can start to understand why, and that'll give you a lot of insight into how the different systems link up.

[00:06:10] You know, maybe there is something that was similar that they've tried in the past and it failed. And then you can go into reasons why that is, but having them answer this question in their own words, Is a really good starting point for all of those conversations. Now, one thing that I've mentioned regarding both of those last questions is the followup followup is the most important thing.

[00:06:39] Any of these questions that I'm telling you about today, they're just starting points. And really what you'll need to do is to ask why repeatedly that's the single most important question is why. And, um, you know, there's a whole framework around that the four whys or the five whys, and you can look that up if you're not familiar with it, [00:07:00] but that's really where the gold is going a few levels down.

[00:07:04] So put that on your list. If that's not something that you're naturally doing, I really encourage you to, to add that to your list of every single questions to say, okay, here's a question that I want to ask. And then don't forget to ask why one time, two times, three times. And that's where the really interesting information is going to be.

[00:07:25] So don't take any of these questions that I'm telling you about in the show at face value. They're really just starting points. So one or the most important question to ask, it's just why with that said, there's another good starting point in question, which is what would your dream outcome for this project be?

[00:07:44] You can get a sense of somebody's expectations and see if it matches with what everyone else is saying. If there are strong differences, it might be time to get everyone around the table again and make clear what you are collectively setting out to [00:08:00] achieve. So fundamentally, this is an alignment question to say, okay, here is a brief, and that says, we're going to do ABC, but what is the outcome going to be of that?

[00:08:10] What changes that ultimately going to drive? If there are discrepancies in everybody's understanding of that desired outcome. Then they will expect you to go about your project in very different ways and that can get very disruptive down the line. So that's a good thing to capture.

[00:08:43] Okay. Now that you've talked about what the dream outcome would be, my next question would be. What would be reasons why we would not be able to get to this outcome? This one is another question that will help you find out what barriers you might hit along the way. Everyone can think of something. So [00:09:00] especially if they say they can't follow up and ask for at least one thing, if they kind of have to think about it for a little while, like, that's actually great.

[00:09:10] If they can't just. Shoot from the hip that's, uh, would really get them engaged and kind of. Make them think about various situations about the past, about the history. And you can develop a set of questions to follow this one up, but don't believe this one on answered. Everybody can think of something and it's just a matter of helping them articulate those concerns.

[00:09:35] One of them, my favorite questions is a little bit out there. It often hits skepticism, but it's yeah. As I said, it's one of my favorites, which is. If we did this project in a hundred years in the future, what would your ideal solution look like? Then? I love this question for the variety of imaginative responses I get.

[00:09:57] It really is the first step towards an [00:10:00] ideation or inspiration session with the aim of. Looking at a situation at hand whilst removing any kinds of constraints. And it goes a long way towards finding out what they really want to work towards. And that's because if you ask a question like this, you're helping people to imagine a world that is not plagued by.

[00:10:22] All the issues that they have to deal with every single day that is not involve this functional it systems or overly convoluted process. And, you know, you can vary the time period as well. If it's doing something hundred years out, depending on the project that you're working on, that might not be very helpful because people will say like, well, in a hundred years time, We will just not have this problem anymore.

[00:10:49] For reasons, ABC that is something can potentially dig into it as well, but it might be helpful to adjust the time period to sell like, well, what about 50 years? 30 years, 20 years, 10 [00:11:00] years. Really? It's it's so fun. As well, they sort of start glowing and getting really creative. And sometimes even, you know, this is true.

[00:11:10] Uh, just get up and start white boarding things. And that is gold because you don't want them to imagine a problem solution that is built on what we can do today. You're there because you're trying to build the future to envision the future. Sometimes it helps to be a little bit crazy, a little bit childish to say like, well, look.

[00:11:29] What if all constraints were aside, what could we do? What would great look like then for you? And, uh, yeah, it's really surprising what people come up with. Another question I love is if you and you alone had full control over the project, what would you do differently? Now in most projects, you have multiple people, multiple stakeholders involved, and this is really digging at.

[00:11:57] What might down [00:12:00] the line costs and contempt with them. What is some thing where you might just lose them and putting her interviewees in the mindset of absolute power? It's just another way of learning about potential problems and objectives. Recently a stakeholder told me just straight off the bat, if I ruled the world, well, I would not work with company X like this, you know, some kind of vendor that, that they'd be working with.

[00:12:29] And they just really felt like there were locked into that relationship for too long. It'd be really exploitative. It was. Sort of something they inherited from some kind of more powerful person set up the relationship in the first place and then left and, and they just didn't really see a way out of it.

[00:12:49] And that was a real bombshell, like if there is a key partner involved and the stakeholders just straight up tells you w well, the thing I would change is not work with them. [00:13:00] I mean, there are so much there that you, you really want to dive into and understand better. And it leads to a whole new conversation around the relationship between the client and their contracted company and how that affects the project that you're working on.

[00:13:15] Of course. So it's a, it's a really important one to ask is if you had full power, You way absolutely will have this project, you know, many different ways in which you can face that depending on what Cuba levels are like, but, um, what would they do differently? Those, again, a really, really good starting points.

[00:13:37] And that's, we're getting to the end of an interview. There are two more open-ended questions that I love to ask that are almost always some of the most helpful ones. Which, uh, first of all, who else should we now, when you're starting a complex project with a lot of stakeholders involved, then chances are, [00:14:00] you will have been given, uh, or you, you know, you will have obtained in some way, some kind of short list of people that are we're speaking to, but more often than not.

[00:14:10] That's really not a complete list. There are other people in your organization on which project success depends on, especially if they're the types of people who don't get included in those lists of people to talk to by default, they will be really happy to talk to you and to make their opinions heard, and then become supporters of the project down the line as well.

[00:14:38] And this is just completely aside from the fact that those are often the people who really hold the interesting, deep, technical knowledge that will help you in more tactical ways, day to day. It's also on a personal level that I really recommend finding those people. And the ones who start talking to other ones who can, who can direct you there, [00:15:00] you can say, who else should we talk to?

[00:15:01] If that doesn't deal anything you can say like, well, who are the people you work most closely with? That's another way of asking that, but it's, it's good to kind of try and capture as comprehensive a stakeholder map as you can. Well, and lastly, you know, as part of the wrap up, everybody's kind of getting relaxed and you kind of falling back into smalltalk mode if, if everybody's so inclined, but this is a really good moment.

[00:15:31] To just say, you know, to kind of drop your agenda and to say well, with everything else that we've talked about today, is there anything that we haven't covered? Was there anything that you would've expected me to ask? Is there anything that came to your mind during our conversation? That you think we should take into consideration.

[00:15:53] And this is important to keep time for, for this one, because that can often go into another [00:16:00] 10 or so minutes. Of some really deep, interesting topics that you can discuss. If it's too much, you can say like, well, this is a great area to explore. Let's set up another session to cover that don't be afraid to.

[00:16:17] To do that because it's better to set up another conversation and deal with a big topic in depth then to kind of try and rush it. And this is mostly because of the importance of the why questions. If you don't get to ask enough of those, then you should probably keep a topic for down the line if you can.

[00:16:35] Yeah. So just coming back to what else. Should we should we know about that something again, I asked at the end of every single conversation I have, and it's never disappointed. All right, everybody, this is my short list of a handful of questions that I've experimented with over a couple of years. And that I've [00:17:00] repeatedly found to be incredibly valuable.

[00:17:03] When having conversations with stakeholders at the beginning of a project, I hope they help you too. And if I've missed anything super, super important, I'm sure I have, please let me know.

[00:17:20] I don't know about you, but I often feel like I read so much. I can students so much information on the internet or via podcast or otherwise, but I retain so little of it. Well, there's a little rule of thumb in design that says that people can only ever hold a maximum of about seven pieces of information in there.

[00:17:41] Mind without writing them down or forgetting them immediately. Well, this is why I came up with. It's my newsletter, seven things. Every Saturday I'll send the seven most interesting things of a given week that I've either found or worked on myself for you to check out. [00:18:00] If that sounds like something you might enjoy, sign up, you can do that on seventhings.thomasessl.com.

[00:18:14] Product nuggets is produced by myself, Thomas Essel. And the theme song is Aeronaut by blue dot sessions. If you enjoy this episode, please do me a solid and rated wherever you listen to podcasts, it will really help others find it.

[00:18:33] I am also obligated to tell you that. Any opinions expressed in this podcast are my own and to not necessarily reflect those of any past or current employers. Thank you so much for listening until next time.