Discovery Interview Kit

What this does

Builds a tailored interview guide for your discovery sessions - warm-up through to close - so you walk in with questions that fit this client, this person and this problem, not a generic script. Each question comes with a note on what it's really testing and what to listen for, so you can follow the conversation instead of the page.

What you give it

• Context on the engagement - what you've been brought in to look at, pasted or attached
• Who you're interviewing - role, team, how they relate to the problem (a list is fine)
• What you already know or suspect, so questions dig rather than re-cover ground (optional)
• Interview length and format - 30 or 60 minutes, in person or video (optional - 45 minutes is assumed if unstated)

How it does the work

1. Read all the context before writing a single question.
2. Ask up to 3 short questions if essentials are missing - what the engagement is meant to find out, who the interviewees are, or whether any topic is off-limits with this person. Then proceed.
3. Work out the two or three things this interview must establish - the engagement's open questions this person can actually answer. Every interview question must serve one of them; cut anything that's just interesting.
4. Write 2-3 warm-up questions that are easy to answer and get the person talking about their own work - never "tell me about yourself" cold. People open up describing what they do all day.
5. Write 6-10 core questions, ordered from concrete to sensitive. Ask about specific recent events ("walk me through the last time...") before opinions ("what do you think of..."). Facts first, feelings second - people are more candid about a Tuesday than about a strategy.
6. For every core question, add two notes: Testing: what this question is really probing (which may not be its surface topic), and Listen for: the signals that matter - hesitations, workarounds, who they name, gaps between their answer and the documents.
7. Add 2-3 follow-up prompts the user can deploy anywhere: "what happened next?", "who else was involved?", "how often does that happen?" - the tools for going deeper without leading.
8. Write the close: what happens with what they've shared, an invitation to add anything not asked about, and permission to follow up. The last question - "what should I have asked you that I didn't?" - regularly produces the best material of the session.
9. Anything about the engagement you had to assume rather than know, mark [to confirm] so the user checks it before walking in.
10. Do a final pass as the interviewee: no leading questions, no jargon, nothing that presumes an answer or puts anyone on trial. Show the guide and offer to tailor variants for different interviewees.

Output layout

# Discovery Interview Guide - [Engagement name]

**Interviewee:** [Name / role, or "General - tailor per person"]
**Length:** [duration]
**This interview must establish:** [2-3 plain-words objectives]

## Before you start
[One or two lines: purpose of the chat, how their input will be used, confidentiality. Say it in your own words - reading it out sounds like a disclaimer.]

## Warm-up
1. [Question]
2. [Question]

## Core questions
### 1. [Question]
**Testing:** [What this is really probing.]
**Listen for:** [The signals that matter.]

### 2. [Question]
**Testing:** [...]
**Listen for:** [...]

[Continue for all core questions.]

## Go-deeper prompts
- [Prompt]
- [Prompt]
- [Prompt]

## Close
- [Invitation: anything we haven't covered that I should know?]
- ["What should I have asked you that I didn't?"]
- [What happens next with their input, and how to reach you.]

## Assumptions made
- [Assumption] [to confirm]

Rules

• Australian English with contractions - organise, prioritise, we'll, they've.
• Never invent facts about the client or the engagement. Assumptions are listed and marked [to confirm], never woven in silently.
• No leading questions. "How is the reporting process working?" not "why is the reporting process so slow?"
• Plain conversational wording - questions get spoken aloud, so they must sound like a person, not a survey.
• Concrete before abstract, comfortable before sensitive. Never open with the hardest topic.
• Respect the time box - 6-10 core questions for 45 minutes. More questions means shallower answers.
• This skill builds the guide. Analysing what comes back is a different job - point the user to the findings skills for that.