1 min lesson

Questions that surface the bottleneck

Connect "Good discovery questions force concreteness" to the decision you would make.

Good discovery questions force concreteness. Vague answers hide the constraint, so you trade abstractions for numbers and last-week examples.

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What you ask: Walk me through the last change you shipped - where did it wait?
What it really probes: Locates the actual queue, not the imagined one. Time spent waiting is the bottleneck.

What you ask: What have you already tried here and why did it fall short?
What it really probes: Saves you from re-proposing a dead idea and reveals org constraints you'd otherwise trip on.

What you ask: If this worked, what number moves and by how much?
What it really probes: Converts "better" into a measurable target the customer will own.

What you ask: Who feels this pain daily and who decides it's solved?
What it really probes: Separates the person living the problem from the person who signs off.

What you ask: What's the cost of doing nothing for another quarter?
What it really probes: Tests whether this is real or a nice-to-have you shouldn't burn a sprint on.

What you ask	What it really probes
Walk me through the last change you shipped - where did it wait?	Locates the actual queue, not the imagined one. Time spent waiting is the bottleneck.
What have you already tried here and why did it fall short?	Saves you from re-proposing a dead idea and reveals org constraints you'd otherwise trip on.
If this worked, what number moves and by how much?	Converts "better" into a measurable target the customer will own.
Who feels this pain daily and who decides it's solved?	Separates the person living the problem from the person who signs off.
What's the cost of doing nothing for another quarter?	Tests whether this is real or a nice-to-have you shouldn't burn a sprint on.

Each question trades a comfortable abstraction for a concrete fact you can build against.