A technique taken from LifeCoaching Powerful questions are open questions that preclude yes or no as answers. As a result they encourage dialogue and promote understanding.
When we need to understand what a computer system is supposed to do so that it can best serve some business need, questions like :
“What is the most important thing the system should do?”
can be tough to answer. When we do get answers to questions like this, or answers are vague, using the Powerful Question technique we invert the question to focus on the immediate present:
What is the next most important thing the system doesn't yet do?
If we are replacing an existing system, we can ask an even more powerful question:
If we were to switch off the system, where and what would be the biggest impact?
This often leads to some remarkable insights about the true value of a system.