probing questions for problem solving

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Effective Questions to Support Problem-Solving Thinking

• September 9, 2015

How do we ask effective questions to support problem-solving thinking?

Asking better questions — and learning to “break the telling habit” has been a passion of mine since I deeply started studying and applying the art of better question-asking around 2010.

In fact, the importance of asking questions (the right questions) is one of the foundations of my work. 

It’s one of the most popular topics here on my blog, in my custom learning programs for organizations, and my on-demand workshops (such as “Break the Telling Habit”) and guided coaching programs such as the Leading to Learn Accelerator.

Problem-Solving in Support of Developing People

If your organization is looking for support in developing your people as problem solvers, I recommend starting with focusing on A3 problem-solving thinking.

It’s applicable to all leaders and not only hones people’s ability to solve problems and learn by going to see what is actually happening, but also is a great way of deepening coaching skills of asking effective questions and listening.

A Chain of Learning: Managing to Learn and Leading to Learn

John Shook’s book “Managing to Learn” is the best book I’ve found to describe the A3 problem-solving process and is the basis for this A3 thinking class.

Fun fact — One of the models for the character of Sanderson, the manager / coach in the book, is Isao Yoshino — my friend and subject of my best-selling book Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn — who was one of Shook’s first managers at Toyota in Japan. Shook wrote the foreword to my book and shares reflections about how he learned to ask questions and think more

I learned so much about asking questions from my mentor Margie Hagene, who herself was mentored by John Shook. This is my chain of learning that I now link with you to as we learn together.

There are many questions that we can ask in support of problem-solving, but they differ in the intention and outcome of problem solving ownership. I like to categorize questions into four categories, inspired by the work of Edgar Schein (whose books such as  Humble Inquiry and Helping have been foundational in my learning about asking questions).

Humble Open Inquiry

The most effective questions are either those of pure humble inquiry which are questions for which you don’t have the answer. Humble inquiry questions keep the problem-solving thinking with the problem owner, not the person asking the question.

Diagnostic Inquiry

Other effective questions that can be asked, once the problem is clearly defined, are diagnostic questions.

Diagnostic inquiry questions help the problem solver discover cause and effect, more clearly define the root causes for the gap between the way things should be happening and the way they are happening today, and the link between proposed countermeasures and the problem.

Prompting Inquiry: WARNING!

Prompting questions can take away the ownership of the thinking from the problem solver. These are closed-ended questions, multiple-choice questions, or your idea or suggestion with a question mark at the end.

These questions are like a wolf dressed up in sheep’s clothing — they are really your idea or suggestion with a question mark on it!

Process questions

It’s important to not just focus on solving the problem…but also to understand the process of solving the problem.

Good questions to ask during problem-solving coaching are not always related to the problem at hand, but to the human interaction. Process questions help us understand where we are in the problem-solving process or in the conversation.

If you are practicing asking more effective questions and wanting to improve, you could ask a process question such as “What question was most helpful to you to advance your thinking?”.

Want to learn more about questions — get the guide!

If you don’t have it yet you can  download my free guide “3 Tips to Break the ‘Telling Habit’” ! You’ll learn more about the types of questions, and how to ask them so that you too can break your telling habit!

Asking the right questions is often  about intention .

Get this resource to help you ask more effective questions today!

Examples of effective questions

Below are some of the examples of effective questions that participants in a two-day A3 Thinking and Coaching workshop I led many years ago. When coaching leaders to ask more effective questions, I like to capture real-time examples of questions being asked well.

What do you notice about these questions? (I’ll share some reflections below the image).

Examples of effective questions asked today to develop problem solving thinking in others. #lean #coaching @HCValue pic.twitter.com/aXzVhtI2bb — Katie Anderson (@kbjanderson) August 19, 2015

Qualities of effective questions

Just like in the image above, the most effective questions to support problem-solving share many of the following qualities:

• Start with WHAT or HOW
• Do not introduce a solution or idea

Additional categories of problem solving questions

An HBR article titled “Relearning the art of asking questions”  highlights four categories of questions that can be used when problem solving:

• clarifying and

This can be a helpful structure for you to think about how to ask questions to help the other person think more creatively (divergent thinking) or get more clarity (convergent thinking).

Of the questions that are listed above from the A3 thinking class, how would you categorized them based on the HBR article’s definition?

Intention and Practice Leads to Improvement

It’s always inspiring to see, with some dedicated thinking time and practice time, how much people’s skills in problem solving, question asking, and listening can advance.

For example, in this class over two days, people got at least 90-120 minutes to work through a problem they own, and then practice 3-4 sessions of “catchball” (asking and receiving questions) with others as both the problem owner and the coach.

Their questions are dramatically improved on the second day with just some focused practice (see image of questions above)!

This is the same structure of practice that you can learn when you join my self-paced “Breaking the ‘Telling Habit’” workshop,  and unlock your team’s potential by discovering  how  to ask more effective questions. You can take the class at any time, at your own pace.

Additional resources

To learn more tips from me about asking effective questions, listening, and coaching for problem-solving, check out these additional articles:

• “Leading Daily Improvement: Creating New Habits and Practices to Support Continuous Improvement”
• “When to ‘A3’: 3 Problem-Solving Tools to Match the Complexity of Your Problem”
• How to Ask Problem-Solving Questions
• “How to Get Out of the Habit of Telling”
• “Be More Than a Coach, be a Coach That Listens” .
• How to ask questions even if you already know “the answer” .

What is your experience?

How have you practiced becoming a better problem solver or a better coach in support of problem solving? What have you found helpful in asking more effective questions?

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102 Probing Questions (Definition, Examples and List)

Hello there! Knowing how to ask the probing questions when trying to absorb new information is a crucial ability that may help the process.

Do remember!

Probing questions are intended to increase both the knowledge and comprehension of the one asking the question and the person answering it.

The questions themselves, as much as the responses, bring depth and insight.

So, make a good use of them.

In this article, we define probing questions, discuss types of probing questions and share 10 best questions that you may find useful.

Let’s get started then!

Table of Contents

What Are Probing Questions?

Probing questions are intended to elicit in-depth thought on a given issue.

They are usually open-ended questions, which means that the responses are mostly subjective.

Probing questions are designed to encourage critical thinking as well as to elicit the respondent’s ideas and feelings about a certain issue.

10 Best Examples to Ask and Benefits

Here are some examples of the best probing questions and the benefits you will get out of each one of them.

1. How can we help?

This is your chance to ask precise questions about your prospect’s troublesome areas and how your product or service may help to alleviate them.

2. Can you please describe your existing circumstance?

They could take you directly to the heart of their problem, giving you the opportunity to propose your ideal solution.

3. What issues do you want to address?

Invite the prospect to discuss the issues they require assistance with. Position your product as part of their solution after you have a clear picture.

4. What are your goals?

Yes, you must understand what annoys your prospect. But it’s just as crucial to grasp a potential client’s future goals and aspirations for their firm.

5. Are you examining any other possibilities?

You must understand your competitors in order to articulate what makes your product or service exceptional.

6. What do you consider to be the best-case scenario?

It may help you find out what are they expecting to achieve here if everything goes as planned? Is it worthwhile?

7. What prompted you to think about our product?

Get a prospect to talk about what drew them to your product in the first place. This also assists in uncovering what could appeal to future clients.

8. Have you used our product before?

If they are unfamiliar with your product, begin with a wide sales speech to expose them to it.

9. What do you want to gain from this call today?

This question might assist you in gauging and managing client expectations.

10. Is there anything else I should be aware of?

When a prospect is about to leave, it’s a good idea to ask this final check-in question.

Maybe they failed to say something that would come in handy the next time you chat.

Probing Questions List

We are going to provide you with an extensive list of probing questions that you can use right now to help your consumers.

1. Can you tell me more about that?

2. When did this problem begin?

3. Was this the first time something like this happened to you?

4. Could you please give me some background to this?

5 What are your top objectives for the upcoming quarter?

6. What does the decision-making process look like when?

7. What do you think is causing that problem?

8. What’s the timeline for your final decision?

9. Did you refer this to some other service provider?

10. Can you walk me through the process as it looks today?

11. Can you tell me more about the present situation/problem?

12. Have you ever tried to fix this issue yourself?

13. What metrics and goals are you responsible for day-to-day?

14. Can you talk me through a normal day at your company?

15. Has this issue cost you resources?

16. Why are you looking at solving this problem now?

17. Can you help me understand what you mean by that?

18. Is there a budget for this?

19. Why haven’t you done anything about that problem before?

20. For how long are you facing this issue?

21. “How long have you had to deal with this problem?

22. On a priority list, where would this currently sit?

23. What problem are you trying to solve?

24. What goals and objectives do you have for this?

25. What has been your strategy up to this point?

26. Could you give us an example of how this problem might show up?

27. How long have you been thinking about this?

28. Why are those priority objectives for this quarter?

29. Could you tell me more on the problem solving methods that you used?

30. Could you tell me more about that?

31. Why do you think it is happening?

32. Can you give me an example of that?

33. How has this solution affected your brand image?

34. What is your biggest challenge with this?

35. What do you want us to do right now?

36. How soon do you need this problem to be fixed?

37. What are your key objectives with this?

38. How has this issue affected your customers?

39. Did this have an impact on you? How do you feel?

40. Please describe how this problem has affected you or your business.

41. Can you be more specific?

42. Can you tell me about your role?

43. How many of them meet that target versus miss it?

44. Are you sure that the problem is because of this?

45. Can you remember what you were doing the first time the problem came up?

46. Can you give me an example?

47. Can you tell me about your team?

48. What are the new plans that you are offering us?

49. Have you tried to find a solution on your own?

50. What three key outcomes do you want from this?

51. What are your departmental challenges?

52. is this the first time you are facing this issue or it happened earlier as well?

53. What was the outcome of your attempt?

54. Do you have the final say on spending that budget?

55. Do you have any preference with regards to the solution?

56. What does your team want?

57. How long will you take to resolve this issue?

58. Can you please tell me about that?

59. What will be the main factors in making a decision?

60. What is your company getting out of this solution?

61. Can you please tell us about the experience you have with our services?

62. How has this affected you personally?

63. What is stopping you from taking an adequate action?

64. What circumstances led to you choosing us?

65. Who persuaded you to take a decision on our behalf?

66. What do you value most as a customer?

67. How will this be funded?

68. Procuring solutions like ours?

69. What are your views on our customer service?

70. What are you using/doing now?

71. How many people are in your team?

72. How long have you been in your industry?

73. How can we improve customer services in future?

74. What are your concerns we can address immediately?

75. Why did you choose our services over others?

76. How do these knock-on effects impact you personally?

77. Is this decision a local one or more widespread?

78. How can we help you to resolve this issue right away?

79. Do you have the final say in purchasing?

80. Why would this only be relevant to your team?

81. Is there anything else that you would prefer me to help you out with?

82. In an ideal world, what would you want to be doing?

83. Why are we talking today?

84. Will you invite your friends to use our services in future?

85. What other solutions or products have you looked at?

86. Who else is this important to?

87. Can you rate us good for a customer satisfaction program?

88. What did you like about those other solutions?

89. What are the knock-on effects if you don’t solve this problem?

90. What else can we do to better serve you?

91. Can you tell me more about your role at our company?

92. Who would be the person who signs the order form?

93. What did you feel those other solutions were missing?

94. Do you feel our representatives were efficient in solving your problems?

95. What would you say is a ‘must-have’ in a solution?

96. What, according to you, makes us fall apart as a good provider in the market?

97. Can we schedule a time right now to talk again?

98. How do you feel your team would respond to this solution?

99. What other providers do you use?

100. When would you want to make a decision?

101. What does success look like in the first 6 months/year?

102. How can I help you avoid hitting these?

Types of Probing Questions

1. Open-Ended Questions

An open-ended question is one that does not have a definite or brief answer. These allow prospects to share detailed anecdotes about their personal predicament.

2. Closed-Ended Questions

Closed-ended questions are the polar opposite of open-ended questions in which they often have defined answers that leave little opportunity for the prospect to ramble.

3. Loaded Questions

A loaded question is one that is framed in such a manner that it leads the prospect to supply answers regarding a certain issue, giving you an edge.

4. Recall Questions

These questions compel a prospect to think critically about the systems in place at their business.

Tips for Improving Your Probing Questions

Here are some techniques for improving probing questions.

1. Apply the “Know, Feel, Do” Method

Take into account how the consumer feels and how we want them to feel. If we can do that, we will have a firm grasp on how to assist someone.

2. Ask a Closed Question After the Probing Questions

Validate your suspicions about the nature of the problem by asking basic “yes” or “no” questions.

3. Think about the TED Method.

TED stands for Tell, Explain, and Describe.

These are utilized so that the client concentrates on providing us with the most relevant information.

4. Try to avoid asking the question “Why?”

This is due to the fact that we do not want to blame customers for the situation. That is not acceptable customer service.

5. Add Empathy Statements to Probing Questions

When you empathize with individuals, they frequently move from telling you the facts to telling you how they feel.

Final Thoughts

Well, did you like the probing questions we provided you with?

We certainly hope you did!

Asking customer service questions that will help you understand your prospect can improve your chances of completing the transaction.

Isn’t that what we all want to achieve?

These probing questions are intended to help you obtain the necessary information from your customers.

They will also assist you in making your sales process more productive for both you and your prospect. Isn’t that exciting?

If you know some useful probing questions yourself, feel free to share them in the comment section below.

We would love to hear from you.

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25 Brainstorming Questions to Generate Better Ideas

Brainstorming is an essential process for generating new ideas, solving complex problems, and driving innovation and growth. 

However, the effectiveness of a brainstorming session depends largely on the quality of the questions being asked. 

Without the right questions, the discussion can become unfocused and unproductive, resulting in missed opportunities and wasted time. That's why building a framework for generating better brainstorming questions is so important. 

In this blog post, we’ll explore the key elements of a framework for generating better brainstorming questions and why it's important for achieving successful outcomes in any brainstorming session . By following these guidelines, you can ensure that your brainstorming sessions stay on point and generate innovative ideas that drive success for your organization.

How to ask better brainstorming questions

Too often, we surrender to the myth of the water cooler. In reality, it’s not just luck or serendipity that results in great ideas . The key is to build a framework that creates an environment where your brainstorming is focused on the right issues. Here’s how. 

Start with the problem

The first step in building a framework for asking better brainstorming questions is to clearly define the problem that needs to be solved. This will help to guide the discussion and ensure that the questions are relevant and focused on the task at hand.

Related: How to Identify the Right Problems to Solve

Identify the objective

Once you have a clearly-defined problem statement , the next step is to identify the objective of the brainstorming session. Are you looking to generate new ideas, dig deeper into the root cause of a problem, or evaluate potential solutions? This will help to determine the types of questions that need to be asked.

Determine the scope

The scope of the brainstorming session will also impact the types of questions that need to be asked. Are you looking at a specific area of the business, or is the scope broader? This will help to identify the relevant stakeholders and ensure that the questions are appropriate.

Use visual aids

Visual aids, such as diagrams, flowcharts , and graphs, can help to stimulate the imagination and encourage creative thinking. These aids can be used to illustrate ideas, identify trends, and explore different scenarios. A shared digital space, like an online whiteboard , can be the best place to bring everyone together, level the playing field, and capture all your ideas and feedback. 

25 brainstorming questions to generate better ideas

1. information-gathering questions.

Including information-gathering questions helps to provide context and background that can inform the discussion and generate more focused and relevant ideas. When participants have a better understanding of the problem or topic at hand, they can come up with ideas that are more targeted and effective.

Information-gathering questions can also help to ensure that everyone has a shared understanding of the problem or topic being discussed. This can prevent misunderstandings or assumptions from leading the discussion astray and can help to ensure that all ideas directly pertain to the problem at hand.

Examples of information-gathering questions:

• What is the background of the problem we're trying to solve?
• What data or research do we have on this issue?
• Who are the key stakeholders involved in this problem?
• What has been tried before to solve this problem?
• What are the current market trends or industry best practices related to this problem?

2. Probing questions

Introducing probing questions in a brainstorming session is important because it helps to uncover the root cause of the problem or challenge being discussed. When team members have a better understanding of the underlying issues and factors that are contributing to the problem, they can come up with more effective and targeted solutions.

In addition, probing questions can help to generate more detailed and specific information about the problem or challenge. This information can then be used to generate ideas that are more targeted and effective in addressing the root cause of the problem.

Examples of probing questions:

• What are the underlying causes of this problem?
• What assumptions are we making about this issue?
• What are the consequences of not addressing this problem?
• What are the different perspectives on this issue?
• What are the risks and opportunities associated with solving this problem?

Pro-tip: Use Mural’s problem tree analysis template to help define root causes and examine related effects 

3. Problem-solving questions

Including problem-solving questions in a brainstorming session helps to identify potential solutions to the root cause of the problem or challenge being discussed. When participants have a better understanding of the underlying issues and factors that are contributing to the problem, they can generate more effective and targeted solutions.

Problem-solving questions can also help to generate a wide range of ideas and perspectives from participants. By encouraging participants to think creatively and outside the box , problem-solving questions can help to generate new and innovative ideas that may not have been considered before.

In addition, problem-solving questions can help to evaluate the feasibility and effectiveness of potential solutions. 

Examples of problem-solving questions:

• What are some potential solutions to this problem?
• What are the criteria we should use to evaluate potential solutions?
• How can we prioritize potential solutions?
• What are the risks and benefits of each potential solution?
• What resources and support will we need to implement the chosen solution?

4. Refining questions

Refining questions can be used to evaluate the viability of a potential solution by considering factors such as the resources required, the potential impact on stakeholders, and the feasibility of implementation. By asking these types of questions, participants can narrow down the potential solutions and identify the ones that are most likely to be successful.

In addition, refining questions can help to ensure that potential solutions are aligned with the overall goals and objectives of the organization or project. Considering factors such as the strategic priorities, budget constraints, and long-term impact, can help participants identify solutions that are most likely to achieve the desired outcomes.

Examples of refining questions:

• How can we test the viability of the chosen solution?
• What are the potential barriers to implementing the solution, and how can we address them?
• How can we measure the success of the chosen solution?
• What are the resource requirements, including personnel, funding, and technology, for implementing the solution?
• How can we ensure the sustainability of the solution over time?

Related: 5 strategies to conduct better group brainstorms

5. Reflection questions

Reflection questions can help to make sure that participants have a shared understanding of the ideas that have been generated. By summarizing the key ideas and insights, participants can confirm their understanding of the issues and solutions that have been discussed.

Reflection questions are also a means of identifying any gaps or areas that require further exploration. These questions encourage participants to reflect on what they have learned and what they still need to know, ensuring that all relevant information has been considered.

In addition, reflection questions can help to plan next steps and ensure that the ideas generated during the session are acted upon. By considering questions such as what are the next steps? or who will be responsible for implementing these ideas ?, participants can begin to develop an action plan for moving forward.

Examples of reflection questions:

• What did we learn from this meeting?
• What were the key takeaways from the discussion?
• Are there any unresolved issues or concerns we need to address?
• How can we ensure alignment and buy-in from all stakeholders?
• What are the next steps and action items to move forward?

Start holding better brainstorming and ideation sessions

To wrap things up, building a framework for better brainstorming questions is vital for productive brainstorming sessions. Through including various types of brainstorming questions, such as information-gathering, probing, problem-solving, refining, and reflection questions, participants can generate a broad range of ideas, assess potential solutions, and plan next steps effectively. 

Don't forget that diversity, psychological safety , and structured facilitation are essential for improving the quality of brainstorming sessions. 

With Mural, teams can easily share their work with stakeholders and invite unlimited members to collaborate in real-time. Sign up for a Free Forever account today, and enhance the quality of your brainstorming sessions, generate better ideas, and increase speed to innovation for your organization. 

About the authors

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Article • 12 min read

Questioning Techniques

Asking questions effectively.

By the Mind Tools Content Team

Why Is It Important to Ask Questions Effectively?

"Garbage in, garbage out," is a popular truth, often said in relation to computer systems: if you put the wrong information in, you'll get the wrong information out.

The same principle applies to communications in general: if you ask the wrong questions, you'll probably get the wrong answer, or at least not quite what you're hoping for.

Asking the right questions is at the heart of effective communication and information exchange. By asking the right questions – and asking them in the right way – in a particular situation, you can improve a whole range of communication skills. For example, you can gather better information and learn more, you can build stronger relationships, manage people more effectively, and help others to learn too.

In this article and in the video, below, we will explore some common questioning techniques, and when (and when not) to use them.

Key Takeaways

• There are various questioning techniques you can use to gain the information you need. Each technique has its own pros and cons.
• Closed questions are useful when you need a to-the-point answer, whereas open questions are good for extracting more detailed responses.
• Funnel questions are a way to extract more detail gradually. This technique is a good way to prompt memories or deeper thinking.
• Probing questions help you gain detail and clarity.
• Leading questions are a good technique if you're trying to persuade someone, but they can leave the other person feeling they have little or no choice.
• Rhetorical questions encourage reflection and are another useful persuasion technique.
• Asking the right kind of questions can help you in all sorts of situations, like coaching or defusing tension and anger. They help you to learn about people, communicate more clearly, and build relationships.

Open and Closed Questions

A closed question usually receives a single word or very short, factual answer. For example, "Are you thirsty?" The answer is "Yes" or "No"; "Where do you live?" The answer is generally the name of your town or your address.

Open questions elicit longer answers. They usually begin with what, why, and how. An open question asks the respondent for his or her knowledge, opinion or feelings. "Tell me" and "describe" can also be used in the same way as open questions. Here are some examples:

• What happened at the meeting?
• Why did he react that way?
• How was the party?
• Tell me what happened next.
• Describe the circumstances in more detail.

Open questions are good for:

• Developing an open conversation: "What did you get up to on vacation?"
• Finding out more detail: "What else do we need to do to make this a success?"
• Finding out the other person's opinion or issues: "What do you think about those changes?"

Closed questions are good for:

• Testing your understanding, or the other person's: "So, if I get this qualification, I will get a raise?"
• Concluding a discussion or making a decision: "Now we know the facts, are we all agreed this is the right course of action?"
• Frame setting: "Are you happy with the service from your bank?"

A misplaced closed question, on the other hand, can kill the conversation and lead to awkward silences, so is best avoided when a conversation is in full flow.

Funnel Questions

This technique involves starting with general questions, and then drilling down to a more specific point in each. Usually, this will involve asking for more and more detail at each level. It's often used by detectives taking a statement from a witness:

"How many people were involved in the fight?" "About ten." "Were they kids or adults?" "Mostly kids." "What sort of ages were they?" "About fourteen or fifteen." "Were any of them wearing anything distinctive?" "Yes, several of them had red baseball caps on." "Can you remember if there was a logo on any of the caps?" "Now you come to mention it, yes, I remember seeing a big letter N."

Using this technique, the detective has helped the witness to re-live the scene and to gradually focus in on a useful detail. Perhaps he'll be able to identify young men wearing a hat like this from CCTV footage. It is unlikely he would have got this information if he's simply asked an open question such as "Are there any details you can give me about what you saw?"

When using funnel questioning, start with closed questions. As you progress through the tunnel, start using more open questions.

Funnel questions are good for:

• Finding out more detail about a specific point: "Tell me more about Option Two."
• Gaining the interest or increasing the confidence of the person you're speaking with: "Have you used the IT Helpdesk?," "Did it solve your problem?," "What was the attitude of the person who took your call?"

Probing Questions

Asking probing questions is another strategy for finding out more detail. Sometimes it's as simple as asking your respondent for an example, to help you understand a statement that they have made. At other times, you need additional information for clarification, "When do you need this report by, and do you want to see a draft before I give you my final version?" Or to investigate whether there is proof for what has been said, "How do you know that the new database can't be used by the sales force?"

An effective way of probing is to use the 5 Whys method, which can help you quickly get to the root of a problem.

Use questions that include the word "exactly" to probe further: "What exactly do you mean by fast-track?" or "Who, exactly, wanted this report?"

Probing questions are good for:

• Gaining clarification to ensure that you have the whole story and that you understand it thoroughly.
• Drawing information out of people who are trying to avoid telling you something.

Leading Questions

Leading questions try to lead the respondent to your way of thinking. They can do this in several ways:

• With an assumption – "How late do you think that the project will deliver?" This assumes that the project will certainly not be completed on time.
• By adding a personal appeal to agree at the end – "Lori's very efficient, don't you think?" or "Option Two is better, isn't it?"
• Phrasing the question so that the "easiest" response is "yes" – Our natural tendency to prefer to say "yes" than "no" plays an important part in the phrasing of questions: "Shall we all approve Option Two?" is more likely to get a positive response than "Do you want to approve Option Two or not?" A good way of doing this is to make it personal. For example, "Would you like me to go ahead with Option Two?" rather than "Shall I choose Option Two?"
• Giving people a choice between two options – both of which you would be happy with, rather than the choice of one option or not doing anything at all. Strictly speaking, the choice of "neither" is still available when you ask "Which would you prefer... A or B?" but most people will be caught up in deciding between your two preferences.

Note that leading questions tend to be closed.

Leading questions are good for:

• Getting the answer you want, but leaving the other person feeling that they haven't got a choice.
• Closing a sale: "If that answers all of your questions, shall we agree on a price?"

Use leading questions with care. If you use them in a self-serving way or one that harms the interests of the other person, then they can, quite rightly, be seen as manipulative and dishonest.

Rhetorical Questions

Rhetorical questions aren't really questions at all, in that they don't expect an answer. They're really just statements phrased in question form: "Isn't John's design work so creative?"

People use rhetorical questions because they are engaging for the listener – as they are drawn into agreeing ("Yes it is and I like working with such a creative colleague") – rather than feeling that they are being "told" something like "John is a very creative designer." (To which they may answer "So What?")

Rhetorical questions are even more powerful if you use a string of them. "Isn't that a great display? Don't you love the way the text picks up the colors in the photographs? Doesn't it use space really well? Wouldn't you love to have a display like that for our products?"

Rhetorical questions are good for:

• Engaging the listener.
• Getting people to agree with your point of view.

Using Questioning Techniques

You have probably used all of these questioning techniques before in your everyday life, at work and at home. But by consciously applying the appropriate kind of questioning, you can gain the information, response or outcome that you want even more effectively.

Questions are a powerful way of:

• Learning: ask open and closed questions, and use probing questioning.
• Relationship building: people generally respond positively if you ask about what they do or enquire about their opinions. If you do this in an affirmative way "Tell me what you like best about working here" you will help to build and maintain an open dialog.
• Managing and coaching : here, rhetorical and leading questions are useful too. They can help get people to reflect and to commit to courses of action that you've suggested: "Wouldn't it be great to gain some further qualifications?"
• Avoiding misunderstandings: use probing questions to seek clarification, particularly when the consequences are significant. And to make sure that you avoid jumping to conclusions. The Ladder of Inference tool can help you here, too.
• Defusing a heated situation: you can calm an angry customer or colleague by using funnel questions to get them to go into more detail about their grievance. This will not only distract them from their emotions, but will often help you to identify a small practical thing that you can do, which is often enough to make them feel that they have "won" something, and no longer need to be angry.
• Persuading people: no one likes to be lectured, but asking a series of open questions will help others to embrace the reasons behind your point of view. "What do you think about bringing the sales force in for half a day to have their laptops upgraded?"

Tips For Asking Effective Questions

Make sure that you give the person you're questioning enough time to respond. This may need to include thinking time before they answer, so don't just interpret a pause as a "No comment" and plow on.

Skillful questioning needs to be matched by careful listening so that you understand what people really mean with their answers.

Your body language and tone of voice can also play a part in the answers you get when you ask questions.

Frequently Asked Questions

How can i improve my questioning techniques.

Consider what you want to learn from the person you're speaking with so that you can choose the most appropriate technique, and practice active listening . This will help you to fully understand their response, and delve deeper if you need to. It also facilitates an open discussion.

What are some common mistakes to avoid when questioning?

Asking too many questions at once, and not allowing enough time to answer, can overwhelm the other person and create a hostile tone. Instead, ask one question at a time and try not to speak over someone when they're replying. For longer or more introspective answers, allow them some extra thinking time, too. And if you need them to elaborate, sometimes a brief pause is all it takes to prompt someone to expand on their answer.

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Natasa Kulessa

"Managing and coaching" - I am wondering here about using these terms synonymously and suggesting that "leading questions" are part of coaching someone, as coaching is quite the opposite of "getting people to commit to courses of action that you've suggested". Coaching is about supporting someone else in coming up with their own solutions to their own goals, leading them in this way would be counter productive.

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Team Dynamics: Problem-Solving and Decision Making

• Teamwork and Team Leadership Table of Contents
• Fostering Communication & Promoting Cooperation
• Problem-Solving and Decision Making
• Handling Conflict
• Dealing with Power and Influence

1. Overview

• Different stages of team development call for different problem solving methods
• Problem solving requires the use of a systematic process
• The appropriate decision making method is determined by the amount of time available for the decision and the impact of the decision
• Effective decision making requires the use of smart techniques

2. Problem Solving in Team Development Stages

3. General Problem Solving Steps

• Defining the problem : phrase problem as probing questions to encourage explorative thinking; make explicit goal statement
• Establish criteria for evaluating the solution : identify characteristics of a satisfactory solution; distinguish requirements from desires
• Analyzing the problem : discover the root cause and extent of the problem
• Considering alternate solutions : brainstorm to generate many ideas before judging any of them
• Evaluate alternate solutions : use ranking-weighting matrix; check for issues/disagreement
• Deciding on a solution :  choose best answer to the problem from among all possible solutions
• Develop action plan : make team assignments with milestones(don’t underestimate time)
• Implementing the action plan : check for consistency with requirements identified in step 2
• Following up on the solution :  check up on the implementation and make necessary adjustments
• Evaluate outcomes and process :  review performance, process, and personal aspects of the solution

4. Decision Making Method Based on Time and Impact

5. Smart Decision Making is Enabled By. . .

• Modeling an open mind and asking for candid opinions
• What elements would you choose to change?
• What changes would you make to solve …?  
• Aligning rewards to team successes to ensure that individuals share what they know
• Ensuring that team members are aware of relevant roles and unique information required for team success
• Charging some team members to assume a position that opposes the team’s preference
• Creating an alternate team that attempts to find errors and weaknesses in the solution
• Using successive rounds of blind voting interspersed with discussions

6. Additional Readings

• Hartnett, T. (n.d). Consensus decision making. Retrieved from http://www.consensusdecisionmaking.org/
• UMass|Dartmouth (n.d.) 7 steps to effective decision making . Retrieved from https://www.umassd.edu/media/u massdartmouth/fycm/decision_ma king_process.pdf
• Sunstein, C.R. (2014).  Making dumb groups smarter.  Harvard Business Review, 92(12), 90-98. 
• << Previous: Fostering Communication & Promoting Cooperation
• Next: Handling Conflict >>

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Classic Therapy Questions Therapists Tend to Ask

We partner with our clients and focus not only on the content of what we talk about, but also on the person, process, and quality of the therapeutic relationship.

The goals for therapy are as varied as the dilemmas our clients struggle with. A systematic approach to the exploration of issues can go a long way in effectively addressing what is brought to the table and, most of all, in getting to know the person who brings them.

What makes conversations in therapy different from our day-to-day discussions are the types of questions asked, as well the focus on the client during the interaction, not the problem.

Meeting the client’s psychological needs is another critical component that often determines the effectiveness of the therapeutic process. When our needs are not adequately met, we often make an unconscious attempt to satisfy them somehow, which can lead to maladaptive coping.

What distinguish different forms of therapy from each other are the content and techniques used to address the core needs that underlie the presenting problems clients usually describe.

Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.

There are several recognized basic psychological needs, and they vary with theories on what motivates human behavior. For a full description of some of these phenomena, see our series of articles on human motivation .

Two basic psychological needs that are most important for enabling the process of therapy, however, are shared by all: the need for cognition and the need for closure.

The need for cognition refers to our desire to understand our own experiences and things in our environment through thinking as we find ourselves having to consistently respond to increasing complexity in our environment and changes to our circumstances.

The need for closure motivates us to avoid ambiguities and to seek to arrive at a firm conclusion, which can have implications for our relationships and our ability to function effectively.

For even more therapy questions, see also our related article: Therapy Questions Every Therapist Should Be Asking .

Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Positive CBT Exercises for free . These science-based exercises will provide you with detailed insight into Positive CBT and give you the tools to apply it in your therapy or coaching.

This Article Contains

37 classic and common questions therapists often ask, therapy questions for depression and anxiety, a look at the solution-focused therapy miracle question, more sfbt questions, 20 cbt therapy question to ask clients, 13 music therapy interview questions, 10 examples of narrative therapy questions, a look at gestalt therapy questions, a take-home message, frequently asked questions.

One aspect of therapy is partnering with a client in problem solving. Probing deeply into our clients’ lives through thought-provoking questions is often the bulk of what happens in talk therapy.

Inquiring about clients’ situations in a nonjudgmental way and with genuine curiosity and warmth is crucial not only for getting to the root of the problem, but also for building rapport and creating an environment of psychological safety .

Most misunderstandings in the world could be avoided if people would simply take the time to ask, “ What else could this mean? ”

Shannon L. Alder

When clients feel like they can bring their whole person into the therapeutic relationship, the conversation unfolds with genuine ease. Whenever possible, good therapy questions should be presented as a door-opener phrase that invites clients’ full disclosure and gradually and carefully challenges their assumptions, believes, and perspectives that may be contrary to their needs and goals.

Some of the most common therapy questions are included below.

What is the problem from your point of view?

Defining a problem in the initial stage of therapy can often be challenging; clients come in with unique perspectives on what the problem is and sometimes with what the solution to that problem should be.

Empathic, nonjudgmental listening is crucial. The goal is to make the client feel acknowledged and accepted for who they are, and for that, caution and patience are required.

The point of counseling is to create positive changes without the client feeling hurried or being worked on.

• How do you see the problem?
• How would you define the biggest challenge you’re facing right now?
• What are the things or people in your life that are causing problems for you?
• How does this problem typically make you feel?

Validating clients’ feelings is an integral part of rapport building. Feelings are not facts, and there is no right or wrong way to feel about any given situation. Some clients are less equipped at articulating their feelings and may need help naming them.

When strong negative emotions show up, one way to deal with them is to parse them into smaller, less potent feelings. Practitioners also often observe that their clients are subject to conflicting emotions, and probing into those can often prove to be very useful, although at times uncomfortable for the client.

• How do you feel when a problem pops up unexpectedly?
• Do you feel sad, mad, hopeless, stuck, or something else?
• What else do you feel? Tell me more.
• When you tell me you feel angry, what else do you feel? Disappointed, hurt, betrayed, lonely, or something else?

What makes the problem better?

• How often do you experience the problem?
• How have you been coping with the problem(s) that brought you into therapy? What have you tried so far?
• What do you think caused the situation to worsen?
• How does the problem affect how you feel about yourself?
• What avenues have you pursued in the past that have worked well to solve the problem?
• Tell me about a time when you were not experiencing these difficulties.

Overall, how would you describe your mood?

Robert Thayer (1997), who studied how moods influence behavior, suggested that we should see moods as a form of internal barometer and a reflection of the interactions between our psychological states and our physiology, rather than mysterious, purely emotional reactions to events around us.

Unlike fleeting emotions, moods are more like the weather and represent the underlying biology of our daily cycles of energy and tension.

When we find ourselves overwhelmed by stress or tiredness, we are more likely to reach for self-destructive habits. Understanding our moods and their fluctuations better can allow us to improve our personal effectiveness substantially, both mentally and physically.

• Describe your typical daily mood. Is your mood like a roller coaster, or is it pretty steady?
• What energizes you and makes you feel more upbeat?
• What brings you down or makes you feel blue?
• How do you typically handle irritations, aggravations, and frustrations? Do you get mad easily? How does your anger come out?
• Do you feel mad when you don’t get your way or lose control?
• How do you get yourself out of a bad mood?
• We all use different strategies to cope. Do you find yourself reaching for caffeine, drugs, alcohol, sex, shopping, the internet, or something else to make you feel better?
• What have people close to you told you about your moods?

How connected do you feel to the people around you?

Exploring the dynamics of clients’ relationships with people in their lives can be a good predictor for how they will respond to forming a relationship in therapy, as we often play out similar tendencies in most of our relationships.

• Tell me about the important relationships in your life.
• What was it like growing up in your family?
• What do people keep doing that you dislike, and what do you wish they would change?
• What wrongs have been done to you that you haven’t forgiven?

What positive changes do you want to make in your life?

Exploring clients’ goals for therapeutic engagement and their attitudes toward change allows the practitioner to glimpse into what our clients value and what frustrates their ability to honor those values in their lives.

• On a scale of 0–10, how content are you with your life?
• Do you regularly set positive goals for your work life, your relationships or health, and relaxation?
• What is your attitude about change?
• What are these goals?
• What keeps happening repeatedly that keeps you from achieving them?

While there may be many reasons for that, the biggest value of therapy is in creating awareness of the habits of mind that often don’t serve us.

The below questionnaire identifies typical symptoms of depression and is adapted from the Patient Health Questionnaire (Kroenke, Spitzer, Williams, & Löwe, 2010).

Over the last two weeks, how often have you been bothered by any of the following problems?

Apply a score as follows:

• 1 for Not at all;
• 2 for Several days;
• 3 for More than half the days and
• 4 for Nearly every day.

If you experience any of the problems above, how difficult have they made it for you to do your work, take care of things at home, or get along with other people?

• Not difficult at all
• Somewhat difficult
• Very difficult
• Extremely difficult

Many forms of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT), some discussed below, address the problems in thinking associated with depression. The good news is that these problematic thinking patterns can be adequately assessed and treated.

One such example is the measure of pessimism present in clients’ interpretations of life events as marked by their attribution or explanatory style .

Several questionnaires help therapists analyze the content of their clients’ perceptions such as Attributional Style Questionnaire (Peterson et al., 1982), the Children’s Attributional Style Questionnaire (Kaslow, Tannenbaum, & Seligman, 1978) and the Content Analysis of Verbatim Explanations Technique (Peterson, Schulman, Castellon, & Seligman, 1992).

Below is an example of how to adopt these assessments to real-life situations.

Instructions :

Ask the client to imagine as vividly as possible an event, such as having a serious argument with a family member or any other appropriate scenario best suited to the client’s situation.

Let the client indicate the major cause(s) of the event and then ask them to answer three follow-up questions regarding their chosen explanatory options.

A. Please select from below the important reasons that caused the above event. You may choose more than one:

• Personality problems
• Emotional problems
• Influence of past experience or feelings
• Being treated unfairly
• Communication problems
• Misunderstandings
• Discrepancies in mutual expectations
• Other reasons

B. Are the causes you selected due to something about you or to something about other people or circumstances?

C. In the future, when facing a similar event, will these causes be present again?

D. Are the causes something that had an influence on only the above event, or do they also influence other areas of your life?

Other frequently used measures for depression and anxiety include the Beck Depression Inventory (Dozois & Covin, 2004) and the State–Trait Anxiety Inventory (Spielberger, 2010). The rating scale below has been adopted from part of the State–Trait Anxiety Inventory.

Read the statements below and indicate how much these apply to how you feel and think on a typical day. Apply a score of 1 for Never; 2 for Sometimes; 3 for Frequently and 4 for Almost always.

Therapy questions for anxiety will often need to include probing into somatic symptoms and bringing awareness to the body for signals of onset of anxiety. Treatment for anxiety often also includes techniques for learning relaxation that can be used when the anxiety suddenly strikes.

Gestalt Therapy may be a helpful approach to combating somatic symptoms of anxiety (see below).

Questions to work with anxiety can also focus on reframing our perceptions of stress, as studies show that when we view stress as physically harmful, it tends to have a more detrimental effect on our health than when we see stress as information or an opportunity to rise to the occasion (McGonigal, 2015).

CBT and solution-focused therapies discussed below can be applied to specific behavioral patterns associated with anxiety-inducing thinking patterns and perceptions (see below).

For that reason, interventions like the Miracle Question allow us to connect where we are today to where we want to be in the future by visualizing vividly and emotionally the goals we desire.

The Miracle Question, or the “problem is gone” question, is a method of questioning that a therapist can utilize to invite the client to envision and describe in detail how the future will be different when the problem is no longer present.

Imagine that tonight as you sleep, a miracle occurs in your life. A magical momentous happening has completely solved this problem and perhaps rippled out to cover and infinitely improve other areas of your life too. Think for a moment and tell me, how is life going to be different now? Describe it in detail. What’s the first thing you’ll notice as you wake up in the morning?

Some suggest that this intervention is most effective when a relaxation technique is briefly applied first. Others suggest that follow-up questions can help solidify the vision of the future.

• What do your senses pick up?
• What do you feel?
• What are you doing (in as many aspects of your life as possible)?
• With whom are you doing it?
• Where are you living?
• How much fun are you having?
• How much income are you earning?
• What difference are you making in the world each day?

The power of Miracle Question lies in the emotional connection we create to the detailed picture of what our lives could be like. We are, after all, veritable anticipation machines and can get energized by future possibilities. Not to mention, the devil is in the details, and the more vivid the picture of the future we paint, the more likely we are to see the necessary steps to get there.

Download 3 Free Positive CBT Exercises (PDF)

These detailed, science-based exercises will equip you or your clients with tools to find new pathways to reduce suffering and more effectively cope with life stressors.

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By filling out your name and email address below.

Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) is typically very brief (three to five sessions), focuses on finding solutions, and attends only minimally to defining or understanding the presenting problems (De Shazer et al., 1986).

The questioning style is intended to explore the client’s preferred future and goals in the context of their current resources and behaviors. Some examples of the therapeutic elements include problem-free talk, the Miracle Question, and ratings of progress scales (Ratner, George, & Iveson, 2012).

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

The following exercise, called Do One Thing Differently , is an excellent example of how this form of therapy zeros in on resolving issues directly in a concrete and immediate fashion. This seven-step intervention is intended to break a problematic pattern of behavior by replacing it with another (Miller, Hubble, & Duncan, 1991).

Do One Thing Differently

Step 1 : Think of a time that things did not go well for you and bring to mind the things you usually do in a problematic situation. Choose to change one thing, such as:

• Your body patterns and what you do with your body
• What you say and how you say it
• The location and where it happens
• The order you do things in

When a similar issue comes up again, what part of that problem situation will you do differently now?

Step 2 : Think of something that somebody else does that makes the problem better or think of something that you have done in the past that made things go better.

• Think of something that somebody else does that works to make things go better.
• What is the person’s name?
• What do they do that you will try?
• Think of something that you have done in the past that helped make things go better. What did you do that you will do next time?

Step 3 : Feelings are a vital source of information but do not have to determine your actions. You always have a choice, particularly when your previous experience shows that your pattern of emotional reactions causes behavior that undermines your future goals.

• Think of a feeling that used to get you into trouble, e.g., anger, sadness, etc.
• What feeling do you want to stop getting you into trouble?
• Think of what information that feeling is telling you.
• What does the feeling suggest you should do that would help things go better?

Step 4 : Change what you focus on. What you pay attention to tends to loom larger, and you will notice it more. To solve a problem, try changing your focus or your perspective.

• Think of something that you are focusing on too much.
• What gets you into trouble when you focus on it too much?
• Think of something that you will focus on instead.
• What will you focus on that will not get you into trouble?

Step 5 : Imagine a future when you are not having the problem you are having right now. Work backward to figure out what you could do now to make that future come true.

• Think of what will be different for you in the future when things are going better.
• How will things be different?
• Think of one thing that you would be doing differently before things could go better in the future.
• What one thing will you do differently?

Step 6: Sometimes, people with problems talk about what other people are doing that makes things worse for them, and they talk about why it is not possible to do better. Remember that there are aspects of your life where you do have control and can change your story.

• Talk about times when the problem was not happening and what you were doing.
• Think of a time when you were not having the problem that is bothering you.
• Tell me about that time.

Step 7 : Focus on facts and actions away from interpretations.

• Talk about things you can see, not about what you believe the other person was thinking or feeling because we do not know that.
• When you make a complaint, talk about the action that you do not like.
• When you make a request, talk about what action you want the person to do.
• When you praise someone, talk about what action you liked.

Assessing cognition within the CBT model comes down to helping the client examine their thoughts by asking questions related to how the client perceives themself, others, and the future.

For example, when a client describes themself as incapable or a burden and generally perceive others to be critical or hard to please, their view of the future might be mostly pessimistic and contain beliefs that the future will only hold more losses and disappointments.

Assessing behaviors and precipitating situations within the CBT model is about examining the events, behaviors, thoughts, or emotions that activate, trigger, or compound patient difficulties (Chambless & Ollendick, 2001; DeRubeis & Crits-Christoph, 1998).

At the end of the day, the questions we ask of ourselves determine the type of people that we will become.

Leo Babauta

One helpful approach to examining behavior and symptoms is to address them in a broader context. The antecedents, behavior, consequences (ABC) model postulates that behaviors are primarily determined by antecedents or events that precede behavior, thoughts, or mood, and consequences or events that follow them.

The ABC model can be used as a functional assessment where behavior is shaped by antecedents and followed by consequences (Ellis & MacLaren, 1998).

The antecedent occurs before a behavior and may be a trigger for a particular reaction in the patient and can both increase and decrease a particular behavior. Antecedents, or events that occur before a behavior, typically elicit emotional and physiological responses.

Antecedents may be affective (an emotion), somatic (a physiological response), behavioral (an act), or cognitive (a thought). They are also subject to contextual factors (situational) and relational (interpersonal) factors.

For example, a patient who reports being depressed (behavior) may feel bad when they are alone at home late at night (contextual antecedent) or better when they are around family (relational antecedent). Consequently, they may feel even more dejected by thinking that they will always be alone (cognitive antecedent) (Ellis, & MacLaren, 1998).

Below are some questions to help examine antecedents to a particular behavior:

• What were you feeling right before you did that? (Affective)
• What happens to you physically before this happens? Do you feel sick? (Somatic)
• How do you normally act right before this happens? (Behavioral)
• What thoughts go through your mind before this happens? (Cognitive)
• Where and when does this usually happen? (Contextual)
• Do you do this with everyone, or just when you are around certain people? (Relational)

Behavior is any activity, including thoughts or feelings, that the patient exhibits in response to an antecedent. The questions below help examine a particular behavior:

• How do you feel immediately after this occurs? (Affective)
• Do you have any bodily sensations after this happens, like trembling? (Somatic)
• How do you react after this behavior occurs? (Behavioral)
• What do you think about after this happens? (Cognitive)
• Are you in a different place when this behavior ends? (Contextual)
• Are there any people who make this behavior worse? Make it better? (Relational)

Consequences are events that occur after the behavior and direct the patient to either continue or discontinue the behavior. Two kinds of consequences are examined in a functional assessment: short-term and long-term consequences. The questions below help explore the consequences of a particular behavior:

• Does this behavior get your attention in some way?
• What good things happen as a result of this behavior?
• Does this help you in some way?
• Do you feel a certain rush from doing this?
• Does this behavior help you avoid something you don’t want to do?

The goal of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy is to help the client develop more balanced thinking about the situation and combat their automatic thoughts and reactions. The questions below can help the client challenge automatic thoughts:

• What evidence is there that this thought is true?
• What evidence is there that this thought is not true?
• What would I tell someone I loved if they were in this situation and had these thoughts?
• If my automatic thought is true, what is the worst that could happen?
• If my automatic thought is true, what is the best thing that could happen?

Once the evidence has been generated, we want to combine it to form a more balanced thought. This thought will likely be much longer and more nuanced than the original emotionally charged thought. The questions below can help the client create a more balanced thought:

• What is a more balanced view that more accurately reflects the facts?
• Is there an alternative way of thinking about the situation?
• Can someone I trust understand this situation in a different way?

In the final step, ask the client to rate the believability of the alternative thought on a scale of 0–100. If the thought is not more than 50 believable, more work is needed to identify an alternative view. Go back to the evidence and keep working.

During a music therapy assessment, the practitioner learns about the person and their needs and works to identify an appropriate and effective plan for them. Questions about the relationship to music, preferences toward techniques, and goals for therapy are some of the most frequently used.

• Have you heard of music therapy?
• Have you ever used music therapy?
• If you have used music therapy, did you find it helpful?
• Has music affected your mood?

Part of being a music Therapist is knowing how to manipulate the music in ways that will be effective for the moment and based on preference. What makes someone feel better is dependent on their music preference, and there are many benefits in asking detailed questions about individual experience with music.

• What type of music makes you feel completely relaxed?
• What type of music makes you feel energized?
• What type of music do you not like?
• If you had to pick one song to play continuously, nonstop, in the background of your life, what would it be?
• What is your favorite sound, and what instrument makes it?
• Have you played an instrument before?
• How do you feel about moving to music?

The American Music Therapy Association lists many benefits of music therapy treatment. This can help identify the goals for the music therapy engagement. A music therapist may ask:

What would you like to accomplish in music therapy?

• Promote a sense of wellbeing
• Learn to manage stress
• Alleviate pain
• Express feelings
• Enhance memory
• Improve communication
• Promote physical rehabilitation

The bulk of the session will consist of music therapy interventions. These are experiences the music therapist facilitates that are meant to target the client’s non-musical goals and objectives.

Here is a list of types of music-based interventions clients may be asked to choose from:

• Singing, performing, or playing an instrument
• Composing, which includes any group or individual songwriting process and can be as simple or complex as needed
• Improvising and creating music on the spot or in the moment
• Receiving music or simply listening, which can include a music and relaxation-type of experience, a lyric analysis intervention, and a “moving to music” type of experience as in gait training
• Listening to live or recorded music
• Learning music-assisted relaxation techniques, such as progressive muscle relaxation or deep breathing
• Singing familiar songs with live or recorded accompaniment
• Playing instruments, such as hand percussion
• Writing song lyrics
• Writing the music for new songs
• Learning to play an instrument, such as piano or guitar
• Creating art with music
• Dancing or moving to live or recorded music
• Writing choreography for music
• Discussing one’s emotional reaction or meaning attached to a particular song or improvisation

Wherever possible, individuals are encouraged to reflect on personal issues that relate to the music or associations that the music brings up. The session may also include choosing music that has meaning for the person, such as the music reflecting an issue that the person is currently occupied with (Geretsegger, Elefant, Mössler, & Gold, 2014).

Narrative Therapy assumes there is no such thing as objective reality and instead allows clients to redefine and rewrite their stories in ways that are more effective for coping with reality.

Like many other client-centered approaches, it sees the client as the expert on their own life and uses techniques that allow for separation of the problematic behavior from the person that we are so that we can effectively address the problem without getting our ego caught up in the process.

There are several techniques used in Narrative Therapy that are akin to storytelling techniques used in literary studies and can be effectively used to rewrite aspects of the situation a client is dealing with.

This could involve assigning a different meaning, viewing from a different perspective, deconstructing into smaller parts, externalizing the problem, or merely focusing on a more optimistic thread.

Below is a list of some of the techniques and examples of questions that can be used. A more detailed explanation of Narrative Therapy techniques can be found in our article Narrative Therapy Techniques, Interventions + Worksheets .

Gestalt Therapy is one such method that teaches us that full awareness and attention has the potential of resolving an issue in a way that rationalizing about it cannot. The goal of Gestalt Therapy is to stop living life as if we are on auto-pilot.

Many people find that they truly live in the present only a small amount of the time, and when they learn to do it more consciously, this can often be a breakthrough. The Gestalt Therapist appreciates the person as part of their environment. The mind, the body, and the environment are all part of one consideration.

During therapy, clients are often asked questions to help them tune in to their immediate experiences, such as:

• What are you feeling?
• What are you thinking?
• How does your body feel right now?
• What are you seeing and doing in this very moment?
• What sounds do you hear around you?

Practicing Gestalt Therapy, Fritz Perls used many experiments to get his clients to increase awareness, such as telling them to feel their body (Perls, Hefferline, & Goodman, 1951).

He would ask his clients to tell themselves what they were seeing and doing in each moment. He then asked them what difficulties they were experiencing while they were doing this, to which they invariably answered, “ What difficulties? ”

The discovery was that as long as we are fully in the present, noticing and feeling the environment around us, we are trouble free.

Some of the techniques commonly used in Gestalt Therapy are:

• Amplification, where the client is asked to repeat and exaggerate a particular action, feeling, or expression so that they become more aware of it.
• Guided fantasy, where the client is asked to visualize either an actual event from the past or a hypothetical situation. The therapist then helps the individual to focus on what they are thinking, feeling, and doing as they mentally experience this event.
• Dreamwork, where dreams are not interpreted, but acted out in therapy. The different parts of a dream are thought to represent different aspects of the individual, so by becoming each part, the individual becomes more aware of the many different sides to their personality.
• Internal dialogue, where the client engages in a dialogue between opposing poles of their personality.
• Role-play, where the client dramatizes relevant aspects of their existence. This may involve taking on the role of a character in their life or of a part of the self. The empty chair technique is a classic example of role-play.
• The empty chair technique, where the client sits across from an empty chair and is asked to imagine that someone else, the client themself, or a part of themself is sitting in that chair. The therapist then encourages the client to engage in a conversation with the imaginary person or part of a person. As the conversation progresses, the client alternates roles, switching from one chair to the next accordingly. The empty chair technique is often used to enhance clients’ awareness of polarities in their personality so they can work toward integrating them (Perls, Hefferline, & Goodman, 1951).

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Many accomplished practitioners complain that today’s training of therapists does not stress the importance of relationships enough (e.g., Yalom, 2002).

Yalom’s (2002) school of thought stresses the crucial role that warmth, empathy, and persistent focus on the here-and-now play in psychological healing.

He warns that not enough therapists encourage patients to go deep and believes that we should be teaching our students the importance of relationships with other people: how you work with them, what the relational pathology consists of, how you examine your own conscience, and how you examine the inner world.

Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day.

Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

What do you think is missing from how talk therapy is practiced today?

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. For more information, don’t forget to download our three Positive CBT Exercises for free .

Typical questions that therapists ask first are:

• “What brings you here today?”
• “Can you tell me a little about yourself?”
• “Have you been in therapy before, and if so, what was that experience like for you?”
• “What are some of the challenges you’ve been facing recently?”

Common questions that counselors ask include:

• “What brings you to counseling?”
• “What are some of the challenges you are currently facing?”
• “How have you been coping with these challenges?”
• “What are some of your goals for counseling?”

The “Big Five” questions refer to a set of questions commonly used in solution-focused brief therapy. These questions are designed to help clients identify and work towards their goals in therapy. The Big Five questions are:

• What are your best hopes for our work together?
• How will you know when you have achieved your goals?
• What will be different in your life when you have achieved your goals?
• What strengths and resources do you have that can help you achieve your goals?
• What small steps can you take towards your goals starting today?
• Chambless, D. L., & Ollendick, T. H. (2001). Empirically supported psychological interventions: Controversies and evidence. Annual Review of Psychology, 52 (1), 685–716.
• De Shazer, S., Berg, I. K., Lipchik, E. V. E., Nunnally, E., Molnar, A., Gingerich, W., & Weiner‐Davis, M. (1986). Brief therapy: Focused solution development. Family Process, 25 (2), 207–221.
• DeRubeis, R. J., & Crits-Christoph, P. (1998). Empirically supported individual and group psychological treatments for adult mental disorders. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 66 (1), 37–52.
• Dozois, D. J. A., & Covin, R. (2004). The Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II), Beck Hopelessness Scale (BHS), and Beck Scale for Suicide Ideation (BSS) 50. In M. Hersen (Ed.), Comprehensive handbook of psychological assessment. Wiley .
• Ellis, A., & MacLaren, C. (1998). Rational emotive behavior therapy: A therapist’s guide . Impact Publishers.
• Geretsegger, M., Elefant, C., Mössler, K. A., & Gold, C. (2014). Music therapy for people with autism spectrum disorder.  Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews ,  6.
• Kaslow, N. J., Tannenbaum, R. L., & Seligman, M. E. P. (1978). TheKASTAN: A children’s attributional style questionnaire (Unpublished manuscript).
• Kroenke, K., Spitzer, R. L., Williams, J. B., & Löwe, B. (2010). The patient health questionnaire somatic, anxiety, and depressive symptom scales: a systematic review. General Hospital Psychiatry, 32 (4), 345–359.
• McGonigal, K. (2015).  The upside of stress: Why stress is good for you (and how to get good at it).  Random House.
• Miller, S. D., Hubble, M. A., & Duncan, B. L. (1991).  Handbook of solution-focused brief therapy.  Jossey-Bass.
• Perls, F., Hefferline, G., & Goodman, P. (1951). Gestalt therapy. 
• Peterson, C., Semmel, A., Von Baeyer, C., Abramson, L. Y., Metalsky, G. I., & Seligman, M. E. (1982). The attributional style questionnaire. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 6 (3), 287–299.
• Peterson, C., Schulman, P., Castellon, C., & Seligman, M. E. P. (1992). CAVE: Content analysis of verbatim explanations. In C. P. Smith (Ed.), Motivation and personality: Handbook of thematic content analysis (pp. 383–392). Cambridge University Press.
• Ratner, H., George, E., & Iveson, C. (2012). Solution-focused brief therapy: 100 key points and techniques . Routledge.
• Spielberger, C. D. (2010). State‐Trait Anxiety Inventory. In I. B. Weiner & W. E. Craighead (Eds.), The Corsini encyclopedia of psychology.  John Wiley & Sons.
• Thayer, R. E. (1997). The origin of everyday moods: managing energy, tension, and stress . Oxford University Press.
• Yalom, I. D. (2002).  The gift of therapy: An open letter to a new generation of therapists and their patients.  HarperCollins.

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What our readers think.

Greetings from Papua New Guinea (PNG).

I can’t thank you more for every curve I’ve turned reading your presentation. It’s in-depth, intriguing, resourceful, insightful, applicable, and well researched. Thank you so much.

This has opened my eyes to know it’s okay to be ignorant of every question, thought, feeling, etc. Your points gave me confidence for my first Residency at CCMH. Thank you!

I am doing a course in counseling and therapy i really found this useful…thank you so much

Amazingly done, easy to follow up and understand the type of therapist.

Thank you very much! This will helpful in my supervision with interns and LMSWs.

Hi Helen, We’re glad to hear you found the post helpful for your supervision. Thanks for your feedback! – Nicole | Community Manager

Wow!! Extremely informative. Thank you!

Thanks so much. It’s so informative. I’ve read it several times. Please add questions in Imago Therapy sessions too.

Glad you enjoyed the post and thank you for the suggestion! If it’s helpful, we have a post on the topic of therapy worksheets, some of which are based on Imago Therapy. You can find that post here .

– Nicole | Community Manager

Hi I don’t really know how to tell you this because I’m only 13 but I might see a therapist soon because I feel like I’m using my my depression for attention and I’m getting diagnosed to see if I actually do,can you tell me some questions they will ask a 13 year old because I’m kinda nervous and if it turns out to be fake i”ll get bashed and people will say that I was overreacting.and easy questions please so I can understand them and i can openly answer because English is not my first language.thank you!

I’m very sorry to read that you’re experiencing depression. Given your fear you may be harmed depending on what your therapist says, it sounds as though you are in an unsafe situation. Please be careful and do what you must do to prioritize your safety. I’d encourage you to reach out to a trusted adult in your life (e.g., a teacher, a relative) and let them know about your concerns. Likewise, you could consider speaking to someone on the relevant child helpline in your country.

The therapist will likely ask you questions about your sleep (e.g., Have you been falling and staying asleep?), mood (e.g., How often do you feel sad and how long does it last?), and energy/motivation levels (e.g., Do you find it hard to do daily activities/work/study without losing motivation or feeling tired/giving up?)

Rest assured that a therapist’s priority will be to ensure you feel comfortable — so just answer honestly. Likewise, if you are able to speak privately with the therapist, definitely let them know your concerns about being punished. Being fearful for one’s safety is more than enough to induce symptoms of depression, so know that what you are feeling is real and valid. And being open about how you are feeling is brave and the first step to receiving support.

I hope your session goes well, and please keep safe.

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Probing questions

Probing questions are a type of inquiry used to dig deeper into a topic, gather additional information, clarify responses, or encourage elaboration from the respondent. Unlike closed-ended questions that yield concise answers and open-ended questions that invite freeform responses, probing questions are strategically crafted to explore specific aspects of a subject. They aim to uncover hidden details, motivations, emotions, or nuances that may not be immediately apparent.

Effective communication often hinges on asking the right questions. While open-ended and closed-ended questions have their roles, probing questions are the secret weapon that can elevate your conversations, interviews, problem-solving sessions, and research endeavors.

Table of Contents

Understanding Probing Questions

Characteristics of probing questions.

Probing questions possess several defining characteristics:

• Openness: They are open-ended in nature, allowing for diverse and multifaceted responses.
• Exploratory: Probing questions aim to explore a topic or response further, seeking a deeper understanding.
• Purposeful: These questions are not asked randomly but with a specific purpose in mind, such as uncovering motives or gaining clarity.
• Follow-up: Probing questions often follow initial responses, building upon the information provided.
• Non-Judgmental: They are typically non-judgmental and neutral, creating an environment where respondents feel safe to share.

The Significance of Probing Questions

Probing questions play a crucial role in various scenarios and professions:

1. Journalism

Journalists use probing questions during interviews to extract comprehensive and insightful responses from their subjects. This allows them to uncover the full story and provide in-depth reporting.

2. Research

Researchers employ probing questions to gather detailed information from study participants. These questions help in exploring complex phenomena, motivations, and behaviors.

3. Counseling and Therapy

In therapeutic settings, counselors and therapists use probing questions to delve into clients’ emotions, thoughts, and experiences, facilitating the therapeutic process.

4. Problem Solving

In problem-solving sessions, probing questions help identify root causes, analyze issues from different angles, and generate innovative solutions.

5. Management and Leadership

Effective leaders use probing questions to understand their team members’ concerns, motivations, and developmental needs , fostering stronger working relationships.

Types of Probing Questions

Probing questions come in various forms, each serving a specific purpose. Here are some common types:

1. Clarification Questions

Purpose: These questions seek to clarify vague or ambiguous statements made by the respondent.

Example: “Could you please elaborate on what you meant by ‘improved efficiency’?”

2. Follow-up Questions

Purpose: Follow-up questions build upon the initial response, encouraging the respondent to provide additional details or examples.

Example: “You mentioned that sales have increased. Can you tell me more about the factors contributing to this growth ?”

3. Motivational Questions

Purpose: These questions aim to uncover the underlying motivations, values, or goals of the respondent.

Example: “What drives you to pursue a career in social entrepreneurship ?”

4. Empathetic Questions

Purpose: Empathetic questions express understanding and empathy, encouraging the respondent to share their feelings and emotions.

Example: “It sounds like you’ve been facing some challenges. How have these difficulties been affecting you personally?”

5. Hypothetical Questions

Purpose: Hypothetical questions present a scenario or situation, prompting the respondent to consider potential actions or outcomes.

Example: “If you were in a position to make changes, what steps would you take to improve the current process?”

6. Reflective Questions

Purpose: Reflective questions encourage respondents to reflect on their experiences, thoughts, or behaviors.

Example: “Looking back on your career, are there any specific moments or decisions that had a significant impact on your journey?”

Crafting Effective Probing Questions

Creating probing questions that yield valuable insights requires careful consideration. Here are some tips to help you craft effective probing questions:

• Start with a Purpose: Clearly define the purpose of your probing question. What information are you seeking to uncover or explore?
• Use Open-Ended Language: Frame your question in a way that invites expansive responses rather than one-word answers.
• Avoid Leading Questions: Ensure that your question is neutral and does not lead the respondent toward a particular answer.
• Be Patient: Allow respondents time to think and respond. Silence can be a powerful tool to encourage elaboration.
• Listen Actively: Pay close attention to the respondent’s initial answers. Your probing question should be based on their previous response.
• Prioritize Clarity: Keep your probing question clear and concise to avoid confusion.
• Build Rapport: Create a comfortable and non-judgmental environment to encourage open sharing.

Practical Examples of Probing Questions

Let’s explore practical examples of probing questions across various contexts:

Example 1: Journalism

Initial Question: “Tell me about your experience during the recent protest.”

Probing Question: “Can you describe any specific moments or conversations during the protest that had a profound impact on you?”

Example 2: Research

Initial Question: “Why do you prefer online shopping over in-person shopping?”

Probing Question: “Could you provide an example of a recent online shopping experience that you found particularly convenient or enjoyable?”

Example 3: Counseling

Initial Question: “How has your anxiety been affecting your daily life?”

Probing Question: “Can you share any instances where your anxiety felt especially overwhelming or challenging to manage?”

Example 4: Problem Solving

Initial Question: “What are the main issues affecting our project’s progress?”

Probing Question: “In your opinion, what specific actions or changes could help address these issues?”

Example 5: Leadership

Initial Question: “How are you finding your new role on the team?”

Probing Question: “Is there anything specific you feel would support your success in this role, or any concerns you’d like to discuss further?”

The Art of Active Listening

Probing questions are most effective when paired with active listening. Active listening involves fully focusing on the speaker, processing their words, and responding thoughtfully. Here are key elements of active listening:

• Give Your Full Attention: Eliminate distractions and give the speaker your undivided attention.
• Avoid Interrupting: Let the speaker finish their thoughts before responding or asking probing questions.
• Use Non-Verbal Cues: Nodding, maintaining eye contact, and using affirmative gestures show that you are engaged.
• Paraphrase and Summarize: Repeat back what you’ve heard to confirm understanding and show that you value their perspective.
• Ask Follow-up Questions: Probing questions are an essential component of active listening, allowing you to explore the speaker’s thoughts and feelings further.

Overcoming Challenges

While probing questions are valuable, they can sometimes encounter challenges:

1. Resistance: Respondents may be hesitant to share sensitive information or may feel uncomfortable.

Solution: Create a safe and non-judgmental environment to encourage openness.

2. Overuse: Asking too many probing questions in quick succession can feel intrusive.

Solution: Balance probing questions with reflective and empathetic statements to maintain a conversational flow.

3. Leading Questions: If not crafted carefully, probing questions can unintentionally lead respondents to a particular answer.

Solution: Review your questions to ensure they are neutral and non-directive.

4. Ineffective Listening: Failing to actively listen to the initial response can result in probing questions that miss the mark.

Solution: Prioritize active listening to inform your follow-up questions effectively.

Case Studies In The Business Context

• Needs Assessment: In B2B sales, sales representatives use probing questions to conduct thorough needs assessments with potential clients. By asking questions such as “What challenges are you currently facing in your business ?” or “What are your top priorities for this project?”, sales professionals can gain insight into client needs , tailor their offerings accordingly, and position their products or services as solutions to specific business problems.
• Objection Handling: During sales negotiations, probing questions help salespeople address objections and overcome resistance from prospects. By probing for underlying concerns or hesitations, sales professionals can empathize with customer perspectives, offer relevant solutions, and alleviate objections effectively, ultimately closing deals and driving revenue growth .
• Product Concept Testing: Researchers conduct focus group discussions with target consumers, asking probing questions to gather feedback on new product concepts or prototypes. By probing for detailed reactions, suggestions, and use cases, researchers can identify potential product improvements, validate market demand, and refine product designs to better meet customer needs and preferences.
• User Experience Research: Designers and product developers use probing questions in user experience (UX) testing sessions to understand how customers interact with digital interfaces and products. By observing user behaviors and asking probing questions such as “What were you trying to accomplish with this feature?” or “What challenges did you encounter?”, UX researchers can identify usability issues, optimize user workflows, and enhance overall product satisfaction and usability.
• Technical Support Calls: When customers contact technical support for assistance with product issues, service representatives use probing questions to diagnose problems and provide solutions. By asking questions such as “Can you describe the issue you’re experiencing?” or “When did the problem first occur?”, support agents can gather context, identify potential root causes, and guide customers through troubleshooting steps to resolve issues efficiently.
• Complaint Resolution: In service recovery situations, where customers express dissatisfaction or encounter problems with products or services, customer service teams use probing questions to understand the nature of the complaint and offer appropriate remedies. By probing for specific details, empathizing with customer frustrations, and offering personalized solutions, service representatives can turn negative experiences into positive outcomes, restore customer confidence, and foster long-term loyalty and advocacy.
• Performance Reviews: During performance appraisal discussions, managers ask probing questions to help employees reflect on their achievements, challenges, and areas for growth . By probing for insights into employee goals, strengths, and development needs , managers can provide targeted feedback, set clear performance expectations, and create personalized development plans to support employee advancement and job satisfaction.
• Coaching and Feedback: In one-on-one coaching sessions, managers use probing questions to guide employees through problem-solving exercises, skill-building activities, and performance improvement initiatives. By asking questions such as “What obstacles are preventing you from achieving your goals?” or “What support do you need to succeed?”, managers can empower employees to take ownership of their development, overcome challenges, and maximize their potential in the workplace.

In Conclusion

Probing questions are a powerful tool for anyone looking to enhance their communication, research, or problem-solving skills. When used effectively, they can uncover hidden insights, encourage deeper understanding, and foster meaningful connections. Remember that the art of asking probing questions goes hand in hand with active listening—listening not just to respond but to truly understand. By mastering the craft of probing questions and active listening, you’ll be well-equipped to navigate interviews, conversations, and research endeavors with finesse and insight, ultimately enriching your personal and professional relationships.

Connected Thinking Frameworks

Convergent vs. Divergent Thinking

Critical Thinking

Second-Order Thinking

Lateral Thinking

Bounded Rationality

Dunning-Kruger Effect

Occam’s Razor

Lindy Effect

Antifragility

Systems Thinking

Vertical Thinking

Maslow’s Hammer

Peter Principle

Straw Man Fallacy

Streisand Effect

Recognition Heuristic

Representativeness Heuristic

Take-The-Best Heuristic

Bundling Bias

Barnum Effect

First-Principles Thinking

Ladder Of Inference

Goodhart’s Law

Six Thinking Hats Model

Mandela Effect

Crowding-Out Effect

Bandwagon Effect

Moore’s Law

Disruptive Innovation

Value Migration

Bye-Now Effect

Stereotyping

Murphy’s Law

Law of Unintended Consequences

Fundamental Attribution Error

Outcome Bias

Hindsight Bias

Read Next:  Biases ,  Bounded Rationality ,  Mandela Effect ,  Dunning-Kruger Effect ,  Lindy Effect ,  Crowding Out Effect ,  Bandwagon Effect .

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Top 20 Problem Solving Interview Questions (Example Answers Included)

Mike Simpson 0 Comments

By Mike Simpson

When candidates prepare for interviews, they usually focus on highlighting their leadership, communication, teamwork, and similar crucial soft skills . However, not everyone gets ready for problem-solving interview questions. And that can be a big mistake.

Problem-solving is relevant to nearly any job on the planet. Yes, it’s more prevalent in certain industries, but it’s helpful almost everywhere.

Regardless of the role you want to land, you may be asked to provide problem-solving examples or describe how you would deal with specific situations. That’s why being ready to showcase your problem-solving skills is so vital.

If you aren’t sure who to tackle problem-solving questions, don’t worry, we have your back. Come with us as we explore this exciting part of the interview process, as well as some problem-solving interview questions and example answers.

What Is Problem-Solving?

When you’re trying to land a position, there’s a good chance you’ll face some problem-solving interview questions. But what exactly is problem-solving? And why is it so important to hiring managers?

Well, the good folks at Merriam-Webster define problem-solving as “the process or act of finding a solution to a problem.” While that may seem like common sense, there’s a critical part to that definition that should catch your eye.

What part is that? The word “process.”

In the end, problem-solving is an activity. It’s your ability to take appropriate steps to find answers, determine how to proceed, or otherwise overcome the challenge.

Being great at it usually means having a range of helpful problem-solving skills and traits. Research, diligence, patience, attention-to-detail , collaboration… they can all play a role. So can analytical thinking , creativity, and open-mindedness.

But why do hiring managers worry about your problem-solving skills? Well, mainly, because every job comes with its fair share of problems.

While problem-solving is relevant to scientific, technical, legal, medical, and a whole slew of other careers. It helps you overcome challenges and deal with the unexpected. It plays a role in troubleshooting and innovation. That’s why it matters to hiring managers.

How to Answer Problem-Solving Interview Questions

Okay, before we get to our examples, let’s take a quick second to talk about strategy. Knowing how to answer problem-solving interview questions is crucial. Why? Because the hiring manager might ask you something that you don’t anticipate.

Problem-solving interview questions are all about seeing how you think. As a result, they can be a bit… unconventional.

These aren’t your run-of-the-mill job interview questions . Instead, they are tricky behavioral interview questions . After all, the goal is to find out how you approach problem-solving, so most are going to feature scenarios, brainteasers, or something similar.

So, having a great strategy means knowing how to deal with behavioral questions. Luckily, there are a couple of tools that can help.

First, when it comes to the classic approach to behavioral interview questions, look no further than the STAR Method . With the STAR method, you learn how to turn your answers into captivating stories. This makes your responses tons more engaging, ensuring you keep the hiring manager’s attention from beginning to end.

Now, should you stop with the STAR Method? Of course not. If you want to take your answers to the next level, spend some time with the Tailoring Method , too.

With the Tailoring Method, it’s all about relevance. So, if you get a chance to choose an example that demonstrates your problem-solving skills, this is really the way to go.

We also wanted to let you know that we created an amazing free cheat sheet that will give you word-for-word answers for some of the toughest interview questions you are going to face in your upcoming interview. After all, hiring managers will often ask you more generalized interview questions!

Click below to get your free PDF now:

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Top 3 Problem-Solving-Based Interview Questions

Alright, here is what you’ve been waiting for: the problem-solving questions and sample answers.

While many questions in this category are job-specific, these tend to apply to nearly any job. That means there’s a good chance you’ll come across them at some point in your career, making them a great starting point when you’re practicing for an interview.

So, let’s dive in, shall we? Here’s a look at the top three problem-solving interview questions and example responses.

1. Can you tell me about a time when you had to solve a challenging problem?

In the land of problem-solving questions, this one might be your best-case scenario. It lets you choose your own problem-solving examples to highlight, putting you in complete control.

When you choose an example, go with one that is relevant to what you’ll face in the role. The closer the match, the better the answer is in the eyes of the hiring manager.

EXAMPLE ANSWER:

“While working as a mobile telecom support specialist for a large organization, we had to transition our MDM service from one vendor to another within 45 days. This personally physically handling 500 devices within the agency. Devices had to be gathered from the headquarters and satellite offices, which were located all across the state, something that was challenging even without the tight deadline. I approached the situation by identifying the location assignment of all personnel within the organization, enabling me to estimate transit times for receiving the devices. Next, I timed out how many devices I could personally update in a day. Together, this allowed me to create a general timeline. After that, I coordinated with each location, both expressing the urgency of adhering to deadlines and scheduling bulk shipping options. While there were occasional bouts of resistance, I worked with location leaders to calm concerns and facilitate action. While performing all of the updates was daunting, my approach to organizing the event made it a success. Ultimately, the entire transition was finished five days before the deadline, exceeding the expectations of many.”

2. Describe a time where you made a mistake. What did you do to fix it?

While this might not look like it’s based on problem-solving on the surface, it actually is. When you make a mistake, it creates a challenge, one you have to work your way through. At a minimum, it’s an opportunity to highlight problem-solving skills, even if you don’t address the topic directly.

When you choose an example, you want to go with a situation where the end was positive. However, the issue still has to be significant, causing something negative to happen in the moment that you, ideally, overcame.

“When I first began in a supervisory role, I had trouble setting down my individual contributor hat. I tried to keep up with my past duties while also taking on the responsibilities of my new role. As a result, I began rushing and introduced an error into the code of the software my team was updating. The error led to a memory leak. We became aware of the issue when the performance was hindered, though we didn’t immediately know the cause. I dove back into the code, reviewing recent changes, and, ultimately, determined the issue was a mistake on my end. When I made that discovery, I took several steps. First, I let my team know that the error was mine and let them know its nature. Second, I worked with my team to correct the issue, resolving the memory leak. Finally, I took this as a lesson about delegation. I began assigning work to my team more effectively, a move that allowed me to excel as a manager and help them thrive as contributors. It was a crucial learning moment, one that I have valued every day since.”

3. If you identify a potential risk in a project, what steps do you take to prevent it?

Yes, this is also a problem-solving question. The difference is, with this one, it’s not about fixing an issue; it’s about stopping it from happening. Still, you use problem-solving skills along the way, so it falls in this question category.

If you can, use an example of a moment when you mitigated risk in the past. If you haven’t had that opportunity, approach it theoretically, discussing the steps you would take to prevent an issue from developing.

“If I identify a potential risk in a project, my first step is to assess the various factors that could lead to a poor outcome. Prevention requires analysis. Ensuring I fully understand what can trigger the undesired event creates the right foundation, allowing me to figure out how to reduce the likelihood of those events occurring. Once I have the right level of understanding, I come up with a mitigation plan. Exactly what this includes varies depending on the nature of the issue, though it usually involves various steps and checks designed to monitor the project as it progresses to spot paths that may make the problem more likely to happen. I find this approach effective as it combines knowledge and ongoing vigilance. That way, if the project begins to head into risky territory, I can correct its trajectory.”

17 More Problem-Solving-Based Interview Questions

In the world of problem-solving questions, some apply to a wide range of jobs, while others are more niche. For example, customer service reps and IT helpdesk professionals both encounter challenges, but not usually the same kind.

As a result, some of the questions in this list may be more relevant to certain careers than others. However, they all give you insights into what this kind of question looks like, making them worth reviewing.

Here are 17 more problem-solving interview questions you might face off against during your job search:

• How would you describe your problem-solving skills?
• Can you tell me about a time when you had to use creativity to deal with an obstacle?
• Describe a time when you discovered an unmet customer need while assisting a customer and found a way to meet it.
• If you were faced with an upset customer, how would you diffuse the situation?
• Tell me about a time when you had to troubleshoot a complex issue.
• Imagine you were overseeing a project and needed a particular item. You have two choices of vendors: one that can deliver on time but would be over budget, and one that’s under budget but would deliver one week later than you need it. How do you figure out which approach to use?
• Your manager wants to upgrade a tool you regularly use for your job and wants your recommendation. How do you formulate one?
• A supplier has said that an item you need for a project isn’t going to be delivered as scheduled, something that would cause your project to fall behind schedule. What do you do to try and keep the timeline on target?
• Can you share an example of a moment where you encountered a unique problem you and your colleagues had never seen before? How did you figure out what to do?
• Imagine you were scheduled to give a presentation with a colleague, and your colleague called in sick right before it was set to begin. What would you do?
• If you are given two urgent tasks from different members of the leadership team, both with the same tight deadline, how do you choose which to tackle first?
• Tell me about a time you and a colleague didn’t see eye-to-eye. How did you decide what to do?
• Describe your troubleshooting process.
• Tell me about a time where there was a problem that you weren’t able to solve. What happened?
• In your opening, what skills or traits make a person an exceptional problem-solver?
• When you face a problem that requires action, do you usually jump in or take a moment to carefully assess the situation?
• When you encounter a new problem you’ve never seen before, what is the first step that you take?

Putting It All Together

At this point, you should have a solid idea of how to approach problem-solving interview questions. Use the tips above to your advantage. That way, you can thrive during your next interview.

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Co-Founder and CEO of TheInterviewGuys.com. Mike is a job interview and career expert and the head writer at TheInterviewGuys.com. His advice and insights have been shared and featured by publications such as Forbes , Entrepreneur , CNBC and more as well as educational institutions such as the University of Michigan , Penn State , Northeastern and others. Learn more about The Interview Guys on our About Us page .

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A Better Framework for Solving Tough Problems

Start with trust and end with speed.

• Apple Podcasts

When it comes to solving complicated problems, the default for many organizational leaders is to take their time to work through the issues at hand. Unfortunately, that often leads to patchwork solutions or problems not truly getting resolved.

But Anne Morriss offers a different framework. In this episode, she outlines a five-step process for solving any problem and explains why starting with trust and ending with speed is so important for effective change leadership. As she says, “Let’s get into dialogue with the people who are also impacted by the problem before we start running down the path of solving it.”

Morriss is an entrepreneur and leadership coach. She’s also the coauthor of the book, Move Fast and Fix Things: The Trusted Leader’s Guide to Solving Hard Problems .

Key episode topics include: strategy, decision making and problem solving, strategy execution, managing people, collaboration and teams, trustworthiness, organizational culture, change leadership, problem solving, leadership.

HBR On Strategy curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock new ways of doing business. New episodes every week.

• Listen to the full HBR IdeaCast episode: How to Solve Tough Problems Better and Faster (2023)
• Find more episodes of HBR IdeaCast
• Discover 100 years of Harvard Business Review articles, case studies, podcasts, and more at HBR.org .

HANNAH BATES: Welcome to HBR On Strategy , case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, hand-selected to help you unlock new ways of doing business.

When it comes to solving complicated problems, many leaders only focus on the most apparent issues. Unfortunately that often leads to patchwork or partial solutions. But Anne Morriss offers a different framework that aims to truly tackle big problems by first leaning into trust and then focusing on speed.

Morriss is an entrepreneur and leadership coach. She’s also the co-author of the book, Move Fast and Fix Things: The Trusted Leader’s Guide to Solving Hard Problems . In this episode, she outlines a five-step process for solving any problem. Some, she says, can be solved in a week, while others take much longer. She also explains why starting with trust and ending with speed is so important for effective change leadership.

This episode originally aired on HBR IdeaCast in October 2023. Here it is.

CURT NICKISCH: Welcome to the HBR IdeaCast from Harvard Business Review. I’m Curt Nickisch.

Problems can be intimidating. Sure, some problems are fun to dig into. You roll up your sleeves, you just take care of them; but others, well, they’re complicated. Sometimes it’s hard to wrap your brain around a problem, much less fix it.

And that’s especially true for leaders in organizations where problems are often layered and complex. They sometimes demand technical, financial, or interpersonal knowledge to fix. And whether it’s avoidance on the leaders’ part or just the perception that a problem is systemic or even intractable, problems find a way to endure, to keep going, to keep being a problem that everyone tries to work around or just puts up with.

But today’s guest says that just compounds it and makes the problem harder to fix. Instead, she says, speed and momentum are key to overcoming a problem.

Anne Morriss is an entrepreneur, leadership coach and founder of the Leadership Consortium and with Harvard Business School Professor Francis Frei, she wrote the new book, Move Fast and Fix Things: The Trusted Leaders Guide to Solving Hard Problems . Anne, welcome back to the show.

ANNE MORRISS: Curt, thank you so much for having me.

CURT NICKISCH: So, to generate momentum at an organization, you say that you really need speed and trust. We’ll get into those essential ingredients some more, but why are those two essential?

ANNE MORRISS: Yeah. Well, the essential pattern that we observed was that the most effective change leaders out there were building trust and speed, and it didn’t seem to be a well-known observation. We all know the phrase, “Move fast and break things,” but the people who were really getting it right were moving fast and fixing things, and that was really our jumping off point. So when we dug into the pattern, what we observed was they were building trust first and then speed. This foundation of trust was what allowed them to fix more things and break fewer.

CURT NICKISCH: Trust sounds like a slow thing, right? If you talk about building trust, that is something that takes interactions, it takes communication, it takes experiences. Does that run counter to the speed idea?

ANNE MORRISS: Yeah. Well, this issue of trust is something we’ve been looking at for over a decade. One of the headlines in our research is it’s actually something we’re building and rebuilding and breaking all the time. And so instead of being this precious, almost farbege egg, it’s this thing that is constantly in motion and this thing that we can really impact when we’re deliberate about our choices and have some self-awareness around where it’s breaking down and how it’s breaking down.

CURT NICKISCH: You said break trust in there, which is intriguing, right? That you may have to break trust to build trust. Can you explain that a little?

ANNE MORRISS:  Yeah, well, I’ll clarify. It’s not that you have to break it in order to build it. It’s just that we all do it some of the time. Most of us are trusted most of the time. Most of your listeners I imagine are trusted most of the time, but all of us have a pattern where we break trust or where we don’t build as much as could be possible.

CURT NICKISCH: I want to talk about speed, this other essential ingredient that’s so intriguing, right? Because you think about solving hard problems as something that just takes a lot of time and thinking and coordination and planning and designing. Explain what you mean by it? And also, just  how we maybe approach problems wrong by taking them on too slowly?

ANNE MORRISS: Well, Curt, no one has ever said to us, “I wish I had taken longer and done less.” We hear the opposite all the time, by the way. So what we really set out to do was to create a playbook that anyone can use to take less time to do more of the things that are going to make your teams and organizations stronger.

And the way we set up the book is okay, it’s really a five step process. Speed is the last step. It’s the payoff for the hard work you’re going to do to figure out your problem, build or rebuild trust, expand the team in thoughtful and strategic ways, and then tell a real and compelling story about the change you’re leading.

Only then do you get to go fast, but that’s an essential part of the process, and we find that either people under emphasize it or speed has gotten a bad name in this world of moving fast and breaking things. And part of our mission for sure was to rehabilitate speed’s reputation because it is an essential part of the change leader’s equation. It can be the difference between good intentions and getting anything done at all.

CURT NICKISCH: You know, the fact that nobody ever tells you, “I wish we had done less and taken more time.” I think we all feel that, right? Sometimes we do something and then realize, “Oh, that wasn’t that hard and why did it take me so long to do it? And I wish I’d done this a long time ago.” Is it ever possible to solve a problem too quickly?

ANNE MORRISS: Absolutely. And we see that all the time too. What we push people to do in those scenarios is really take a look at the underlying issue because in most cases, the solution is not to take your foot off the accelerator per se and slow down. The solution is to get into the underlying problem. So if it’s burnout or a strategic disconnect between what you’re building and the marketplace you’re serving, what we find is the anxiety that people attach to speed or the frustration people attach to speed is often misplaced.

CURT NICKISCH: What is a good timeline to think about solving a problem then? Because if we by default take too long or else jump ahead and we don’t fix it right, what’s a good target time to have in your mind for how long solving a problem should take?

ANNE MORRISS: Yeah. Well, we’re playful in the book and talking about the idea that many problems can be solved in a week. We set the book up five chapters. They’re titled Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and we’re definitely having fun with that. And yet, if you count the hours in a week, there are a lot of them. Many of our problems, if you were to spend a focused 40 hours of effort on a problem, you’re going to get pretty far.

But our main message is, listen, of course it’s going to depend on the nature of the problem, and you’re going to take weeks and maybe even some cases months to get to the other side. What we don’t want you to do is take years, which tends to be our default timeline for solving hard problems.

CURT NICKISCH: So you say to start with identifying the problem that’s holding you back, seems kind of obvious. But where do companies go right and wrong with this first step of just identifying the problem that’s holding you back?

ANNE MORRISS: And our goal is that all of these are going to feel obvious in retrospect. The problem is we skip over a lot of these steps and this is why we wanted to underline them. So this one is really rooted in our observation and I think the pattern of our species that we tend to be overconfident in the quality of our thoughts, particularly when it comes to diagnosing problems.

And so we want to invite you to start in a very humble and curious place, which tends not to be our default mode when we’re showing up for work. We convince ourselves that we’re being paid for our judgment. That’s exactly what gets reinforced everywhere. And so we tend to counterintuitively, given what we just talked about, we tend to move too quickly through the diagnostic phase.

CURT NICKISCH: “I know what to do, that’s why you hired me.”

ANNE MORRISS: Exactly. “I know what to do. That’s why you hired me. I’ve seen this before. I have a plan. Follow me.” We get rewarded for the expression of confidence and clarity. And so what we’re inviting people to do here is actually pause and really lean into what are the root causes of the problem you’re seeing? What are some alternative explanations? Let’s get into dialogue with the people who are also impacted by the problem before we start running down the path of solving it.

CURT NICKISCH: So what do you recommend for this step, for getting to the root of the problem? What are questions you should ask? What’s the right thought process? What do you do on Monday of the week?

ANNE MORRISS: In our experience of doing this work, people tend to undervalue the power of conversation, particularly with other people in the organization. So we will often advocate putting together a team of problem solvers, make it a temporary team, really pull in people who have a particular perspective on the problem and create the space, make it as psychologically safe as you can for people to really, as Chris Argyris so beautifully articulated, discuss the undiscussable.

And so the conditions for that are going to look different in every organization depending on the problem, but if you can get a space where smart people who have direct experience of a problem are in a room and talking honestly with each other, you can make an extraordinary amount of progress, certainly in a day.

CURT NICKISCH: Yeah, that gets back to the trust piece.

ANNE MORRISS: Definitely.

CURT NICKISCH: How do you like to start that meeting, or how do you like to talk about it? I’m just curious what somebody on that team might hear in that meeting, just to get the sense that it’s psychologically safe, you can discuss the undiscussable and you’re also focusing on the identification part. What’s key to communicate there?

ANNE MORRISS: Yeah. Well, we sometimes encourage people to do a little bit of data gathering before those conversations. So the power of a quick anonymous survey around whatever problem you’re solving, but also be really thoughtful about the questions you’re going to ask in the moment. So a little bit of preparation can go a long way and a little bit of thoughtfulness about the power dynamic. So who’s going to walk in there with license to speak and who’s going to hold back? So being thoughtful about the agenda, about the questions you’re asking about the room, about the facilitation, and then courage is a very infectious emotion.

So if you can early on create the conditions for people to show up bravely in that conversation, then the chance that you’re going to get good information and that you’re going to walk out of that room with new insight in the problem that you didn’t have when you walked in is extraordinarily high.

CURT NICKISCH: Now, in those discussions, you may have people who have different perspectives on what the problem really is. They also bear different costs of addressing the problem or solving it. You talked about the power dynamic, but there’s also an unfairness dynamic of who’s going to actually have to do the work to take care of it, and I wonder how you create a culture in that meeting where it’s the most productive?

ANNE MORRISS: For sure, the burden of work is not going to be equitably distributed around the room. But I would say, Curt, the dynamic that we see most often is that people are deeply relieved that hard problems are being addressed. So it really can create, and more often than not in our experience, it does create this beautiful flywheel of action, creativity, optimism. Often when problems haven’t been addressed, there is a fair amount of anxiety in the organization, frustration, stagnation. And so credible movement towards action and progress is often the best antidote. So even if the plan isn’t super clear yet, if it’s credible, given who’s in the room and their decision rights and mandate, if there’s real momentum coming out of that to make progress, then that tends to be deeply energizing to people.

CURT NICKISCH: I wonder if there’s an organization that you’ve worked with that you could talk about how this rolled out and how this took shape?

ANNE MORRISS: When we started working with Uber, that was wrestling with some very public issues of culture and trust with a range of stakeholders internally, the organization, also external, that work really started with a campaign of listening and really trying to understand where trust was breaking down from the perspective of these stakeholders?

So whether it was female employees or regulators or riders who had safety concerns getting into the car with a stranger. This work, it starts with an honest internal dialogue, but often the problem has threads that go external. And so bringing that same commitment to curiosity and humility and dialogue to anyone who’s impacted by the problem is the fastest way to surface what’s really going on.

CURT NICKISCH: There’s a step in this process that you lay out and that’s communicating powerfully as a leader. So we’ve heard about listening and trust building, but now you’re talking about powerful communication. How do you do this and why is it maybe this step in the process rather than the first thing you do or the last thing you do?

ANNE MORRISS: So in our process, again, it’s the days of the week. On Monday you figured out the problem. Tuesday you really got into the sandbox in figuring out what a good enough plan is for building trust. Wednesday, step three, you made it better. You created an even better plan, bringing in new perspectives. Thursday, this fourth step is the day we’re saying you got to go get buy-in. You got to bring other people along. And again, this is a step where we see people often underinvest in the power and payoff of really executing it well.

CURT NICKISCH: How does that go wrong?

ANNE MORRISS: Yeah, people don’t know the why. Human behavior and the change in human behavior really depends on a strong why. It’s not just a selfish, “What’s in it for me?” Although that’s helpful, but where are we going? I may be invested in a status quo and I need to understand, okay, if you’re going to ask me to change, if you’re going to invite me into this uncomfortable place of doing things differently, why am I here? Help me understand it and articulate the way forward and language that not only I can understand, but also that’s going to be motivating to me.

CURT NICKISCH: And who on my team was part of this process and all that kind of stuff?

ANNE MORRISS: Oh, yeah. I may have some really important questions that may be in the way of my buy-in and commitment to this plan. So certainly creating a space where those questions can be addressed is essential. But what we found is that there is an architecture of a great change story, and it starts with honoring the past, honoring the starting place. Sometimes we’re so excited about the change and animated about the change that what has happened before or what is even happening in the present tense is low on our list of priorities.

Or we want to label it bad, because that’s the way we’ve thought about the change, but really pausing and honoring what came before you and all the reasonable decisions that led up to it, I think can be really helpful to getting people emotionally where you want them to be willing to be guided by you. Going back to Uber, when Dara Khosrowshahi came in.

CURT NICKISCH: This is the new CEO.

ANNE MORRISS: The new CEO.

CURT NICKISCH: Replaced Travis Kalanick, the founder and first CEO, yeah.

ANNE MORRISS: Yeah, and had his first all-hands meeting. One of his key messages, and this is a quote, was that he was going to retain the edge that had made Uber, “A force of nature.” And in that meeting, the crowd went wild because this is also a company that had been beaten up publicly for months and months and months, and it was a really powerful choice. And his predecessor, Travis was in the room, and he also honored Travis’ incredible work and investment in bringing the company to the place where it was.

And I would use words like grace to also describe those choices, but there’s also an incredible strategic value to naming the starting place for everybody in the room because in most cases, most people in that room played a role in getting to that starting place, and you’re acknowledging that.

CURT NICKISCH: You can call it grace. Somebody else might call it diplomatic or strategic. But yeah, I guess like it or not, it’s helpful to call out and honor the complexity of the way things have been done and also the change that’s happening.

ANNE MORRISS: Yeah, and the value. Sometimes honoring the past is also owning what didn’t work or what wasn’t working for stakeholders or segments of the employee team, and we see that around culture change. Sometimes you’ve got to acknowledge that it was not an equitable environment, but whatever the worker, everyone in that room is bringing that pass with them. So again, making it discussable and using it as the jumping off place is where we advise people to start.

Then you’ve earned the right to talk about the change mandate, which we suggest using clear and compelling language about the why. “This is what happened, this is where we are, this is the good and the bad of it, and here’s the case for change.”

And then the last part, which is to describe a rigorous and optimistic way forward. It’s a simple past, present, future arc, which will be familiar to human beings. We love stories as human beings. It’s among the most powerful currency we have to make sense of the world.

CURT NICKISCH: Yeah. Chronological is a pretty powerful order.

ANNE MORRISS: Right. But again, the change leaders we see really get it right, are investing an incredible amount of time into the storytelling part of their job. Ursula Burns, the Head of Xerox is famous for the months and years she spent on the road just telling the story of Xerox’s change, its pivot into services to everyone who would listen, and that was a huge part of her success.

CURT NICKISCH: So Friday or your fifth step, you end with empowering teams and removing roadblocks. That seems obvious, but it’s critical. Can you dig into that a little bit?

ANNE MORRISS: Yeah. Friday is the fun day. Friday’s the release of energy into the system. Again, you’ve now earned the right to go fast. You have a plan, you’re pretty confident it’s going to work. You’ve told the story of change the organization, and now you get to sprint. So this is about really executing with urgency, and it’s about a lot of the tactics of speed is where we focus in the book. So the tactics of empowerment, making tough strategic trade-offs so that your priorities are clear and clearly communicated, creating mechanisms to fast-track progress. At Etsy, CEO Josh Silverman, he labeled these projects ambulances. It’s an unfortunate metaphor, but it’s super memorable. These are the products that get to speed out in front of the other ones because the stakes are high and the clock is sticking.

CURT NICKISCH: You pull over and let it go by.

ANNE MORRISS: Yeah, exactly. And so we have to agree as an organization on how to do something like that. And so we see lots of great examples both in young organizations and big complex biotech companies with lots of regulatory guardrails have still found ways to do this gracefully.

And I think we end with this idea of conflict debt, which is a term we really love. Leanne Davey, who’s a team scholar and researcher, and anyone in a tech company will recognize the idea of tech debt, which is this weight the organization drags around until they resolve it. Conflict debt is a beautiful metaphor because it is this weight that we drag around and slows us down until we decide to clean it up and fix it. The organizations that are really getting speed right have figured out either formally or informally, how to create an environment where conflict and disagreements can be gracefully resolved.

CURT NICKISCH: Well, let’s talk about this speed more, right? Because I think this is one of those places that maybe people go wrong or take too long, and then you lose the awareness of the problem, you lose that urgency. And then that also just makes it less effective, right? It’s not just about getting the problem solved as quickly as possible. It’s also just speed in some ways helps solve the problem.

ANNE MORRISS: Oh, yeah. It really is the difference between imagining the change you want to lead and really being able to bring it to life. Speed is the thing that unlocks your ability to lead change. It needs a foundation, and that’s what Monday through Thursday is all about, steps one through four, but the finish line is executing with urgency, and it’s that urgency that releases the system’s energy, that communicates your priorities, that creates the conditions for your team to make progress.

CURT NICKISCH: Moving fast is something that entrepreneurs and tech companies certainly understand, but there’s also this awareness that with big companies, the bigger the organization, the harder it is to turn the aircraft carrier around, right? Is speed relative when you get at those levels, or do you think this is something that any company should be able to apply equally?

ANNE MORRISS: We think this applies to any company. The culture really lives at the level of team. So we believe you can make a tremendous amount of progress even within your circle of control as a team leader. I want to bring some humility to this and careful of words like universal, but we do think there’s some universal truths here around the value of speed, and then some of the byproducts like keeping fantastic people. Your best people want to solve problems, they want to execute, they want to make progress and speed, and the ability to do that is going to be a variable in their own equation of whether they stay or they go somewhere else where they can have an impact.

CURT NICKISCH: Right. They want to accomplish something before they go or before they retire or finish something out. And if you’re able to just bring more things on the horizon and have it not feel like it’s going to be another two years to do something meaningful.

ANNE MORRISS: People – I mean, they want to make stuff happen and they want to be around the energy and the vitality of making things happen, which again, is also a super infectious phenomenon. One of the most important jobs of a leader, we believe, is to set the metabolic pace of their teams and organizations. And so what we really dig into on Friday is, well, what does that look like to speed something up? What are the tactics of that?

CURT NICKISCH: I wonder if that universal truth, that a body in motion stays in motion applies to organizations, right? If an organization in motion stays in motion, there is something to that.

ANNE MORRISS: Absolutely.

CURT NICKISCH: Do you have a favorite client story to share, just where you saw speed just become a bit of a flywheel or just a positive reinforcement loop for more positive change at the organization?

ANNE MORRISS: Yeah. We work with a fair number of organizations that are on fire. We do a fair amount of firefighting, but we also less dramatically do a lot of fire prevention. So we’re brought into organizations that are working well and want to get better, looking out on the horizon. That work is super gratifying, and there is always a component of, well, how do we speed this up?

What I love about that work is there’s often already a high foundation of trust, and so it’s, well, how do we maintain that foundation but move this flywheel, as you said, even faster? And it’s really energizing because often there’s a lot of pent-up energy that… There’s a lot of loyalty to the organization, but often it’s also frustration and pent-up energy. And so when that gets released, when good people get the opportunity to sprint for the first time in a little while, it’s incredibly energizing, not just for us, but for the whole organization.

CURT NICKISCH: Anne, this is great. I think finding a way to solve problems better but also faster is going to be really helpful. So thanks for coming on the show to talk about it.

ANNE MORRISS:  Oh, Curt, it was such a pleasure. This is my favorite conversation. I’m delighted to have it anytime.

HANNAH BATES: That was entrepreneur, leadership coach, and author Anne Morriss – in conversation with Curt Nickisch on HBR IdeaCast.

We’ll be back next Wednesday with another hand-picked conversation about business strategy from Harvard Business Review. If you found this episode helpful, share it with your friends and colleagues, and follow our show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. While you’re there, be sure to leave us a review.

When you’re ready for more podcasts, articles, case studies, books, and videos with the world’s top business and management experts, you’ll find it all at HBR.org.

This episode was produced by Mary Dooe, Anne Saini, and me, Hannah Bates. Ian Fox is our editor. Special thanks to Rob Eckhardt, Maureen Hoch, Erica Truxler, Ramsey Khabbaz, Nicole Smith, Anne Bartholomew, and you – our listener. See you next week.

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50 Sales Probing Questions to Improve Buyer Conversations

Casey O'Connor

What Is a Probing Question?

Benefits of asking probing questions, probing vs. clarifying questions, when should you use probing questions, types of probing questions + examples, how to avoid “leading” questions, tips for great probing questions, 50 sales probing question examples.

High sales performance relies on effective questioning from sales reps. Every stage of the sales process, from prospecting to negotiation , requires a salesperson to ask questions.

The most successful sales professionals understand not only when to ask questions but how . Surface-level questions will only drive a meeting so far forward; reps need to ask probing questions to get to the heart of what a prospect needs.

Mastering the act of asking skillfully-phrased probing questions can:

• Grow your pipeline
• Shorten your sales cycle
• Improve customer success rates

In this article, we’ll go over everything you need to know about thought-provoking probing questions, including the six standard types, real-world examples, and how to avoid making your client feel pressured when you ask them.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

• Types of Probing Questions

Probing questions can be leveraged throughout every stage of the sales pipeline .

When delivered correctly, great probing sales questions can help a prospect build trust with the seller and prompt them to offer candid information about their pain points . 

The right series of questions can enable sellers to collect the kind of information that ultimately helps the sales rep close valuable, mutually-beneficial deals. 

Think of it this way: Discovery questions help sales reps discover the issue. Probing questions help them develop a strategy for positioning your product as the solution.

Effective probing questioning techniques will:

Grow Your Pipeline

Sales reps and SDRs can learn how to leverage probing questions to quickly qualify leads . They can then offer the marketing team feedback about the characteristics of best-fit clients, enabling them to optimize their efforts for attracting more highly-qualified leads. 

Shorten the Sales Cycle

Probing questions can be highly effective at every stage of the sales process. Reps can save valuable time in everything from prospecting to overcoming objections when they learn to ask the right questions at the right time.

Improve Customer Success

The better a sales rep becomes at asking deep questions, the more likely they are to deliver the exact value each prospect genuinely needs.

Probing questions throughout the sales process can help account executives and customer success teams support the customer base in ways uniquely meaningful to them.

Ultimately, probing questions are so powerful because they bring meaningful personalization to the sales process. Don’t underestimate the impact of this — 44% of clients report they’re likely to take their business elsewhere in case of subpar personalization efforts.

Though the terms “probing” and “clarifying” are in the same vein when referring to types of questions, they actually represent two very different concepts. 

Probing questions leave room for a lot of subjectivity. Sellers ask probing questions when they want the respondent to think more deeply about and offer their own take on a certain topic or idea. 

Clarifying questions, on the other hand, are straightforward and objective. Clarifying questions and their answers are based on facts. 

Clarifying questions are designed to elicit additional specific information from the responder that helps the questioner better understand the subject being discussed. 

Here are a few examples of clarifying questions: 

Is that what you said? Did I summarize your thoughts correctly? What decision-making matrix did you use to arrive here?  Did I hear you correctly when you said…?

Sellers ask clarifying questions in order to have the information they need to ask effective probing questions. 

Sales reps can leverage probing questions at various points throughout the sales process.

Here are some of the most common opportunities to use probing questions: 

• During/after a sales presentation or demo
• During/after sales training or coaching
• After someone finishes telling a story to ensure you didn’t miss the point or to learn more about the speaker’s viewpoint of the events
• When you sense that a prospect is having trouble expressing exactly what they mean
• To learn more about a prospect’s thought process or decision-making framework
• When you’re learning more about a new prospect’s needs 

Most probing questions should occur naturally throughout sales conversations ; there isn’t really a right or a wrong time to ask them.

Sales reps should feel free to use clarifying questions, probing questions, and whatever other effective sales conversation techniques that help them qualify prospects and create successful solutions.

1. Rapport-Building

Some probing questions are designed to build rapport and trust with prospects. Skilled salespeople can use a buyer’s personality type to help them decide which kinds of questions will be most effective. 

These probing questions aren’t meant to be idle small talk; use this time wisely, even if you’re not talking about deal terms yet. Building rapport with good questions creates a critical foundation for a successful sale — over 80% of buyers report that trust is a deal-maker or deal-breaker in their buying decision.

Examples of rapport-building probing questions include:

I see you live in ___________. Have you ever been to {local landmark}? I came across it in an article and it stuck with me for some reason. Did you read that {relevant article in prospect’s industry}? What did you think of that? Have you traveled recently for work or leisure?

2. Problem-Solving

Some of the most popular probing questions are the ones designed to uncover the exact nature of the prospect’s problem. Sales reps ask these when they want to know the core of the prospect’s deepest pains and motivations.

Sales reps can feel comfortable asking problem-solving questions relatively early in the sales process , usually right after some rapport is built. 

Examples of problem-solving probing questions include:

How much is this problem costing the company? In time? In dollars? How would you describe the problem you’re trying to solve? Why haven’t you solved it yet? What worries you most about the current problem?

3. Solution Questions

Solution-oriented probing questions should help steer the prospect into vocalizing their ideal outcome to the problem. 

If prospects can express what exactly they yearn for in a solution, sellers can use that feedback to position their own product as the one best suited to their specific needs.

This line of questioning should be reserved until after the prospect and seller have a mutual understanding of the prospect’s problem.

Examples of solution-oriented probing questions include:

What does the ideal solution look like to you? Beyond product features, what are the brand qualities you need from a provider? What are your must-haves and nice-to-haves in a solution?

4. Buying Process

Probing questions about the buying process help sales reps understand how to navigate the sales process in the way that delivers the most value to that particular prospect. 

These are best received after the problem and solution have both been discussed. 

Examples of probing questions about the buying process include:

Can you tell me more about your decision-making process? Who is involved? Is there a timeline? What additional information do you need to feel ready to make a purchase? Have you ruled out other providers for this solution? Why?

5. Budget Questions

Like it or not, all sales conversations must include details about the prospect’s budget. Probing questions around this topic can help sales professionals understand where the prospect places the highest value, and position themself as the best way to deliver it. 

Probing questions around the budget can also help sales reps work with prospects to find additional sources of funding. 

Questions about the budget can be asked at around the same time you ask about the buying process. 

Examples of budgetary probing questions include:

Do you have a budget range in mind? What will happen if your available budget doesn’t cover the cost of your must-haves? Are there opportunities for additional funding?

6. Deep Probing

Deep probing questions are classified as any other open question that requires critical thinking .

These “miscellaneous” types can technically be asked any time after rapport is established, but take that rule with a grain of thought. Some probing questions are more sensitive than others, so use your judgment about appropriate delivery timing.

Examples of deep probing questions include:

Can you tell me more about that? How do you feel about that? Can you be more specific?

Remember that the intention of asking these types of questions is to get the prospect to “open up” and share some of their deepest frustrations. Although there are six “types” of probing questions, don’t treat them as cookie-cutter content.

Any hint of a script, or attempt to make your question seem like a certain “type” will likely make the buyer put their guard up.

Tip: When talking to prospects, it’s important to understand psychology-backed principles on verbal and nonverbal communication. Grab our free ebook below to help you persuade, connect, and uncover buyer concerns in your sales conversations.

Be careful not to confuse “probing questions” with “leading” ones. While probing questions aim to get to the heart of what a prospect truly thinks or feels, a leading question attempts to sway a prospect’s answer through the way it’s present.

Leading questions are biased and are designed to “lead” the responder toward answering in line with a particular viewpoint, usually that of the questioner.

Probing questions, on the other hand, attempt to guide the prospect toward reporting authentically on their own viewpoints.

Remember that becoming skilled at asking probing questions takes time and practice. Keep the following tips in mind as you master this skill.

Practice Your Timing

Sometimes, the timing of the question is as important as the content itself. Try to classify your most common probing questions by type according to the outline above, and ask them within their recommended timeframe for best results.

Use Active Listening Skills

Get Rid of Your Bias

Remember — stay away from leading questions. It’s natural for you to think that your solution is the best on the market, but avoid pushing your prospect into prematurely adopting the same point of view. Make sure the questions generate the prospect’s own opinion, not ask them to reiterate your own.

Why do you think that is?  What would need to change within your organization for you to accomplish this?  How did you arrive at this conclusion?  What is your biggest fear related to this issue?  What is the best-case scenario, in your opinion? What do you think is the root of the problem?  Is this problem unique to this organization, or is it industry-wide?  What are the long-term effects of this ongoing challenge? What are the intangible or trickle-down effects?  How did you decide/determine…? What is the connection between… and …? How can we help you and your team?  Could you please give me some background on this?  Tell me more.  What goals and objectives do you have?  What is your biggest challenge right now?  What three primary outcomes are you hoping for from this?  Can you give me an example? Can you be more specific?  How much more productive could your team be if the problem did not exist?  If you could design the perfect solution, what would it look like? Give as much detail as possible.  Is there a deadline or other sense of urgency?  What are your top three non-negotiables that your chosen solution has to have?  How important is it to your team to solve this problem (on a scale of 1 – 10)? What other options are you currently looking at?  In a perfect world, what would you like to see happen with this?  What are you or your team currently doing to address the problem?  Can you put an amount on the problem in terms of cost to your organization on a weekly, monthly, or annual basis? Looking at this from a point of lost sales, how much is one sale worth to the company?  How much is the issue/problem costing you in time/money/resources/staff/energy? What kind of ROI are you aiming for with a solution?  How do you handle budget considerations?  Who is on the decision-making team? Who is ultimately responsible for this?  What has prompted you to want to look into this now?  What other factors have we not discussed that are important to you?  Does this affect other parts of the business?  What’s your role in this situation/issue/problem?  What’s your ideal outcome for using this solution?  What makes this purchase important to you?  What happens if you don’t buy our product or find another solution?  What features are you most interested in?  What makes you excited about our product or an overall solution?  What concerns do you have about our product?  How will you use the potential savings?  Who has the final say on purchasing in your company?  Can you elaborate on that?  Can you explain what you mean by that?  How does decision-making work at your business?  Can you tell me about your team?  What do you value most?

Have you practiced using probing questions? What was the outcome? They can feel challenging and even uncomfortable at first, but with time and practice, they can become second nature.

This guide was updated on March 29, 2023.

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100 Sales Probing Questions to Truly Understand Your Prospects' Pain

Published: January 26, 2022

A successful career in sales is dependent on your ability to ask good sales discovery questions . To develop that skill, you must know when it's time to dig deeper with probing questions. You know the kind: the type of questions necessary to uncover your prospect's core needs … fast.

In these cases, simply asking, "Tell me about your biggest challenges with your current solution," and moving on isn't enough. You must probe with follow-up questions that will give your prospect the confidence to share the real hurdles they're facing.

What is a probing question?

Probing questions ask for more detail on a particular matter. They’re often follow-up questions like, 'Could you tell me more about that?' or 'Please explain what you mean.' Probing questions are meant to clarify a point or help you understand the root of a problem, so you know how best to move forward.

Here's a comprehensive list of probing sales qualifying questions you can ask buyers to get intimately familiar with their situation and formulate potential solutions. If you'd like my complete list of 450 sales questions for every situation, download this ebook .

And, don't forget: probing questions are as much about listening as they are about speaking. Make sure you're really listening to your prospect's responses, so you know just which question to ask next.

Free Guide: 101 Sales Qualification Questions

101 Questions to Ask Contacts When Qualifying, Closing, Negotiating, and Upselling.

• Budget Questions
• Business Impact Questions
• Competitor Questions

You're all set!

Click this link to access this resource at any time.

Sales Probing Questions

Use these questions at the beginning of your sales process to identify key information about your prospect. Elaboration is the first step in gaining clarity and context around your prospects' struggles. Once your prospect gives you specific details, you will have more context that will help your client.

• "How can we help?"
• "Could you please give me some background to this?"
• "Can you tell me more about the present situation/problem?"
• "Tell me more about it."
• "How long have you been thinking about this?"
• "Why do you think it is happening?"
• "What goals and objectives do you have for this?"
• "What is your biggest challenge with this?"
• "What are your key objectives with this?"
• "What do you like about your current supplier?"
• "What are you using/doing now?"
• "Do you have any preference with regards to the solution?"
• "What three key outcomes do you want from this?"
• "Can you please tell me about that?"
• "Can you give me an example?"
• "Can you be more specific?"
• "How does this look/sound/feel to you?"
• "Why are you seeking to do this work/project/engagement?"

Questions For Identifying Symptoms For Big-Picture Problems

The following sales questions are designed to help you identify the barriers your prospect is facing. Understanding what, how, and how long these issues have been present will help you get to the root of the problem.

The root of these barriers are more than likely showing up in other areas in their business or personal development. These questions will help you to identify which issues need to be addressed first.

• "Why isn’t this particular service/product/situation/issue working for you right now?"
• "How long has it been an issue/problem?"
• "Why do you think the issue/problem has been going on for so long?"
• "How much longer can you afford to have the problem go unresolved?"
• "How is it impacting your organization/customers/staff?"
• "How severe is the problem?"
• "When do you need the issue/problem fixed by?"
• "Why have you been dealing with this for so long?"
• "What bothers you the most about this situation/issue/problem?"
• "What has prevented you from fixing this in the past?"
• "What kind of timeframe are you working in to fix this?"
• "How long have you been thinking about it?"
• "Is this problem causing other problems?"
• "Does your competition have these problems?"
• "What is the biggest problem that you are facing with this?"
• "What other problems are you experiencing?"
• "What alternatives have you considered?"
• "What are the intangible effects of the problem?"
• "Does the issue cause problems with employee morale?"
• "Does the issue cause problems that negatively affect the motivation of your staff?"
• "Can this problem affect productivity?"
• "Is this problem unique to your organization?"
• "Is this an industry-wide problem?"
• "Is it regional or geographical?"
• "When you went to your existing supplier and shared your frustrations about this problem, what reassurances did they give you that it wouldn’t be repeated?"
• "How did these problems/issues first come about? What were the original causes?"
• "What have you done in the past to address the problem?"
• "Does this affect other parts of the business?"
• "What kind of pressure is this causing you and the business?"
• "What options have you tried?"
• "What are the long-term effects of the problem?"
• "How does the problem ultimately affect your current customers?"
• "How does the problem ultimately affect your prospective customers?"
• "How does the problem ultimately affect your sales teams?"
• "How does the problem ultimately affect your other employees?"
• "How does the problem ultimately affect your sales process?"
• "How does the problem ultimately affect your reputation/goodwill/brand?"
• "Do you feel this problem/issue has given your competition a competitive advantage? If so, how?"
• "Who did you work with last time and why?"
• "How often do you think the problem has come up when you weren’t aware of it?"
• "What are the long-term effects of the problem? If you were in your competitors’ shoes, how would you take advantage of this?"
• "Do you know what your competition is thinking/planning about this?"
• "Do they suffer from the same problem?"

Action-Oriented Probing Questions

Once you have context of your prospect’s barriers, knowing what action your prospect should take is key. These questions will help your prospect see the pathway to improving their business and will also establish trust between you and them. Each question helps your prospect identify action steps that will help the two of you formulate the right solutions.

• "What number would you put on this issue in terms of prioritization?"
• "How much more productive could your people be if the problem did not exist?"
• "If you were your competition, what would you do right now?"
• "If you could design the perfect solution, what would it look like, how much would you spend, and how long would it go for?"
• "What sense of urgency do you have here?"
• "What three key outcomes do you want from solving the problem?"
• "What are your top three requirements that this solution just has to have?"
• "If you could have things the way you wanted, what would it look like?"
• "How important is this need (on a scale of 1-10)?"
• "What options are you currently looking at?"
• "In a perfect world, what would you like to see happen with this?"
• "What is your strategy to fix this problem?"
• "What are you currently doing to address the problem?"

Financial Probing Questions

Revenue drives decisions for most businesses. These questions will give you a deeper understanding of where your prospect may be hesitant to move forward or why they have been making certain choices around money.

Asking these questions will deepen your analysis on what financial barriers your prospect is facing. Since money is a more sensitive topic, you should transition into these questions once you feel like you’ve established a sense of trust with your prospect.

• "What is it costing you?"
• "Do you know in what other areas the problem is costing you money?"
• "Can you put an amount on the problem in terms of cost: Weekly, monthly, annually?"
• "Can you see how much money you/your organization loses every day by not solving this issue?"
• "How does the problem ultimately affect your pricing/selling costs?"
• "How much does this problem cost you in man hours/time?"
• "Looking at this from a point of lost sales, how much is just one sale worth to the company?"
• "How much is the issue/problem costing you in time/money/resources/staff/energy?"
• "Can you make an educated guess as to how much it costs you?"
• "What kind of return or payoff will you be looking for if you get a successful resolution of the problem?"
• " What are you working with at the moment?  Just a ball park...  "
• " How do you handle budget considerations? "

Accountability and Clarity Probing Questions

These questions solidify your understanding of your prospect’s position by delving further into the details. This also helps your prospect get clear on all the issues that will be addressed while they work with you. These questions will be good to wrap up your sales session and finalize your scope of work.

• "Who is ultimately responsible for this?"
• "Who else is aware of it?"
• "What has made you want to look into this now?"
• "What kind of timeframe are you working within?"
• "Is there anything I have overlooked?"
• "Have I covered everything?"
• "Do you have any questions you’d like to ask me?"
• "What other factors have we not discussed that are important to you?"
• "Are there any other areas I haven’t asked you about that are important?"
• "What else should I know?"
• "Have I asked you about every detail that’s important to you?"
• "How soon would you like to move with this?"
• "What’s your role in this situation/issue/problem?"
• "Who supports this action?"

An Effective Sale Strategy Means Asking The Right Questions

If you want to make your sales process effective for you and your prospect, this list of probing questions is guaranteed to help. Asking questions that aid your understanding of your prospect will increase the chances of closing the sale. Demonstrating the will to listen to pain points, barriers, and deadlines are crucial for an effective sales meeting.

These probing questions are designed to help you get the right information. They will prompt your prospect to take action and help them visualize how to close the gap between where they are and where they want to be.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in September 2015 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Don't forget to share this post!

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Top 100+ SQL Interview Questions and Practice Exercises

• jobs and career
• sql practice
• sql interview questions

Table of Contents

Review Your SQL Knowledge

Practice regularly, familiarize yourself with the testing platform, prepare for different types of questions, additional tips, explore 55+ general sql interview questions, practice, practice, practice, …, sql cheat sheet, data analysis in sql, window functions, common table expressions, advanced sql, good luck with your interview.

Are you gearing up for a SQL interview? This article is packed with over 100 SQL interview questions and practical exercises, organized by topic, to help you prepare thoroughly and approach your interview with confidence.

SQL is essential for many jobs, like data analysis, data science, software engineering, data engineering, testing, and many others. Preparing well for a SQL interview is crucial, no matter what role you're aiming for.

Searching for a new job can be really stressful, whether you're choosing to switch, have been laid off, or are looking for your first job. That's why being well-prepared is essential.

In this article, I've gathered over 100 SQL interview questions and exercises. These questions are spread across various articles published at LearnSQL.com. I have organized the articles by topic. Feel free to explore only the topics related to your specific job. I've also included tips to help you prepare for your interview.

SQL Interview Preparation Tips

Start preparing for your SQL interview well in advance. Once you're invited to an interview (Congratulations!), ask your recruiter what to expect and what is the format of the interview. For the SQL part you can usually expect coding exercises on an automated testing platform, a take-home assignment, or a whiteboard session.

The key to performing well in a SQL interview is practice. You'll likely be nervous, so the more familiar you are with SQL, the more instinctive your responses will become. Practice a variety of SQL problems so that querying becomes second nature to you.

If your interview involves using a specific coding platform, try to get comfortable with it beforehand. Many platforms offer a demo or practice session, so take advantage of this feature to familiarize yourself with the interface. This familiarity can help reduce stress and improve your performance during the actual interview.

• Coding Platform Questions: Whether during the interview or as a take-home task, make sure you understand the typical questions and problems that might appear on these platforms. Practice solving similar problems under timed conditions.
• Whiteboard Interviews: Be ready to write code in pseudocode and discuss your thought process. Focus on explaining the concepts and logic behind your solutions more than the exact syntax, which demonstrates a deeper understanding of the problem-solving process.
• Review Key SQL Concepts: Make sure you're comfortable with all fundamental SQL operations such as joins, subqueries, window functions, and aggregation. Also, review more advanced topics if the job role demands it.
• Mock Interviews: Consider doing mock interviews with friends or mentors to simulate the interview environment. This practice can help you manage time and stress effectively.
• Rest Well: Ensure you're well-rested before the interview day; a clear mind will help you think and perform better.

By incorporating these strategies into your preparation, you can approach your SQL interview with confidence and increase your chances of success.

Begin by refreshing your SQL knowledge, particularly if you haven't used it in a while. In this section we have collected some resources to assist you.

Our "SQL Basics" course is perfect for beginners or anyone needing a brief review. It covers both basic and intermediate SQL topics. In this course, you will actively write SQL code in various exercises, which will help you grow more confident in your SQL skills as you advance.

After you have refreshed the basics, check out these articles filled with SQL interview questions to help you prepare:

• Complete SQL Practice for Interviews — includes 16 SQL interview questions with practical exercises.
• 16 SQL Interview Questions for Business Analysts — SQL interview questions tailored for analysts.
• 8 Common Entry Level SQL Developer Interview Questions — great for beginners.
• Top 15 SQL Interview Questions in 2021 — a compilation of recent and relevant questions.

After refreshing your SQL skills, it’s important to keep practicing. Interviews can be stressful, and even straightforward topics can become challenging under pressure. The more you practice, the more confidently you can handle questions and problem-solving during an interview.

Here are some practice resources we recommend:

• SQL Practice track – This series includes 10 comprehensive SQL practice courses to sharpen your skills, perfect for those looking for hands-on practice. Key courses in this track include:
• SQL Practice Set – Provides a range of exercises across various SQL topics and databases.
• SQL Practice: A Store – Specifically designed for data analysts, this course offers practical SQL tasks using a database from an online store.
• SQL Practice: Blog & Traffic Data – Perfect for marketers and data analysts, this course focuses on analyzing traffic data from a pet store blog.

You can find many SQL practice materials and premium resources in Your Guide to SQL Practice at LearnSQL.com .

Lastly, we recommend our SQL Basics Cheat Sheet . It is a quick reference guide that covers basic SQL syntax. Keep it handy as you review your SQL knowledge and practice your skills.

Explore 50+ Specific SQL Topic Interview Questions

After you have refreshed your basic SQL knowledge, you might notice certain topics that are trickier for you or more relevant to your specific job role. In this section we've compiled resources that help you prepare for interview questions on specific SQL topics.

JOINs are a fundamental SQL construction used to combine data from multiple tables. They are also an essential topic at any SQL interview.

In our article The Top 10 SQL JOIN Interview Questions with Answers we've gathered the 10 most common questions about SQL JOINs that you might encounter in interviews. For each question we give you a detailed answer that will highlight what the interviewer is looking for in each question.

If you want to practice SQL JOINs, we recommend our interactive SQL JOINs course . It focuses on exercises specifically about SQL JOINs and contains 93 practice exercises to help you get confidence in your joining skills.

Additionally, we recommend Your Complete Guide to SQL JOINs , a comprehensive article that covers the basic knowledge of SQL JOINs, with additional articles and other resources on our platform.

The GROUP BY clause, paired with aggregate functions, is fundamental in SQL for calculating statistics like counts, averages, and sums from your data. This topic is essential for any SQL interview.

Our article Top 9 SQL GROUP BY Interview Questions provides a collection of the most frequently asked interview questions about GROUP BY . Each question includes a detailed answer, making sure you're prepared to discuss these topics during an interview.

If you are looking for an intermediate-level practice of GROUP BY topics, we recommend our Creating Basic SQL Reports course. It offers 100 exercises that focus on nuances of GROUP BY that can be asked about during an interview. It’s a hands-on course where you write your own SQL queries to help you better understand the issues and commit them to memory.

Furthermore, our article GROUP BY and Aggregate Functions: A Complete Overview gives a thorough explanation of GROUP BY and aggregate functions. This comprehensive guide is an excellent resource to round out your study, ensuring you have a robust understanding of how these functions work and how they can be applied in various scenarios.

We know that many of our users work specifically in the domain of data analysis. For these users, we have prepared an article 25 SQL Interview Questions for Data Analysts , which collects common SQL interview questions that can be asked for a role of data analyst. The article covers intermediate and advanced topics, like CTEs or window functions.

Window functions are an advanced SQL topic. Window functions are particularly useful when writing complex reports in SQL. For this reason, they are essential in data analysis and will come up in any data analysis interview.

Our article Top 10 SQL Window Functions Interview Questions contains the most common interview questions you might encounter regarding window functions. Each question has a detailed answer and links to further resources to help you dive deeper into each topic.

For those looking to refresh their knowledge through practice, we recommend our specialized courses:

• Window Functions – Covers the entire syntax of SQL window functions through interactive, hands-on exercises, making it ideal for those new to window functions or needing a refresher.
• Window Functions Practice Set - Aimed at those already familiar with window functions, this course provides additional practice to help refine your skills and prepare for more complex interview questions.

Additionally, we recommend our Window Functions Cheat Sheet , a handy quick reference guide for window functions. For a more thorough review, SQL Window Functions Guide is a comprehensive article that covers the basics of window functions with links to additional resources.

Common Table Expressions, or CTEs, is another advanced topic crucial for SQL interviews. CTEs help you organize and manage long and complex queries, make writing complex reports easier, and help you query hierarchical structures through recursive queries.

Our article Top 5 SQL CTE Interview Questions compiles essential CTE-related questions you're likely to face in interviews.in an article. Each question in the article is paired with a detailed answer to help you understand what is the most important in each response.

We also recommend our interactive Recursive Queries course that covers the syntax of CTEs through practice. The course is designed to teach the syntax and use of CTEs, including recursive CTEs, through hands-on exercises.

Finally, check out these articles to help you get ready for an advanced SQL interview:

• How to Prepare for an Advanced SQL Interview
• Top 27 Advanced SQL Interview Questions with Answers
• 15 Tricky SQL Interview Questions for Experienced Users

We also suggest our Advanced SQL Practice track, which is an online series of SQL practice courses designed for advanced users.

In this article we have gathered over 100 SQL interview questions and 20 additional resources compiled here to ensure you're thoroughly prepared. To further enhance your preparation, we recommend our All Forever SQL Package . It provides access to all our current and future courses in a single purchase, making it an excellent investment for your ongoing SQL education and interview readiness.

Sign up for free at LearnSQL.com and explore our SQL courses offer . Each month, we offer one of our courses—typically a practical, hands-on course—for free . This gives you a perfect opportunity to try out our resources without any commitment and see how they can help you succeed in your SQL interview. Take advantage of these offers to boost your confidence and sharpen your SQL skills effectively.

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• Our Mission

Setting Up High-Impact Tasks in Elementary School Math Centers

Allowing students to select math centers based on interest instead of skill level provides opportunities for them all to grow.

In our work as math coaches and consultants, we are often asked to help teachers structure small group practice time. Teachers who are required to implement “what I need” (WIN) groups or small group math time have questions about how to put it into practice so that the wide range of students’ needs are being met. We invite you to consider how prioritizing equity-based principles and providing high-impact tasks can offer a path to differentiating instruction, deepening skills and concepts, and strengthening problem-solving. 

differentiation in math centers

Elementary teachers are often encouraged to use math workshop (also called math center time or math rotations) to differentiate. In this model, teachers create structures for small groups of students to move from one task to another in timed rotations to complete activities that the teacher has assigned and prepared for them. In this model, there is almost always a “teacher table,” where the teacher works closely with small groups of students on “what they need.” 

This model can send unintended messages to students about what it means to be a successful, competent learner of mathematics. It can result in a math classroom that is hierarchical and leveled rather than one that supports students with multi-abilities. Students may begin at early ages to feel the impact of being identified and tracked . So what is the alternative?

designing better Tasks for math centers

Math centers offer ideal opportunities to go deep with the mathematics . The choice of tasks and the ways that teachers interact with students during the workshop impact essential equity standards. We prioritize activities or games with a low floor and high ceiling and that have a high cognitive demand with multiple solution strategies. These games and activities encourage students to make conjectures, to reason through multiple solutions, and to practice important mathematical and problem-solving skills . 

One example we often begin with is counting collections . The task focuses on significant mathematics, and yet the directions are uncomplicated. Students choose a collection of items and then figure out how many items are in the collection . The complexity and rigor come from students having to figure out how to count and then how to represent their count. Students develop essential skills such as counting, sorting, grouping, and problem-solving.  

Role of the teacher: Instead of having a teacher be stationary at a table where they supervise and lead students through a task, they move around the classroom listening to the students as they engage in the activities. They press on ideas, nudge and notice how students respond and interact. They ask probing questions to help surface mathematical ideas, and they take notes on what they observe and how students respond. Then they use their observations to assess student understanding and inform planning.

Teachers can still gather a small group of students together to bring forward some aspect of their work. In the example of counting collections, we sometimes bring together students to practice ideas related to one-to-one correspondence or extend skills related to number sense.

Grouping Students for centers

We plan tasks for math centers that allow us to leverage multiple competencies among learners and challenge spaces of marginality. In small groups or partnerships, students with different strengths learn with and from each other as they collaborate on activities. We see the variation in student abilities within a group as benefiting all group members, as it allows for greater richness of ideas and knowledge mobility . Students with varying skills and solution strategies work side-by-side using each other as equal thought partners who are able to engage in the mathematics as sense-makers. 

Many math games, like the classic “compare” games , offer the kind of richness that makes them well-suited as tasks that leverage the multiple competencies of our students during math workshop. For instance, when they play “multiplication compare,” the game directions are routine: Draw the number of cards needed, figure out the product, and compare it to the product of your partner’s hand. We use sentence starters to support partner talk for all learners and develop protocols for partner decision-making .

The success of multi-ability groups depends on how the teacher establishes an equitable math learning community and how that community is nurtured and maintained throughout the year. We pair students randomly in order to disrupt any narrative that only certain kinds of learners are capable of engaging in deep mathematics. Random groupings position all learners as competent and capable.

Role of the teacher: Following a class period of math rotations, we debrief with our students , not only about the mathematical content they have been engaged in, but also about aspects of their group work and interactions. We help students acknowledge and describe how a partner’s solution offered something new and productive to consider.  

Affirming Learners’ Math Identities

Because we see math centers as opportunities to position all students as competent, we prioritize student agency and expand access for all . We select games and activities that support students’ independence, interdependence, and decision-making. Choice is an essential part of the math workshop we are advocating for. When we reposition our students as competent independent learners and give them opportunities to make mathematical decisions, students will rise to the challenge in ways that surprise and excite their teachers as they develop more positive identities as math learners.

Role of the teacher: As we interact with students during math workshop, we press on important mathematical ideas and help shape how students view mathematics and how they view their relationship to mathematics. For example, during “counting collections,” we might say, “You have shown one way to count this quantity. Is there another way you and your partner could count this collection and represent it so that other people would know easily how many items there are? Mathematicians often make several attempts at representing their ideas in order to communicate them clearly to others. See what you might come up with for a second attempt.”

Or, after observing students at a table playing “multiplication compare,” we might say, “I noticed that your group had a few ways of figuring out who had the greater product. When we meet at the end of workshop time, it would be helpful for your classmates to hear your ideas. Why don’t you talk together now about how you might present your ideas to the whole group?”

What’s Next?

We believe it’s time to reconsider some of the assumptions and expectations that educators typically bring to the design and implementation of math workshop time. We suggest prioritizing the development of positive math identities for all students by providing opportunities for access, agency, collaboration, and independence by giving them choice and voice.

We have found that when we rethink the role of the teacher, the kinds of mathematically rich tasks we offer, and the way in which we group students, math workshop can become integral to the creation of equitable math classrooms and be a place for students to develop strong habits of mind alongside math competencies.

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Marines say no more ‘death by PowerPoint’ as Corps overhauls education

WASHINGTON, D.C. ― Marines and those who teach them will see more direct, problem-solving approaches to how they learn and far less “death by PowerPoint” as the Corps overhauls its education methods .

Decades of lecturers “foot stomping” material for Marines to learn, recall and regurgitate on a test before forgetting most of what they heard is being replaced by “outcomes-based” learning, a method that’s been in use in other fields but only recently brought into military training.

“Instead of teaching them what to think, we’re teaching them how to think,” said Col. Karl Arbogast, director of the policy and standards division at training and education command .

Here’s what’s in the Corps’ new training and education plan

New ranges, tougher swimming. inside the corps' new training blueprint..

Arbogast laid out some of the new methods that the command is using at the center for learning and faculty development while speaking at the Modern Day Marine Expo.

“No more death by PowerPoint,” Arbogast said. “No more ‘sage on the stage’ anymore, it’s the ‘guide on the side.’”

To do that, Lt. Col. Chris Devries, director of the learning and faculty center, is a multiyear process in which the Marines have developed two new military occupational specialties, 0951 and 0952.

The exceptional MOS is in addition to their primary MOS but allows the Marines to quickly identify who among their ranks is qualified to teach using the new methods.

Training for those jobs gives instructors, now called facilitators, an entry-level understanding of how to teach in an outcomes-based learning model.

Devries said the long-term goal is to create two more levels of instructor/facilitator that a Marine could return to in their career, a journeyman level and a master level. Those curricula are still under development.

The new method helps facilitators first learn the technology they’ll need to share material with and guide students. It also teaches them more formal assessment tools so they can gauge how well students are performing.

For the students, they can learn at their own pace. If they grasp the material the group is covering, they’re encouraged to advance in their study, rather than wait for the entire group to master the introductory material.

More responsibility is placed on the students. For example, in a land navigation class, a facilitator might share materials for students to review before class on their own and then immediately jump into working with maps, compasses and protractors on land navigation projects in the next class period, said John deForest, learning and development officer at the center.

That creates more time in the field for those Marines to practice the skills in a realistic setting.

Marines with Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron (VMM) 268, Marine Aircraft Group 24, 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, fire M240-B machine guns at the Marine Corps Air Station Kaneohe Bay range, Hawaii, March 5. (Lance Cpl. Tania Guerrero/Marine Corps)

For the infantry Marine course, the school split up the large classroom into squad-sized groups led by a sergeant or staff sergeant, allowing for more individual focus and participation among the students, Arbogast said.

“They have to now prepare activities for the learner to be directly involved in their own learning and then they have to steer and guide the learners correct outcome,” said Timothy Heck, director of the center’s West Coast detachment.

The students are creating products and portfolios of activities in their training instead of simply taking a written test, said Justina Kirkland, a facilitator at the West Coast detachment.

Students are also pushed to discuss problems among themselves and troubleshoot scenarios. The role of the facilitator then is to monitor the conversation and ask probing questions to redirect the group if they get off course, Heck said.

That involves more decision games, decision forcing cases and even wargaming, deForest said.

We “put the student in an active learning experience where they have to grapple with uncertainty, where they have to grapple with the technical skills and the knowledge they need,” deForest said.

That makes the learning more about application than recall, he said.

Todd South has written about crime, courts, government and the military for multiple publications since 2004 and was named a 2014 Pulitzer finalist for a co-written project on witness intimidation. Todd is a Marine veteran of the Iraq War.

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