Turn into a Questionnaire
Turn questions that you cannot answer alone into a questionnaire — a Markdown document, to be filled out asynchronously by someone, or together in a meeting. The recipient has knowledge that you lack; the questionnaire is responsible for extracting that knowledge.
Interrogate "sending" rather than "the topic". Only ask the user about "sending" — something they can always answer: who to send it to, and what needs to come back. The questions in the document target the gap between what the recipient knows and what the user needs.
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Who to send it to? Use a back-and-forth to clarify the recipient's role, expertise, and relationship with the user. This determines the tone of the questionnaire and how much context needs to be included. Completion condition: You know who the recipient is and what they know that the user doesn't.
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What do you need back? Use a back-and-forth to clarify the specific decisions or facts that the user cannot solve alone and needs to obtain from this person. Completion condition: You have a specific list of things that the user must be able to act on or decide based on.
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Write the questionnaire. Draft questions targeting the gaps identified in steps 1-2, following the document structure below. Write the questionnaire into the file
to-questionnaire-<slug>.md
in the current directory (slug comes from the topic), and report the file path. Completion condition: The file exists, and every item mentioned by the user in step 2 is covered by a corresponding question.
Document Structure
Position the document as a
discovery questionnaire: the user lacks context, and the recipient has it. Sort by importance — asynchronous means you may only get one chance — when there are more than a few questions, group them by topic using
headings. Use the template below to write.
<questionnaire-template>
<Questionnaire Title>
Purpose: The reason this questionnaire exists and the decisions it impacts.
From: <User> — To: <Recipient> — Your responses will be used for: <Destination>
Background
A paragraph providing context for recipients who don't know the user's background. Enough to help them answer the questions well, no more than one page.
How to Respond
Deadline and approximate time investment. Partial answers and "I don't know" are equally useful — if you're unsure about anything, please mark it instead of skipping it.
<Topic Heading>
One
section per topic. Questions sorted by importance under each section. Each question contains only one idea — never compound — with a space directly below each question for answers, and add a line of
Why this matters only if the question might be misunderstood or lead to perfunctory answers.
<question-example>
### What load is the system expected to handle at launch?
Why this matters: It determines whether we prepare for sudden traffic now or postpone it until later.
</question-example>
Any Other Questions?
An open closing question: Anything we didn't ask but you should tell us?
</questionnaire-template>