Questions To Facilitate Transformative Learning

Questions are one of the most simple and powerful tools that we have at our disposal in our knowledge management toolkit, yet so often people use convergent (closed) questioning techniques, which do not provide such a rich source of data. An alternative approach is to practise using divergent questioning techniques. Some examples being:

Divergent questions	Examples
Questions to broaden awareness	What are you noticing or hearing at this point in time?
Questions to generate options	What are five ways you could approach this problem?
Questions to make new connections	What patterns are you noticing here? How does this relate to. . .?
Questions to encourage thinking out of the box	If you were observing this problem from a helicopter how might you see it differently? Imagine you are a gardener how might she/he approach this problem?