Write research questions

Purpose

Research questions drive the strategy of any research project. They narrow the client's motivating challenge/fuzzy situation into 5-8 questions that are:

• clear: providing enough specifics that one’s audience can easily understand its purpose without needing additional explanation.
• focused: narrow enough that it can be answered thoroughly in the space the writing task allows.
• concise: expressed in the fewest possible words.
• complex: not answerable with a simple “yes” or “no,” but rather requires synthesis and analysis of ideas and sources 
• arguable: its potential answers are open to debate rather than accepted facts

Responsible Party

Ops Project Lead

Interdependencies

• An Alignment Meeting was conducted, and the data was transcribed.
• The project has been sold, and
• Any changes to the organization that happened between alignment and sale have been communicated to the Ops Team.
• The research questions are reviewed with the client in early logistics planning meetings.

Directions

1. ReviewOpen the project's scopingScoping documentDocument.
and
2. Create projecta charter.new Mural.
3. Copy theall knownQuestions items+ and the questionsCuriosities from the Scoping Document  + paste them into Mural.
   • You may need to paste the questions into a newdocument first in order to paste them as individual sticky notes.
   • Copy over the headers from the document orand Mural.
   • Organizekeep the knownquestion notes grouped

Example

4. Sort the questions into areas that represent Phases (if applicable) or In Scope and unknownOut informationof intoScope themes.based Theseon maythe beScoping Document.

Example

5. Conduct sense-making/affinity grouping for the in-scope questions.

Example

6. Diverge + converge on questions to address the themes identifiedyou inidentified. Use the scopingResearch documentWarehouse oras youa mightreference.

   identify new subgroups.

Example

7.  Craft 5-8 questions that addressCopy all of the themesoriginal questions and unknownsshow fromhow they connect to the Alignmentresearch Meeting.questions you wrote.
   • This can be done in Mural or a Google Sheet (example: HNI Workplace Furnishings :: Research Questions)
   • Consider
     • Are all the leader questions addressed?
     • Are any of the research questions only addressing one or two leadership questions?
     • Are any of the research questions redundant?
8. Conduct one more round of convergence, combining/deleting questions until you have 7-10 total research questions
9. Paste the research questions into the Project Charter
10. Schedule a Gate Check with another member of the Ops Team
    

Gate: Review your research questions with another member of the Ops Team. Ask them if the questions are clear and appropriately scoped.

11. Revise your questions as needed.
12. Paste the final research questions intoin the Project Charter.Charter as needed.
    

Resources

RepositoryResearch of past project research questionsWarehouse