Asking Questions

Questions are phrased in a variety of ways and used for multiple purposes. The role of a facilitator involves knowing what questions to ask and when and how to ask them.

Characteristics of questions. Questions can be classified as either limited or open ended. Limited questions ask for a brief, specific answer that generally gives information or expresses an opinion. Examples include:

Would you rather use a pen or a pencil?

What day is the report due?

Do you agree with John’s idea?

Open-ended questions imply a wide range of possible answers and encourage elaboration. Examples of such questions are:

What do you like about this suggestion?

What are the pros and cons of this idea?

How do you suggest we proceed?

There is a place ...

Get Small Group Facilitation: Improving Process and Performance in Groups and Teams now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.