2.1 What do the questions mean?

When you start working through the Question Ladder Template, you will notice that some cells in the grid are easier to complete than others. Some will feel irrelevant or clunky, but you should still have a go at filling them in as they will help ensure that you explore the issue from all angles.

Once you have completed all the cells of the Question Ladder Template, you can select the blend of questions that will enable you to get the information and knowledge you need. You should aim to build a chain of questions that gently leads you, or your interviewee, into greater detail and complexity. This will provide a convincing and robust body of evidence for a course of action. You might not need to ask and answer all the questions that you prepared.

You might notice that you have picked certain types of question more than others. For example, you may find that the most useful question types for you are ‘Who’ or ‘Might’ questions, or perhaps they are ‘How’ or ‘Could’ questions.

The frequency of the question types you select can tell you about your concerns around the issue you are investigating. So, for example, ‘Who’ questions suggest you are concerned about responsibility. Look at Table 1 below to see what the different types of question indicate.