Walking questions

This is a great facilitation technique to answer open questions of trainees with a "What if" learning style. It prevents the facilitator from answering all questions herself. With this method trainees can: 

  • close knowledge gaps
  • find solutions for personal problems
  • imagine themselves using their new knowledge in future and prepare themselves for obstacles
Duration: 15m - 20m
Participants: 5 - 10
Difficulty:  Low
Wiebke Wetzelby 

Goal

Let trainees find solutions for their problems themselves. Benefit from swarm intelligence.

Materials

    Instructions

    At the end of a training block each trainee writes one open question on top of a sheet of paper. She hands the paper to the person on her right (and receives one from her left). On the sheet she receives she reads the question ans writes down any idea/ answer she might have. She adds her name for any clarification questions. If she has no idea or answer, she hands the sheet to the next person.

    Afterwards everybody hands the sheet to the person on her right ... The exercise ends when everybody has her original sheet back. 

    Attachments

    • walking-questions.png

    Background

    From Bernd Weidemann, Wandernde Fragen

    Author

    Wiebke Wetzel
    Wiebke Wetzel
    Kundenzauberin | freelance Customer Experience Trainer

    "Your customer doesn't care how much you know, until they know how much you care."​ Damon Richards I have a dream. About companies not just pushing their products to make a living. Companies not just thinking about themselves. Instead let's think more about the problems we can solve with our products. How we can help our customers to live the life they want. Let's listen more to our customers and learn from them. Let's work together with our customers. There is nothing wrong in making a living. But we can do more with our work.

    linkedin.com/in/wiebkewetzel
    More about author

    7 Ratings 

    This method has been rated 7 time(s), with an average rating of 4.7.

    6 Comments

  • I've done a similar activity where the questions are written on a business size envelope and each learner has index cards. They answer the question on the envelope on an index card and include it in the envelope. Each successive person reads answers already in envelope. They can then support or expound on a card already there or add their own.
    about 8 years ago
  • I think its perfect as an energizer as well (not physical) at the beginning of a day to demonstrate the power of community
    about 7 years ago
  • good idea
    about 5 years ago
  • How could you do this in a remote setting?
    almost 5 years ago
  • One of the ways to use this in online/remote setting is to set up a grid / or columns layout on your visual collaboration tool, so then participants can 'move' the virtual sheets or post-it notes to each others' area. So for instance, with 10 participants, I'd set up 10 columns in Mural / Miro board (or simply in Google Slides), one empty sheet of virtual note in each. Then ask everyone to pick one empty column, write their name above it. Then they can fill in their on empty sheet, and pass it to the next person in the row. So when they finished writing, they simply drag-and-drop their sheet to the next person. (Or for a more visual layout, you might even set up the working areas in a circle shape, so it feels more like a real cirlce)
    almost 5 years ago
  • Very easy and useful! Thank you
    almost 5 years ago
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