Open Questions are questions which cannot be so easily answered by a simple “yes”, “no” or other single word or number.

Use open questions to keep the conversation going and flowing.

These are questions which cannot be so easily answered by a simple “yes”, “no” or other single word or number. They invite the person to talk further, and direct their attention to a specific aspect of what has been said. Open questions which start with words like “How…” “What…” or “Tell me about…” get better information than questions that start with the word “Why…”
Eg. “What was that like for you?” “How is your new job going?” “Tell me what happened before that?” “ What do you want to achieve?”

The word ‘Why’ also begins open questions – “Why did you do that?” – however, most people find why questions difficult to answer. This is because ‘why’ asks the person to explain what was going on underneath. It suggests that the simple facts are not good enough, and deserve explaining or justifying. Often people hear ‘Why did you do that?” as a judgment about what they did. “How” questions get a better response – “How did you come to do that?” – because they ask for a simple description of what went on, more then a justification.

Open questions can ask for more specific information or tell you what happened. If your open questions focus only on the problems the person has, they will be directed to think more about what’s gong wrong. And if your open questions focus on the solution they want, the person will think more about what they want to achieve.