June, 2021

To get to the bottom of any problem, we have to get past assumptions. The best way to do that, is to ask the questions that have “obvious answers” - stupid questions. Combine this with the 5 why’s - ask a new stupid question for each answer 5 times. That should thoroughly confuse the client or yourself, or whoever is experiencing the problem.

Some stupid questions you can ask

• Why are we doing it that way?
• Why is that there?
• What’s the reason for this?
• Why is this so expensive?

Real Examples

• Why are rockets so expensive? (Elon Musk)
• Why are we only using rockets once? (Elon Musk)
• Why is the restaurant full on saturday and empty on monday? (Nick Kokonas)
• Why don’t we take a deposit on the reservation? (Nick Kokonas)
• Why are the tables empty when we have 100 people on the waitlist? (Nick Kokonas)

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Resources & References

Read the detailed post on Ask stupid questions