Open Inquiry

Impactful work emerges from deliberate thought sparked by early seeds of curiosity.

You know the ones.

• “Something feels off…”
• “I keep noticing…”
• “I wonder if…”

A fire doesn’t start without a spark. And human creativity and expression don’t either. You can’t prompt insights. They’re products of the process. If you want insights, take part in the process. Pay attention and listen to the signals floating in the air.

Great work isn’t on the other side of a prompt. You need to live it, feel it, be in it.

AI is part of the of work. And I’m not going to deny its value. But I am going to think about the process of thought, creation, and craft.

I want you to think about three ideas.

These three ideas are sparks in your mind; those pesky thoughts you can’t escape.

Ask yourself:

• What’s a pattern I’ve noticed?
• What’s a tension I’m holding?
• What’s an idea I’m exploring?

These are inquiries. They occupy space in your mind. You think about them even when you don’t realize it. And they don’t have an immediately obvious answer yet. You sit with them, let them percolate, and allow the solution to emerge from the process.

You listen, question, and test.

I call it Open Inquiry, and it’s the deliberate process of slow thinking inside systems of speed designed to make you skip the work.

Some solutions are critical and need to be solved quickly. Other solutions are obvious and you know the right path. But some solutions need time to become clear.

That’s what Open Inquiry is for.

Measure twice, cut once.

Listening

I talk a lot about signals and the power of observation. You can’t take concerted action without paying attention to what’s around you. The more you notice, the more you see. The better you listen, the better you understand.

Listening is the first part of Open Inquiry.

You don’t know what you don’t know, so you lean into the flow of information to tune your ability to sense the emergent truths.

I received an email from a Customer Success Manager (CSM) with detailed feedback from a customer who churned. In it, the customer pointed out valid and constructive feedback about the product. It was so valuable.

But the feedback came too late.

Why didn’t we get this sooner?

Why didn’t the customer share the feedback immediately?

I agreed with all the feedback. I even had it already tracked in Linear! I just wish it surfaced during the use of the product. If I saw it sooner, I could have addressed it. I could have shown the customer how responsive our team is. I could have shown them how their feedback helps shape the product.

A transactional relationship becomes a partnership.

There was the spark.

Once I listened and noticed, I began to see a pattern emerging with other customers.

Questioning

In Inside the Box, David Epstein describes the “problem space” as “a metaphorical region that the human brain must navigate through in order to get from some initial state of a problem to some solution.” Navigating the problem space requires a compass; an instrument to orient yourself and check your direction. If you want to find the right solution, you must first ask the right question. That’s the hardest part.

Demis Hassabis, CEO of DeepMind, says it well:

It’s harder to come up with a really good conjecture than it is to solve it.

Questioning focuses on the problem. You interrogate, ask questions, and engage your curiosity. You think out loud, talk to your team, and engage in productive debate.

Keep refining the question until you’re asking the right one.

What started as why didn’t we get this feedback sooner? was the spark.

But it wasn’t the right question.

Questions evolve over time. This question, in particular, moved through steps:

1. Why didn’t we get this feedback sooner?
2. Why do customers wait until they churn to share feedback?
3. What would make customers feel comfortable sharing feedback earlier?
4. How do we make customers feel like active participants in shaping the product?

You keep going until the question starts surfacing the right answers.

That question, how do we make customers feel like active participants in shaping the product?, becomes the Open Inquiry. It’s the compass. Use it to find the path, but always stay open to changing the question. Update your thinking as you learn.

Testing

Now you meet reality. Figure out the smallest experiment you can run to update your current understanding. Is the question the right one? You won’t know until you test it.

The reason the right question is so powerful is because it elicits a clear response. You know whether your test answers the question. If it doesn’t, that’s good. There’s no failure, only learning. Your current understanding just gets updated and improved.

The Open Inquiry, no matter the question, is focused on reducing uncertainty. The question is a measure of uncertainty, and the answer an attempt to reduce it. There are countless ways to test and increase your certainty.

• Have a conversation.
• Read a paper.
• Observe behavior.
• Build a prototype.
• Write an essay.
• Collect examples.
• Run an A/B test.
• Wait for more evidence.

You’re trying to improve your working theory.

In an effort to answer how to make customers feel like active participants in shaping the product, the next step should be designed to get closer to an answer. You don’t force a project or expend more energy than required. You stay focused.

I implemented one of the changes from the customer’s feedback. I will record a video and can share it with the customer to show how their feedback influenced the product and made it better. It probably won’t make them feel like active participants now because they already churned, but it’s important to test the response. Also, it’s an improvement to the product to the relationship, so that’s a win either way.

Test to learn. Meet reality.

The Practice

Earlier I asked you to think of three ideas. Those ideas are what you’re thinking about right now in your work. And they are the key focus of Open Inquiry. You start from a place of constraint, limiting the active inquiries you’re thinking of to 3-5. I like to keep it to 3 because it’s a magic number.

I have a note for each inquiry. I follow a specific template to reflect the latest thinking:

1. Name: A two-word short name of the inquiry.
2. Mode: Listening / Questioning / Testing.
3. Current Inquiry: What am I trying to understand?
4. Working Theory: What’s my best explanation today?
5. Next Move: What is the smallest action that will improve my Working Theory?

Let’s look at the example of customer feedback and use the template, which is a reflection of your current understanding. Move through listening, questioning, and testing. It’s not a pipeline you have to step through linearly. You can hear something and immediately test it. When you learn from a test, you can change the question. You can hold multiple theories at once. The flow of inquiry is continuous.

Customer Collaboration

Mode: Questioning

Current Inquiry

How do we make customers feel like active participants in shaping the product rather than waiting until they leave to share their most valuable feedback?

Working Theory

Theory A: Customers don’t believe their feedback will meaningfully influence the product.

Theory B: The problem isn’t collecting feedback—it’s creating opportunities for customers to share it while they’re still engaged.

Theory C: Customers feel most reflective when they churn because it’s the first time they’re intentionally evaluating their experience.

Emerging Philosophy: Products should create an ongoing sense of partnership between builders and customers.

Emerging Principles

• Visibility creates trust.
• Feedback before frustration.
• Customers invest in what they help shape.

Next Move

Implement one improvement from the customer’s feedback, share the change with them, and observe whether demonstrating responsiveness changes how they perceive their influence on the product.

The Throughline

Listening is about signals.

Questioning is about meaning.

Testing is about evidence.

Move through the process of Open Inquiry. Take part in it. Absorb the knowledge. Don’t let AI take over the human experience of the creative process. It’s not worth it. Pithy prompts degrade critical thinking like social media degrades attention.

Never stop asking questions, thinking critically, or sitting with important problems.

Critical thinking is fuel for human ingenuity.