How do you know the right question to ask? Sometimes reaching the right answer means thinking more about the kind of questions you’re asking. It might sound simple, but focusing on what you’re asking someone is essential for reaching a deeper understanding. ‘Laddering’ is an interview technique that helps you to hone in on a certain topic by asking a series of questions about different aspects related to that topic.

The Question Ladder tool is a quick and easy way to start asking your questions in a few different ways, and to start combining questions in order to reach more complex answers. It provides a structured overview of what goes in to a question; it shows how to combine a range of who, what, where, when, why and how questions coupled with the words like is, did, can, will, would and might. This makes it much easier to think about the best way to get to the heart of the issue at hand, and to build chains of questions that will allow you to gradually reach the heart of more complex issues.