Elicit better evidence with leading questions that trigger concrete recall.

This guide is for consultants who need to convert scattered memories, partial operational context, and cross-functional interviews into evidence clear enough to rank AI opportunities.

Related guides:

• User guide for end-to-end workflow
• Builder guide for field-level model entry

When a blank “What are your pain points?” question will not work, run Pain Discovery Studio (`/pain-discovery`) on the saved company model instead of asking for a pain inventory. Use this interview guide to fill the rest of the map (processes, assets, skills, and connections). After adding reviewed pains, reopen Builder from the studio so Evidence → Pains shows the new saved version.

Why this guide matters

Consultants have the hardest role in discovery: interviewees often remember incidents but not structured evidence. Your job is to ask leading/searching questions that move answers from vague stories to clear, usable facts.

For each session, prioritize evidence that changes ranking, not completeness.

Interview objective (what you should extract)

Aim to leave each session with:

• 1-2 high-value workflows mapped as processes
• Linked pains with severity/frequency (and rough cost if available)
• Data/asset clarity for those workflows (`accessible` vs not yet accessible)
• At least one clear bottleneck skill
• Missing connections: who is served, what is used or reused, and where skills create bottlenecks

60-minute interview structure

Recommended opener: "Let's use real recent examples. I will ask for concrete instances, then convert them into the evidence map."

Memory-first funnel (vague -> concrete)

When interviewees say "it depends", "often", or "many", use this funnel:

1. Recent event trigger: "Tell me about the last time this happened."
2. Timeline anchor: "Was that this week, month-end, or quarter-end?"
3. Artifact anchor: "Which system/sheet/ticket/doc did you open?"
4. People anchor: "Who had to approve or intervene?"
5. Volume anchor: "How many items per day/week/month?"
6. Failure anchor: "Where did it stall, bounce back, or need rework?"

This reliably turns abstract responses into evidence you can add to the company map.

Follow-up question bank by company-map section

Use these prompts when responses are thin.

1) Offerings and segments (`serves` edges)

Primary:

• "What do you sell repeatedly, and what is still bespoke each time?"
• "Which customer types buy each offering most often?"

Searching prompts:

• "If I opened your last 10 won deals, which 2-3 offerings appear most?"
• "Which segment asks for exceptions most often?"
• "Which offering has the longest handoff from sales to delivery?"

Capture:

• Offering name, delivery mode/components (`manual`, `rule_based`, `judgment`)
• Segment names and explicit Offering -> `serves` -> Segment links

2) Processes (workflow backbone)

Primary:

• "Walk me through the process step-by-step from trigger to completion."
• "Where are delays, queues, or repeat loops most common?"

Searching prompts:

• "What happens at month-end / quarter-end / audit prep?"
• "Which step fails when your best person is unavailable?"
• "Where do people copy-paste between systems?"
• "Which inbox/queue/ticket list grows the fastest?"

Capture:

• Process name, rough volume (`low/med/high`), repetitiveness
• Stage where work waits, rework points, exception paths

3) Assets and data (`uses` edges, accessibility)

Primary:

• "What data or systems are used at decision time in this workflow?"
• "Can your team access that data today without special engineering?"

Searching prompts:

• "Which export/report does the team pull before making a decision?"
• "If I asked for last 90 days of this process, where would that come from?"
• "What data exists but is trusted by no one?"
• "What is in spreadsheets because core systems do not capture it?"

Capture:

• Asset type (`data`, `tech`, `physical`)
• Accessibility truth (`accessible` only if usable now)
• Process/Offering -> `uses` -> Asset links

4) Pains and impact evidence

Primary:

• "What is the cost of this issue in time, money, risk, or customer impact?"
• "How often does it happen?"

Searching prompts:

• "What did this delay block last week?"
• "How many escalations or SLA misses came from this?"
• "What gets worked after hours because of this step?"
• "What do you warn new hires about on day one?"

Quantification prompts:

• "Is this daily, weekly, or monthly?"
• "Is it 5 items, 50, or 500?"
• "Is rework minutes, hours, or days?"
• "Ballpark annualized cost: <$50k, $50k-$250k, or >$250k?"

Capture:

• Pain statement attached to a node, severity/frequency, optional annual cost

5) Skills and bottlenecks (`bottlenecked_by` edges)

Primary:

• "Which decisions only 1-2 people can make reliably?"
• "Where does quality drop when experts are unavailable?"

Searching prompts:

• "What work pauses during leave/holiday periods?"
• "What takes longest to train a new hire to do safely?"
• "Which judgment calls are hard to document?"

Capture:

• Skill entity, scarcity (`med/high` when true), Process -> `bottlenecked_by` -> Skill

6) Projects and abstractions (`reuses` edges)

Primary:

• "Which past delivery pattern has repeated across clients/use cases?"
• "What did you build once that keeps getting adapted?"

Searching prompts:

• "If you strip industry words, what is the reusable pattern?"
• "Which past project would you clone first under time pressure?"
• "Where do proposals repeatedly reuse the same approach?"

Capture:

• Project summary, abstraction (domain-neutral pattern), Offering -> `reuses` -> Project

7) Constraints (feasibility and trigger activation)

Primary:

• "What can kill this initiative even if the idea is good?"
• "Which compliance/security/risk constraints are non-negotiable?"

Searching prompts:

• "What is the biggest reason previous automation efforts stalled?"
• "Where does legal/compliance review add cycle time?"
• "What budget, integration, or governance gates usually block rollout?"

Capture:

• Constraint type (`regulatory`, `risk`, `stack`, `budget`, `talent`, etc.)
• Scope and practical effect on delivery

Edge-completion checklist (ask before ending)

Ask these explicitly to prevent under-linked graphs:

• "Which offerings serve which segments?" (`serves`)
• "Which processes or offerings use which assets?" (`uses`)
• "Which offerings reuse which past projects?" (`reuses`)
• "Which processes are bottlenecked by which skills?" (`bottlenecked_by`)
• "Which pains belong to which node?" (impact grounding)

If an edge is uncertain, mark it as follow-up instead of guessing.

High-yield probes for hard-to-remember evidence

Use these when recall is incomplete:

• Calendar probes: "What changed at month-end, quarter-end, annual audit?"
• Exception probes: "What happens when data is missing, late, or inconsistent?"
• Escalation probes: "Which issues get escalated to managers or experts?"
• Workaround probes: "Where are side spreadsheets, shadow tools, manual trackers?"
• Handoff probes: "Where does ownership change between teams?"
• Artifact probes: "Show me the report/template/checklist used before decisions."
• Top-N probes: "What are the top 3 reasons this workflow misses target?"
• Last-time probes: "Describe the most recent incident end-to-end."

Interview anti-patterns to avoid

• Asking "Do you have data?" without asking where, who can access it, and how often it is used
• Capturing pains without linking them to a process/offering/project
• Treating opinions as evidence when no incident, artifact, or metric is cited
• Marking assets `accessible` because they exist, not because teams can use them now
• Trying to complete the whole graph in one session instead of closing top gaps iteratively

Session output template

Use this checklist format in your notes after each call:

• Session focus (department/persona):
• Top workflows discussed:
• New/updated processes:
• New/updated pains (with severity/frequency):
• New/updated assets (and accessible status):
• New/updated skills and bottlenecks:
• New/updated projects and abstractions:
• Constraints captured:
• Edges confirmed (serves/uses/reuses/bottlenecked_by):
• Unknowns to resolve:
• Artifacts requested (report, export, ticket sample, SOP):

Use this output to update the builder on Step 2 · Evidence, run Analyze on Review, and generate the next interview agenda. Gap Open / Open in builder links jump from Review (or the evidence preview) back to the exact field that closes each gap.