We recommend starting with broad, open ended questions like “What's blocking you right now?” or “What opportunities aren't we acting on?” rather than something narrow or prescriptive.
During onboarding leep learns about your team and what you want to know, then uses that to shape what it sends. Questions are always responsive and evolve with your organisation and team, bringing you new and unique information you might not have heard.
You also don't need to write a perfect question. You just need to point leep at the right territory, and leep will evolve the question from there.
When should I use an open question, and when a closed one?
Use an open question when you don't already know what you're looking for. Broad prompts like "what's slowing you down?" let your team tell you about things you didn't think to ask about, and that's usually where the interesting ideas are.
Survey research has shown this for decades: give people a list to choose from and they stay inside it, ask them openly and a large share name problems that were never on the list. A narrow question can only confirm or deny what you already had in mind.
Use a closed question when you already know the territory and need something specific: a decision made, a date confirmed, a yes or no you can act on today. As a rule, we recommend starting open and letting leep narrow for you. Every leep evolves based on what your Team says, so a broad start gives leep somewhere to dig, while a narrow start gives it nowhere to go.
Examples of specific questions and open ended questions below:
Closed Question | Open Ended Question |
Did you find last week's CRM training useful? | What's slowing you down day to day? |
Are you happy with the new stand-up format? | How's the way we work together going? |
Do you have what you need to hit the Q3 deadline? | What's blocking you right now? |
Should we move the offsite to November? | What opportunities aren't we acting on? |
Rate your workload from 1 to 5. | What's taking more of your time than it should? |