Today I found an article on questorming by Daniel Tenner on swombat.com. Here is what he said about applying questorming:

As the saying goes, asking the right questions is half the battle. This is what questorming focuses on: questions. The objective of the game is to ask as many questions as possible, in a free-flowing, unscripted way, about the topic. Much like with brainstorming, there are no bad questions in the initial phase – anything goes. As the storm of questions grows, it provides a map of your current understanding of the topic, and some clear next steps for deepening that understanding.

Daniel Tenner then gave an example of using questorming on “How can I write a book?” I’ve adapted his example to doing a story project because there are many similarities. Here is what I came up with:

• How can I do a story project? or What should I do for my story project?

And free-flow from there:

• How can I not do a story project?
• Are there activities hat will increase the chances of me completing a story project?
• Are there things that I absolutely must do to complete a story project?
• Are there things that, if I do them, will guarantee I don’t complete a story project?
• What are all those things?
• Do I need anyone else’s help to complete my story project?
• Is it possible to complete a story project without any help from anyone?
• What are all the key things that need to happen before a story project is finished?
• What does it mean for a story project to be ready?
• Is a story project ready when I decide it’s finished, or are there other factors?
• What are clear signs that a story project is not finished?
• Are there some story project that can never be finished?
• Can I do something to make sure that my story project will some day be finished?
• What could I do to ensure that my story project will never be finished?
• Why do I want my story project to be finished?
• What do I want out of it?
• How does that relate to whether it’s complete?
• Who am I doing this story project for?
• Do they have any impact on whether it’s complete?
• Can I find out if it’s finished from the perspective of its audience, before actually publishing it?
• Do I even need to publish my story project?
• Are there ways to share my story project so that it can be improved repeatedly?
• Are those ways better or worse than traditional ways?
• Why?
• Are there benefits to sharing my story project in the traditional way, vs a more modern approach?
• Which is better to match what I want out of this story project?

I hope this give you some thoughts on your next story project? There are lots more questions to be questormed and not all questions that you come up with are actually helpful in moving your project forward but some of the questions you think of will be very useful in coming up with a meaningful story project.

Have you every used questorming? I haven’t yet but will soon. The closest I’ve come to questorming is talking with my dad about a book he read called “Change Your Questions, Change Your Life” by Marilee Adams.