Here are five questions written by one of your systems analysis team members. Her interviewee is the local manager of LOWCO, an outlet of a national discount chain, who has asked you to work on a management information system to provide inventory information. Review these questions for your team member.
1. When was the last time you thought seriously about your decision-making process?
2. Who are the trouble makers in your store, I mean the ones who will show the most resistance to changes in the system that I have proposed?
3. Are there any decisions you need more information about to make them?
4. You don’t have any major problems with the current inventory control system, do you?
5. Tell me a little about the output you’d like to see.
a. Rewrite each question to be more effective in eliciting information.
b. Order your questions in either a pyramid, funnel, or diamond-shaped structure, and label the questions with the name of the structure you used.
c. What guidelines can you give your team member for improving her interviewing questions for the future? Make a list of them.