Powerful Questions

One thing that I’m doing lately every time I read a book, is to take some notes of the salient points and store them in a private repository. These notes help me every time I forget something that I read previously.

Now, I want to try something different. Instead of keeping these notes to myself, I’m going to create a blog post with the concepts/ideas that captured my attention while reading a book.

Let’s begin!

The book that I’m currently reading is Patterns, Principles, and Practices of Domain-Driven Design. One of the tips the authors mention that will help you during knowledge-crunching sessions, is to ask powerful questions. So, the idea of this post is to create a list of questions that will help us get valuable information from the domain experts.

The following questions are taken from the book:

Where does the need of this system come from?

How will this system give value to the business?

What would happen if this system wasn’t built?

What is the business trying to achieve?

What is the success criteria of this product?

What will make it a worthwhile endeavor?

What does good look like?

Why the software is being written rather than opting for a commercial off‐the‐shelf product?

How will building an application make a difference to the business?

How does it fit within the strategy of the company?

Why is it being built in‐house rather than being outsourced?

Does part of the software give the business a competitive edge?

How is this different from what has been done before?

The book mentions a blog post with Powerful Questions as well. Make sure you read the comments section!