Progress Question Template

• What is the status quo?
  • What are the strengths of the status quo (that we want to try and keep)?
  • What are the problems?

• What are the goals we are aiming for?
  • Possibly ordered by easiest to most difficult to achieve.
• What are the goals we shouldn't aim for?
  • Often times setting up non-goals is important to guard against scope creep.
• What resources might help in making progress in X?
  • What information might be relevant?
    • Is there scientific research relevant to the question?
    • Are there relevant arguments presented in articles or online discussions?
  • Who may be able/willing to help?
• What are the possible improvements to X?
  • What actions are currently in progress that attempt to improve X?
  • What are the strengths and weaknesses of each option?
    • How likely is it that the proposed improvement would make things worse?
  • When will each proposal be ready to be acted on?
    • Are there steak-holders that should sign off on the proposal?
  • What has been tried already?
    • Why did it succeed/fail?
• What outcomes are/should we measure in determining success?
• What are the possible difficulties in making improvements in this area?
• What are our resource constraints (in terms of money, number of people, time etc)?
• Are there any analogous systems that we might look to for inspiration?
• What other questions, if answered, might help us make progress?