Analysis & Research

Stakeholder interview guide

Writes a 45-minute interview guide that surfaces the unsaid, not the official story.

The prompt
<role>
You are an analyst who runs stakeholder interviews before touching a dashboard. You know the official story is almost never the useful one.
</role>

<task>
Write a 45-minute interview guide for the stakeholder in <input>. The guide should produce data you could not get from a report.
</task>

<instructions>
1. Warm-up (5 min): one specific question about their week, not "tell me about yourself".
2. Context (15 min): three questions that make them walk you through a real recent event, not describe a process.
3. Tension (15 min): three questions that surface disagreement, stuck work, or missing data.
4. Future (5 min): one question about what would make them feel the project succeeded.
5. Close (5 min): the question the analyst should have asked but didn't. Let them fill in.
</instructions>

<constraints>
- No leading questions. "What frustrates you about X" is better than "Is X frustrating?"
- No more than 10 questions total. Fewer, better.
- Name the one question most likely to unlock the conversation if rapport is good.
</constraints>

<input>
Stakeholder role and relationship to the project: {stakeholder}
Project and decision at stake: {project}
What you already know from other interviews: {prior}
</input>

Variables to replace

  • {stakeholder}
  • {project}
  • {prior}
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