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Leading vs Open-Ended Question Sorter

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About This MicroSim

How a question is worded decides whether a discovery interview produces evidence or just polite agreement. An open-ended question asks the customer to supply the content in their own words. A leading question supplies the content itself and only asks the customer to agree.

Learners work through six cards, each a question Jordan might ask a dog owner about grooming, and choose Open-Ended or Leading. The feedback is immediate:

  • A correct answer flashes green; an incorrect answer flashes amber.
  • The correct category is stamped on the card.
  • A one-sentence explanation says why, so a wrong answer still teaches something.
  • Every leading question gets an open-ended rewrite on the card, showing how to ask the same thing without suggesting the answer.

Two cards are deliberately tricky. "Tell me about the last time getting your dog groomed was a hassle" mentions a problem, yet it is still open-ended because the customer tells the story. "This would save you so much time, right?" is a statement with "right?" added at the end, and that tag is what makes it leading.

How to Use

  1. Read the interview question on the card.
  2. Click Open-Ended or Leading.
  3. Read the feedback. For a leading question, read the open-ended rewrite on the card.
  4. Click Next Card. After card 6, click See Results for your score and a review of all six questions.
  5. Click Try Again to sort the same six cards in a new, shuffled order.

The progress bar across the top turns green or amber for each card as you go. The stack behind the current card shrinks as cards are dealt. Nothing is saved; the score lasts only for the current session.

Iframe Embed Code

You can add this MicroSim to any web page by adding this to your HTML:

<iframe src="https://dmccreary.github.io/eight-hour-entrepreneur/sims/leading-vs-open-ended-sorter/main.html"
        height="500px"
        width="100%"
        scrolling="no"></iframe>

Lesson Plan

Audience

Adult early-stage entrepreneurs and aspiring founders in a live virtual cohort.

Learning Objective

Given sample discovery-interview questions, participants will classify each one as open-ended or leading, applying the chapter's unbiased interview design principles.

Bloom Level: Apply (L3). Bloom Verb: classify.

Duration

10 minutes

Prerequisites

  • Chapter 9 reading on discovery interviews, especially the section on asking, not selling

Activities

  1. Solo sort (3 min): Each participant sorts all six cards and notes their score.
  2. Debrief the tricky cards (3 min): As a group, discuss the "hassle" card and the "right?" card. What makes the first one open-ended even though it names a problem? Why does adding "right?" turn a statement into a leading question?
  3. Rewrite your own script (4 min): Each participant writes three questions for their own discovery interviews, runs the stranger test on each one (could a stranger answer "no" without feeling awkward?), and rewrites any that fail as open-ended questions.

Assessment

  • Did the participant classify at least 5 of 6 cards correctly on a second, shuffled attempt?
  • Can the participant explain the difference in terms of who supplies the content: the customer or the question?
  • Can the participant rewrite a leading question from their own script as an open-ended question about past behavior?

References

  1. Leading question - Wikipedia - The definition this sorter applies: a question worded to suggest its own answer.
  2. Open-ended question - Wikipedia - Questions that cannot be answered with a simple yes or no.
  3. Customer development - Wikipedia - Steve Blank's method of getting out of the building to learn from real customers, the origin of the discovery interview.
  4. Response bias - Wikipedia - How question wording and politeness push answers away from what people actually think.
  5. The Mom Test - Rob Fitzpatrick - A short book on asking customers about their past behavior instead of fishing for compliments on your idea.