inquirywhat

InquiryWhat is a term used to describe a structured framework for asking questions that concentrate on identifying the essential 'what' questions within a topic. The approach emphasizes clarity of purpose, traceable reasoning, and iterative refinement of both questions and evidence.

Coined in academic discussions of knowledge discovery and design thinking in the early 2020s, inquirywhat seeks to separate the act of asking questions from the later stages of interpretation by foregrounding the questions themselves as the primary objects of inquiry.

It rests on several principles: formulating specific, answerable 'what' questions; organizing inquiries into modular cycles; mapping evidence to explicit criteria; involving stakeholders; and maintaining transparency about assumptions and decisions.

In practice, practitioners begin by crafting a small set of 'what' questions, decompose complex issues into tractable subquestions, design minimal data collection aligned to those questions, collect and appraise evidence against predefined criteria, and then reflect and revise the questions for subsequent iterations.

Applications span education, research design, product development, and policy analysis, where teams seek to reduce ambiguity and improve traceability from questions to conclusions.

Critics argue that an overemphasis on 'what' questions can overlook important 'why' and 'how' dimensions, that frameworks may become rigid, and that effective use requires skilled facilitation and documentation.

Related concepts include inquiry-based learning, design thinking, and evidence mapping.