Discovery ⏱ 45–75 minutes per interview 👥 One CN practitioner. One interviewee. No client observers.
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How To — Discovery

The Discovery Interview.

How to conduct a stakeholder interview that gets the truth

Purpose

To understand the organisation as it actually is — not as it presents itself. To find the resistance before it appears. To hear what people will not say in a group.

The CN approach
The discovery interview is CN's primary diagnostic tool. Done well, it produces the real picture — the informal politics, the genuine concerns, the "between you and me" observations that never appear in a survey or a workshop. Done badly, it confirms what the sponsor already believes and misses everything that matters. The difference between an interview that gets the truth and one that doesn't is not the questions. It's the conditions in which the conversation happens — who is in the room, how the interviewer shows up, and whether the interviewee believes their honesty is safe.
Quick Reference — One Pager
Before you start
  • ▸Book 1:1 — no observers, no note-takers from the client side
  • ▸Brief the interviewee: confidential, no attribution, used to shape the programme
  • ▸Read everything available about them first — role, tenure, history with previous programmes
  • ▸Prioritise sceptics. Book them first, not last.
  • ▸Have the interview guide ready but be prepared to abandon it
Room / setup
  • ▸Their space if possible — people are more honest on home ground
  • ▸No recording without explicit consent
  • ▸Your notes are yours — not shared with the client in raw form
  • ▸Allow time to run over. The most important things are said at the end.
Key questions

"What would have to be true for this programme to fail?"

"What are people saying about this that they wouldn't say in a meeting?"

"Who in this organisation would give me the most honest account of what's really going on?"

"If you were running this programme, what would you do differently?"

"What's the thing nobody has told me yet that I should know?"

Watch outs
⚠The interviewee who is entirely positive — probe harder, or they are performing
⚠The answer that sounds like the official line — it usually is. Wait. Ask again differently.
⚠The moment they lower their voice or lean forward — that's the real information
⚠Your own desire to confirm the brief — notice it and resist it
⚠Running out of time before asking the uncomfortable questions — ask them first
Full Facilitator Guide in the CN Portal

Step by step. What to do when it goes wrong.

The full guide covers the complete session methodology, how to build and sequence the activities, what the outputs mean and how to use them, and specifically what to do when the session goes in a direction you did not expect.

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