Insight generating questions that brings science to the art of strategy

One thing that's bothered me in many strategy discussions is that you very easily end up in locked positions throwing oral hand grenades at each other. Even if it doesn't go that far, it's hard to get an open and curious strategy climate. I've seen top-level strategy discussions to contain much more energy and openness when moving from finding "What is the right answer" to looking for "What are the right questions".
Let's look at a set of questions that will help you find the right questions that, once answered, sets the direction and involves stakeholders in embracing the decision.
We'll go through the four most important questions: Inside-out; Outside-in; Far-outside-in; Opportunity evaluation. Note the openness in the reasoning. We're not looking for the answer, we're looking for opportunities and choices.

Inside-out: Start with your assets: activities, resources, brands, partnerships, etc and then reason outward. What are we especially good at that some segments of the market might value and that might produce a superior wedge between buyer value and our costs?

Outside-in: Start with looking at markets. What are the under served needs, which needs do customers have a hard time to express and which gaps have competitors left?

Far-outside-in: Start with analogues reasoning. What would it take to be Google, Apple, P&G or another successful organizations in your industry and context?

Opportunities generated. The result of asking these three types of questions: Inside-out, Outside-in, Far-outside-in, are a lot of questions that opens up for new opportunities once answered. Do any of them make you feel uncomfortable? If so then they posses the possibility for new opportunities that differs enough from the status quo.  Then it's time to evaluate and decide.

Opportunity evaluation: Evaluate each opportunity by asking the question "What must be true for the opportunity to be valid?". Don't ask "What is true" - that only causes heated head-on discussions - instead asking "What must be true" - you open for all sorts of opinions to be expressed.

Now you have generated a large set of opportunities and the conditions governing their validity. Once they are answered, you have gained a lot of new insights - regardless if the answer was true or false.

More to read:

• HBR September 2012: Bringing Science to the Art of Strategy