The Inquiry Workshop is a participatory activity designed to identify key questions that guide a research project, initiative, or exploration. Participants collectively reflect on the topic, formulating questions that address their main interests, challenges, or uncertainties. This approach fosters curiosity, critical analysis, and co-creation of knowledge.
Preparation
- Define the purpose: Clarify the workshop’s goal, such as guiding research, designing a project, or analyzing a problem.
- Prepare materials:
- Large paper, sticky notes, or whiteboards.
- Markers and templates to organize questions.
- Optional: digital tools for online collaboration.
- Establish the topic: Define the central theme of the workshop to ensure participants understand it clearly.
Step-by-step instructions
- Introduction to the purpose
- Explain the workshop’s objective: generating key questions to guide research or a project.
- Highlight the importance of formulating clear, relevant, and exploratory questions.
- Initial brainstorming
- Invite participants to reflect on the topic and write down any questions that come to mind.
- Provide examples of questions (see below) to inspire them.
- Encourage open-ended questions that promote deeper exploration.
- Organizing the questions
- Group the generated questions into categories (e.g., causes, impacts, solutions).
- Use colors or symbols to differentiate key themes.
- Selecting key questions
- Work as a group to select the most relevant, interesting, or priority questions.
- Use criteria such as impact, feasibility, or alignment with project goals.
- Deepening the selected questions
- Discuss the chosen key questions to clarify their scope and relevance.
- Refine the questions if necessary to make them more precise or useful.
- Closure and documentation
- Summarize the final questions and organize key ideas in a visual or written format.
- Share the key questions with the group to guide the next steps.
