Adaptability, creativity and problem-solving often top the lists of “most-desired skills” for knowledge workers. Inherent in those skills, though, is the ability to ask good questions. I would go so far as to say that the ability to ask the right questions in the right circumstances might be one of THE best work literacy skills we could develop.

Yesterday, in my quest for visual literacy tools and resources, I ran across an excellent post on Dave Gray’s blog on the different types of questions knowledge workers need to master. This is actually some very sophisticated stuff, worth your time and energy to explore. Dave’s question types are:

• A prism is a question that divides information into smaller groups. The purpose of a prism is to break down information into categories or subgroups.
• A razor is a question that divides information into two categories, based on relevance. The purpose of a razor is to define a boundary which can be used to sort any incoming information , and determine whether it lies inside our outside the boundary.
• A generator is a question that has a potentially unlimited number of answers. The purpose of a generator is to explore new or unknown territory and to find knowledge that may be hidden and make it explicit.
• A peeler is a single question that, when repeated, drives attention to deeper and deeper levels, like the peeling of an onion. The purpose of a peeler is to penetrate beyond superficial levels in order to get to the heart of the matter.
• A flanker is a question that seeks patterns or ideas that are similar. The purpose of a flanker is to think laterally and find an analogous situation that may help you think about things differently.
• A splicer is a question that combines information, or sets, into groups. The purpose of a splicer is to find larger categories and simplify collections of information.
• A pointer is a question that has a well-defined or broadly agreed-upon answer, or set of answers. The purpose of a pointer is to gather specific information, for example: “What is your name?” Pointers are used extensively to collect information for the purposes of comparison and quantitative analysis.

I think what’s helpful about this framework is that it allows us to cut across all kinds of knowledge work. They aren’t specific to any particular occupation.

Given Dave’s background in visual literacy, he illustrates his post with some good sketches–definitely worth checking out. While you’re there, you may also want to check out some of his other posts, including this 7-minute video on the basics of visual “language” and this one (also a video) on how visual language can be a great tool for helping us deal with information overload.

What do you think? Is the art of asking questions a key work literacy skill? Are we doing enough to develop this skill? If not, what do we need to be doing?