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Frameworks Hub

Tools, methodologies, and frameworks for understanding and cultivating curiosity that emerged during the call.

🎯 Question-Generation Tools

Question Formulation Technique

Victoria's passionate recommendation from the Right Question Institute

A structured methodology for teaching people how to formulate good questions. Victoria advocated strongly for this, sharing a transformation story from her Greek mythology seminar where nobody asked questions until she introduced QFT.

The Four Rules:

  1. Ask as many questions as you can
  2. Do not stop to answer, judge, or discuss
  3. Write down every question exactly as stated
  4. Change any statements into questions

Complete Process: Generate questions → Prioritize questions → Decide what to do with top 3

Victoria's diagnosis: "We were explaining our hypotheses instead of asking questions."

Use when: Groups need to generate questions, overcome "question poverty," or shift from answers to inquiry.

5 Whys

Root cause questioning from lean manufacturing

Keep asking "why" five times in succession to move from symptoms to systemic issues. John Kelly added important nuance: create social containers for participation first, and consider using "how" instead of "why" for less threatening exploration.

John's hierarchy: Do "what" and "how" before jumping to "why"

Use when: Investigating root causes, especially in systems thinking or problem-solving contexts.

🧩 Conceptual Frameworks

DSRP Theory

Scott's "most important and practical thing I've ever learned"

Distinctions, Systems, Relationships, Perspectives - a framework for organizing and reorganizing information. Scott: "I think it is the organization and reorganization of information that is the primary space of curiosity."

Four elements:

Use when: Analyzing complex systems, developing critical thinking, teaching information organization.

Playing Games Model

Scott's framework: every interaction is a game

Five universal elements:

  1. Goal - Purpose, point, reason for interacting
  2. Rules - What's allowed or not (stated, implied, or customary)
  3. Voluntary - Invitation AND acceptance, constantly renegotiated
  4. Uncertain - Can't know the outcome for sure
  5. Improve - Requires some skill

Scott: "It's been the most fascinating value I've gotten from my Playing Games model."

Applied to curiosity: Conversations are games with goals, rules, voluntary participation, uncertainty, and skill requirements.

Use when: Analyzing social interactions, understanding why conversations succeed or fail, designing better dialogue spaces.

Big Five Personality Traits

Scott's entry point for understanding curiosity

The statistically verified personality model where Openness is one of five dimensions. Openness includes curiosity, creativity, interest in intellectual pursuits, and being open to new experiences.

Key insight: "Neither end of the spectrum is evolutionarily better, which is why we have the spectrum. Sometimes you need to be less open."

Use when: Understanding individual differences in curiosity, avoiding pathologizing low curiosity, recognizing diversity of cognitive styles.

🗣️ Classical Methods

Socratic Method

Teaching through questioning

The ancient practice of teaching through questions rather than answers. Several participants mentioned parents who used this: "What do you think?" instead of telling.

Connection to curiosity: Models curiosity as a practice, empowers learners to think for themselves, develops question-asking skills.

Use when: Teaching, facilitating learning, developing critical thinking.

Reflective Questioning

Judith and Stacey's parenting experience

Asking "What do you think?" instead of providing answers. Creates space for children to develop their own curiosity and reasoning.

Use when: Parenting, mentoring, coaching, any context where you want to develop agency rather than dependence.

🛠️ Practical Tools

Excalidraw

The collaborative whiteboard used during the call

Open-source visual collaboration tool. Victoria and Jerry used it to create real-time visual maps of concepts and connections during the conversation.

See: Excalidraw Board for the actual board created during the call.

Use when: Visual thinking, collaborative synthesis, spatial organization of ideas, multimodal documentation.

Natural Logic

Gil's consultancy methodology

Gil Friend's approach to sustainability consulting. Mentioned in context of training engineers who lacked "map of distinctions" to ask follow-up questions.

Use when: Sustainability work, systems analysis, organizational consulting.

📚 Related Concepts

Thinking and Learning Tools

Historical References

Organizations

Quick Reference

For generating questions: Question Formulation Technique

For investigating causes: 5 Whys with How vs Why Questions

For analyzing complexity: DSRP Theory

For understanding interactions: Playing Games Model

For individual differences: Big Five Personality Traits

For teaching: Socratic Method and Reflective Questioning

For visual collaboration: Excalidraw

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