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David Grove the basic clean language questions

The latest thing he was doing was to reduce the questions down to
just one: 'Now I am asking my next question'." And what question do
I need to ask you next?

In these questions, X and Y represent the person's words (or non-verbals)


Developing Questions
"(And) what kind of X (is that X)?"
"(And) is there anything else about X?"
"(And) where is X? or (And) whereabouts is X?"
"(And) that's X like what?"
"(And) is there a relationship between X and Y?"
"(And) when X, what happens to Y?"
Sequence and Source Questions
"(And) then what happens? or (And) what happens next?"
" (And) what happens just before X?"
"(And) where could X come from?"
Intention Questions
"(And) what would X like to have happen?"
"(And) what needs to happen for X?"
"(And) can X (happen)?"

The first two questions: "What kind of X (is that X)?" and "Is there anything else about
X?" are the most commonly used.
As a general guide, these two questions account for around 50% of the questions asked
in a typical Clean Language session.

12 Questions

The 12 Basic Clean Language questions are all that you need to develop a metaphor,
work with it, and mature changes as they occur:
ATTRIBUTES
And is there anything else about (that) [x]?
And what kind of [x] (is that [x])?
LOCATION
And where/whereabouts is [x]?
METAPHOR
And that's [x] like what?

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RELATIONSHIP
And is there a relationship between [x] and [y]?
And when [x], what happens to [y]?
SEQUENCE
And what happens just before [event x]?
And then what happens? / And what happens next?
SOURCE
And where could/does [x] come from ?
INTENTION
And what would [you/x] like to have happen?
And what needs to happen for [x] to [intention of x]?
And can [x] [intention of x]?

1.1.1 applications focusing on the clean language questions


An example of this type of application is the 'Motivation in a Moment' process, which
was devised by UK-based practitioners Marian Way, Phil Swallow, and Wendy Sullivan,
and taught to 1600 leaders of weight management clubs.
Members had just a few minutes of the leader's personal attention each week, so the
organisation wanted the fastest, most effective way to make a real difference.
The process uses just a few of the Clean Language questions to help people to focus on
what they want to have happen, and what steps they need to take to achieve it.
1. What would you like to have happen? (Establishing a desired outcome.)
2. And what needs to happen (for that desired outcome)? (Checking the conditions that
need to be in place.)
3. And can (what needs to happen, happen)? (Checking that they have confidence that it
can be achieved.)
4. And will (you do what needs to happen)? (Checking motivation - note that this is not
a Clean Language question.)
Many research and requirements-gathering applications of Clean Language also take
this approach, capitalising on the ability of the Clean Language questions to reduce bias
in the results.

http://www.cleanlanguage.co.uk/articles/articles/93/1/Six-Degrees-of-David-
Grove/Page1.html
6 degree of freedom machine

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