Pick a problem—any problem. As soon as you have one without an immediate answer, we can begin.

Perhaps you’re a quality professional, an auditor, a systems analyst, or just the person your boss sent to find out what the heck is going on around here. Whether you have a problem on your plant floor or in your C-suite, if you’re the one tasked with finding a solution, you’ll have to talk to people and ask questions.

That means asking the right questions of the right people to find your answers and solve a problem. But, to paraphrase either Socrates or Donald Rumsfeld, you don’t know what you don’t know.

How do you find the right questions? Throughout the fact-finding process, critical thinking is, well, critical. When you have to find facts and assemble a report, you can also look to journalism for advice and ideas on forming an interview and telling a story. News reporters do it every day.

 …