When we get into meetings and someone raises a question, people often react. We try getting the answers right. As questions churn, it's a conversation of shiny objects.
When we're smarter together, we're more interested in getting the questions right than we are getting the answers right to whatever questions happen to come up. It's been our experience that when we do well, it's because two things happen. We're working from the right questions and we're working on the right questions at the right time.
Because someone with the power of position or emotion declares a question doesn't mean it's the right question at the right time. It can feel compelling. It can carry the weight of seeming rational, urgent or important.
In the Canvas process, people feel free to raise new questions and new versions of existing questions. Small tweaks in questions can give them significantly more utility and power. People feel free to talk about the order of questions because timing and sequencing is vital to being smarter together. We work on the right questions at the right time.