# Customer discovery interview worksheet

An original Stetos.co template. Adapt it to your research question and audience.
Guide: https://www.stetos.co/blog/customer-discovery-interview-questions

## Study setup

- Decision this study should inform:
- Participant experience required:
- Recruitment source and invitation record:
- Research owner:
- Interview-guide version:
- Participation, recording, use, and retention information provided:
- Evidence of participant agreement, where appropriate for your study:

## Opening

Explain who is conducting the study, the topic, how the conversation will be
used, and how someone can skip a question or stop. Explain when the interviewer
is AI. Use your actual research arrangements in the final script.

## Question bank

Select relevant topics and leave time for follow-ups.

1. What is your role in this workflow?
2. When did you last need to do this?
3. What was happening that made it necessary?
4. What did a good outcome look like on that occasion?
5. What did you do first?
6. What happened after that?
7. Which tools, documents, or people were involved?
8. At what point did you pause, repeat work, or change approach?
9. What happened because of that difficulty?
10. Who else was affected, and how?
11. How did you handle the delay or extra work?
12. How often has a similar situation happened recently?
13. What have you already tried to improve this?
14. What worked well enough that you kept it?
15. What made you stop using or reject an alternative?
16. Who took part in choosing the current approach?
17. Which part of this experience would you most want to change?
18. What have I misunderstood or missed?
19. Is there another recent example that played out differently?
20. Would you be comfortable with a follow-up conversation?

## Session evidence record

- Participant reference (avoid unnecessary identifying details):
- Relevant experience, role, and cohort:
- Session or transcript reference:
- Trigger and intended outcome:
- Sequence of steps, tools, and people:
- Difficulty and reported consequence:
- Workaround and alternatives:
- Supporting excerpts and source locations:
- Analyst interpretation (separate from direct statements):
- Contradictions and uncertainty:
- Follow-up permission:
- Proposed investigation or experiment:

## Study review

- Who was invited, who participated, and who is missing?
- Which experiences support each proposed explanation?
- Which accounts challenge it?
- What can this sample support, and what remains unknown?
- Next action, owner, and evaluation criterion: