Have you ever been in a meeting where someone is using business acronyms or technical terminology, and everyone seems to know what it means except you? I certainly have. What do you do in that situation?

If you answered 3, well done. Not only will you be in a much better place to make a valid contribution to the meeting, but I guarantee you that several people will come up to you afterwards and quietly thank you for asking, as they didn’t understand either.

The daft lassie (or laddie) question isn’t just about admitting you don’t know something in a meeting, however valuable that might be in increasing your understanding of a subject. It also has a very important role to play in developing a robust business strategy, and so the ability to ask them is a very useful skill.

The art of ‘daft lassie’ strategic questioning

Creating a business strategy is an all-consuming task, whether it is for launching a new business or exploring new opportunities for an existing business. After spending many weeks on the plan, it’s likely to be very detailed and every aspect will be familiar to you. At this stage, it is important to step back and take a look at the whole plan with fresh eyes. What questions would you expect to be asked? Be honest with yourself about what assumptions you have made along the way, and how many of these assumptions you have incorporated into your plan without fully understanding the implications. Before you take your plan to your potential investors, you should ask one or two people you trust to review your proposition. This could be a non-executive Board member or an honest and forthright advisor.

In order to challenge your assumptions and stress test your plan, a good assessor will put any prior knowledge aside and ask you lots of questions, never assuming anything that is not explicitly explained in your plan. It can be particularly useful to involve someone who may not be fully cognisant of your sector but knows what makes a robust and effective strategic plan. They tend to ask the best ‘daft lassie/laddie’ questions and can expose the technical language that you may have used that could make your strategy harder for a potential funder or new business partner to understand.

What, why, who, where, how, when?

If you can answer all of their questions, well done. It is much more likely, however, that the questioning will have unearthed details or opportunities that you had not already considered. If so, what assumptions did you make that need to be backed up with additional information? Do you need to undertake some more technical or market research or can you test the market with your first prototype product or service?

Now revisit your plan and take a final opportunity to improve the clarity of your strategy. Strip out unnecessary jargon and make sure you explain any remaining technical terminology and methodology. Above all, make sure you have not overlooked the basics of what problem you are solving, and for whom.