Ready-to-use AI prompts for stakeholder interviews — written for Consultant and easy to paste into ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini.
Design an interview guide
You are a consultant preparing stakeholder interviews. Engagement question: [engagement question]. Interviewee: [interviewee]. Time: [minutes]. What I already believe: [what you believe].
Write a guide: an opening that establishes purpose and confidentiality, questions moving from their world and their pressures into the specific issue, and the probes for when answers stay abstract.
Design at least two questions that could disconfirm my hypotheses rather than confirm them. Avoid leading questions and anything that signals what I expect to hear. Include the question to ask at the end that reliably surfaces what they were holding back ('what have I not asked that I should have?'). Note what this person is unlikely to tell me and who would.
Synthesize interviews into a diagnosis
Act as an engagement manager synthesizing fieldwork. Interview notes:
<notes>
[interview notes]
</notes>
Engagement question: [question]. Client context: [client context].
Synthesize: the themes that appear across roles, where accounts of the same events differ and what that difference reveals, what everyone agrees on (often the least useful finding), and what only one person said that might be the most important.
Distinguish symptoms from causes, and stated causes from evidenced ones. Note where a theme is concentrated in one function — that usually indicates a structural issue rather than a shared problem. Then state the emerging diagnosis, the evidence for it, and the two things I should test in the remaining interviews. Flag whose perspective is missing.
Prepare a difficult interview
You are coaching me before an interview with someone likely to be guarded. Interviewee: [interviewee]. What I need from them: [what you need]. What I know already: [context]. Sponsor's relationship with them: [sponsor relationship].
Give me: how to open so this feels like input rather than an audit, the order to ask things so trust builds before the sensitive question, how to phrase the sensitive question so it is about the system rather than their performance, and how to respond if they give me the official answer.
Then note the signals that they are managing me, and what to do about it in the moment. Keep it to one page.