Running a QFT on Curiosity
(created by ChatGPT 5.1)
Here’s a facilitator-ready explanation of the Right Question Institute’s Question Formulation Technique (QFT)—structured so you can use it directly to run a 90-minute Zoom session on the theme “Have we lost our curiosity?” I’ll give you:
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A crisp explanation of QFT
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Why it works for conversations about curiosity
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A detailed, time-coded 90-minute Zoom agenda
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Prompts, scripts, breakout instructions, and debrief questions
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Tips for adapting it to your style / JerrysBrain mode
1. What the QFT Is — in Simple, Facilitator-Usable Language
The Question Formulation Technique (QFT) is a structured process that helps people generate, improve, and strategically use their own questions. It was developed by the Right Question Institute (Dan Rothstein & Luz Santana) to empower learners, communities, and organizations.
QFT has six steps:
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Question Focus (QFocus) – A stimulus you give people that sparks questions.
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Produce Questions – People generate lots of questions without discussion, judgment, or answering.
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Improve Questions – They label questions as open/closed and practice converting between them.
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Prioritize Questions – They choose the questions most important/relevant for a purpose.
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Plan Next Steps – They decide what they’ll do with those questions.
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Reflect – On what they learned about questioning and about themselves.
What makes QFT unique
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It protects raw curiosity from critique during generation.
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It teaches people HOW to ask questions, not just that curiosity matters.
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It works in any group size, including Zoom.
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It creates psychological safety + intellectual spark quickly.
2. Why QFT Is Perfect for “Have We Lost Our Curiosity?”
Because it:
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Allows people to experience curiosity, not just talk about it.
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Reveals what people really wonder about when freed from judgment.
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Surfaces social and cultural forces that suppress curiosity.
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Builds a shared landscape of questions you can map, cluster, or relate to your “Design from Trust” frame.
3. A 90-Minute Zoom Agenda (with scripting)
Here’s a ready-to-run flow.
0:00 – 0:05 — Welcome + Framing
You say (script):
“Tonight we’re going to explore a question many of us feel quietly: Have we lost our curiosity? Instead of debating it, we’re going to use a method created by the Right Question Institute called the Question Formulation Technique. It gives us a way to surface what our curiosity is actually doing.”
Give quick orientation:
“We’ll go through six stages: focus, generate, improve, prioritize, plan, and reflect.”
0:05 – 0:10 — Introduce the QFocus
Pick ONE QFocus. Options:
Option A (provocative)
“Have we lost our curiosity?”
Option B (visual)
Show a photo: an adult staring at a phone while a child is exploring something.
Option C (your work-aligned)
“Trust grows when curiosity grows.”
Your script:
“This statement isn’t a question. It’s just a stimulus. Your task is to ask questions about it. Not to agree or disagree.”
0:10 – 0:12 — Give the QFT Rules
Share them on screen:
Rules for producing questions:
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Ask as many questions as you can
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Do not stop to answer, judge, or explain
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Write down every question exactly as stated
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Change any statements into questions
0:12 – 0:22 — Produce Questions (Breakout Groups)
Put people in breakouts of 3–4 for 10 minutes.
Each group designates a recorder in the Google Doc / shared board / Zoom chat for their breakout.
Prompt:
“Ask as many questions as you can about the QFocus. Follow the rules strictly.”
What will happen:
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First 2 minutes: shallow questions
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Minutes 3–6: real concerns & tensions
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Last 2 minutes: surprising meta-questions about curiosity itself
0:22 – 0:32 — Improve Questions (Open/Closed)
Bring everyone back.
Script:
“Now we’ll practice improving questions. Label each of your questions as Open or Closed.
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Closed = can be answered with a word or two
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Open = require explanation or discussion.”
Then instruct them to:
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Convert one closed → open
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Convert one open → closed
Why this matters:
People become aware of how their curiosity expands or narrows depending on question type.
Facilitate quick share-outs:
- “What did you notice in the conversion exercise?”
(Expect people to say: “Changing the form changed how I thought.”)
0:32 – 0:42 — Prioritize Questions
Give this prioritization goal:
“Select the three questions that feel most important for understanding what is happening to curiosity today.”
Groups discuss & pick three.
Post them publicly (Miro board, Google Sheet, or shared doc).
0:42 – 1:00 — Whole-Group Discussion: What Are We Seeing?
You cluster or map the questions quickly while they talk.
Great clusters to expect:
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Social forces suppressing curiosity
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Education & work
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Trust, agency, autonomy
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Tech + distraction
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Emotional safety
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Curiosity as a muscle
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Curiosity in community
Prompts:
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“Where are the questions dense? Where are they thin?”
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“What seems unasked?”
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“What do these questions tell you about the state of our curiosity?”
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“What assumptions show up across questions?”
This is where your “Design from Trust” frame can come in naturally:
You can observe how curiosity grows in safe, trust-based spaces and collapses under surveillance or control.
1:00 – 1:15 — Next Steps: What Will We Do With These Questions?
In breakouts of 3:
Prompt:
“Choose one of your top questions and brainstorm one action, however small, that you might take in the next week to explore it.”
Examples:
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Ask a child what they’re curious about
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Reverse one of your assumptions
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Host a curiosity lunch conversation
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Practice “asking before telling” at work
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Start a ‘question log’ for a day
1:15 – 1:25 — Reflection
Bring everyone back.
Ask three reflection questions (QFT’s usual set, adapted for your theme):
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What did you learn about asking questions?
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What did you learn about your own curiosity?
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What did this process reveal about whether we’ve lost curiosity—or where it still lives?
1:25 – 1:30 — Close
Thank people.
Invite them to share one question in chat they’re leaving with.
Signal that curiosity is an ongoing practice.
If you want, you can close with a line like:
“Curiosity is the earliest expression of trust—in ourselves, in others, and in the world.”
4. Additional Facilitation Tips
Keep the QFocus emotionally neutral
(It should provoke questions, not arguments.)
Keep the question-generation stage
strictly
nonjudgmental
The magic happens here: people feel their curiosity coming back to life.
Use silence strategically
Silence works like oxygen for curiosity.
If the group is large, use a shared document for real-time visibility
People get energized seeing each other’s questions accumulate.
Honor even the “wild” or “naive” questions
Those often reveal suppressed curiosity.
You can integrate your Brain
For example:
After the call, create a node “Have we lost our curiosity?”
Subnodes for question clusters.
Send participants the link.
5. If You Want, I Can Also Create…
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A slide deck for this exact 90-minute session
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A facilitator script you can read verbatim
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A Google Doc template for the QFT stages
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A follow-up email you can send participants
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A short video script introducing QFT + curiosity
Just tell me which you want.