The 5 Questions

1. What problem are we solving?

➔ (What’s the real business need or pain point?)

2. Who are the true end users?

➔ (Not just the requester. Who’s actually using this?)

3. What action will this unlock?

➔ (What will someone do differently once this exists?)

4. What does success look like?

➔ (How will you know it worked? Be specific.)

5. What’s the deadline and priority?

➔ (Is it critical path or a nice-to-have?)

6. What is the next concrete deliverable?

➔ (Mockup, proposal, first draft, quick POC?)

Sample Completed Audit

1. What problem are we solving?

➔ Marketing is running paid campaigns across multiple channels (Google, Meta, LinkedIn), but they don’t have a unified way to track performance daily. They’re making budget decisions off incomplete data.

2. Who are the true end users?

➔ Performance marketing lead (Jules), head of growth (Anita), and two campaign managers. They’ll be looking at this weekly, and sometimes daily during big campaigns.