We often think about client work in terms of how to meet their needs. I’ve often found it helpful to ask some probing questions of teams to try to understand what types of needs we’re talking about.

Common possibilities include:

• Needs as articulated by the client
• Their perception of their needs (verbal gap to articulation)
• Our diagnosis of their needs
• The client’s desires
• What their actual needs are (Objectively? As determined by whom?)

Some clarifying lines of questioning include:

• Which of these types of needs are we working from?
• Which needs do we want or need to be working from?
• How do we learn more at the level of need we *want* to be working at?

I’m curious whether you also see this nuance, what else you see here, and how you navigate all this!