Works with Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, or your own local model: paste this prompt and your AI will co-facilitate this exercise with you.

Help me prepare and run the exercise below. First ask for my participant count, time, setting, access needs and intended result. Check these against the stated limits. Use the supplied rules and materials. Explain any proposed changes before using them, and label them as adaptations. Do not invent source claims or require personal disclosure. Give me one step at a time when I say start. I manage the people, physical activity and clock; do not claim to observe the room. Ask me what happened before choosing a next step.

Reference revision: 69602812888719d6da2576e60546fb7cf2067cae5f24ca8b27455a5c83305780

# Appreciative Interviews

Participants interview each other in pairs about a specific past success, retell their partner's story in small groups, and catalog the conditions that made those accomplishments possible.

**Time:** 60 minutes. Matches the 60-minute standard sequence documented in Liberating Structures sources
**People:** 4 to 24. Initial pairs (or one trio if attendance is odd) merging into small groups of 3 to 6, followed by whole-room synthesis

## Choose this exercise

**Purpose:** Identify and catalog the underlying conditions, behaviors, and resources that enabled past successes so a team can deliberately reproduce them.
**Use it when:** Use at the launch of a project, strategic planning phase, or team retrospective when members need to surface existing organizational strengths instead of focusing exclusively on operational deficits.
**Skip it when:** Skip during an immediate operational emergency requiring rapid triage, or when participants share acute, active personal conflict that makes reciprocal peer interviews counterproductive.

## Materials and tools

- 1 printed copy of the Appreciative Interview Partner Guide per person
- 1 notepad and 1 pen per person
- 1 easel flip chart pad
- 4 chisel-tip flip chart markers
- 1 countdown timer displayed to the room
- Shared digital board or online document (for remote or hybrid delivery)

## Before participants arrive

1. Arrange chairs in pairs facing each other with ample space between pairs to minimize acoustic overlap.
2. Post 1 blank flip chart sheet titled 'Enabling Conditions and Assets' at the front of the room.
3. Write the core interview prompt visibly on a whiteboard or screen.
4. Place 1 Appreciative Interview Partner Guide, notepad, and pen on each chair.

## Say this to open

Welcome. We often spend meetings analyzing what failed. Today we will examine what happened when things worked. Pair up with someone you do not work with closely. You will interview each other about a time you faced a real challenge with others and felt proud of what you achieved. As interviewer, do not give advice. Uncover the conditions that made that success possible.

## How to run it

### 1. Frame prompt and form pairs (3 minutes)

Explain the exercise and distribute the Partner Guide. Direct participants to pair up with someone they do not work with closely. If total attendance is odd, form exactly one trio where each person will complete a 5-minute interview.

### 2. Conduct paired interviews (18 minutes)

Start the timer. Partner A interviews Partner B for 8 minutes about their success story, noting assets and conditions that made it possible. At minute 8, chime and switch so Partner B interviews Partner A for 8 minutes. In a trio, chime every 5 minutes for rotations A to B, B to C, and C to A. Give a 2-minute warning before the end so interviewers assign a short title to their partner's story.

### 3. Retell stories and spot patterns in small groups (15 minutes)

Merge pairs into groups of 4 (use groups of 3 or 5 to accommodate odd counts). Each person takes up to 2 minutes retelling their partner's story and title. Spend remaining time spotting shared conditions across the stories. Each group writes its top 3 enabling conditions on paper.

### 4. Harvest patterns as a whole room (14 minutes)

Direct attention to the main flip chart. Invite each small group to share 1 novel condition or asset from its notes. Write each contribution on the chart without evaluation or debate. Continue around groups until all have contributed or new patterns cease to emerge. Cluster related entries into clear thematic groups.

### 5. Debrief future applications (10 minutes)

Ask participants to turn to an adjacent neighbor for 2 minutes to address: 'How can we deliberately invest in these enabling conditions in our current project?' Call on 3 or 4 volunteers to share an action step with the full room before wrapping up.


## Debrief questions

- Which conditions on our chart appear repeatedly across completely different projects?
- Which of these success factors do we currently under-resource or overlook?
- What is one concrete practice we can start next week to replicate these conditions?

**Finished output:** A visible chart inventory of specific assets and conditions that enabled past team successes, accompanied by practical next steps.

## Remote

Use breakout rooms for pairs (18 minutes, with a mid-point message to swap) and small groups of 4 to 6 (15 minutes). Post the prompt in the main chat before opening rooms. Provide a shared digital document where groups type their top 3 conditions during step 3. Regroup in the main room to review and cluster the digital cards during the 14-minute whole-room synthesis and debrief.

## Hybrid

Pair in-person participants with in-person partners and remote participants with remote partners in video breakouts. For step 3, merge into all-remote and all-in-person groups of 4 to 6. Have an in-person scribe record local groups' top patterns onto the shared digital document so room and remote attendees view the identical inventory during the whole-group harvest.

## Access and participation choices

- Participants may recount an everyday, quiet success; stories do not need to be high-profile achievements.
- An interviewee who prefers not to have their story retold by a partner may state their own summary in step 3.
- Anyone may decline to tell a personal story and instead serve as timekeeper or pattern scribe for their small group.

## If the session gets stuck

**An interviewee focuses purely on technical details or shifts into recounting mistakes that followed.**

Prompt the interviewer to redirect gently: 'What specific habit, skill, or condition helped you make progress during that specific moment?'

**One person talks past their turn time, leaving the other partner with insufficient time.**

Enforce the switch chime firmly at the halfway mark and state aloud: 'Time is up for the first interview. Switch immediately to the second speaker.'


## Terms used here

- Enabling condition: An organizational environment, practice, or resource that supports a positive outcome.
- Appreciative Inquiry: An inquiry approach focusing on discovering and amplifying what works rather than diagnosing failure.

## Participant material: Appreciative Interview Partner Guide

Interview Prompt:
Tell a story about a time when you worked on a challenge with others and you felt proud of what you accomplished together.

Guiding Questions for the Interviewer:
1. What was the situation, and what specific action did you take?
2. What made that accomplishment possible? (Consider personal habits, team practices, tools, leadership support, or external factors.)
3. What was the turning point where the work came together?
4. What short title would you give this story?

Listening Rule: Notice any urge to give advice or judge the narrative. Let that go and focus entirely on uncovering what enabled success.

## Sources and adaptation

Observed in Liberating Structures by Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless, who note adaptation from David Cooperrider and Dr. Tony Suchman.

Retains the standard Liberating Structures sequence: paired appreciative interviews, small-group retelling and pattern analysis, room-wide harvesting on a flip chart, and application planning. Condensed step 3 wording to stay strictly under the 90-word limit while retaining clear grouping logic for odd numbers. Hybrid and remote mechanics, step timing, scripts, and debrief prompts were added by UWT.

[Liberating Structures](https://www.liberatingstructures.com/5-appreciative-interviews-ai/)

[Liberating Structures](http://www.liberatingstructures.com/5-appreciative-interviews-ai/)

[SessionLab](https://www.sessionlab.com/methods/appreciative-interviews-ai#)

Current run sheet: https://unitedwetransform.com/exercises/appreciative-interviews-ai/