5 Liberating Structures for planning a sales-team discussion
Five original methods, with a concrete use and a limit for each.
Suppose a sales-team meeting keeps returning to the same concern. Before choosing a workshop exercise, name what the group needs to understand. The purpose of the work may be unclear, different functions may need something from each other, or people may disagree about how predictable the problem is.
These five Liberating Structures address different parts of that conversation. The selection uses the original public instructions and separates each method by the question it helps a group examine. Follow the linked instructions when preparing the session; the examples here suggest where you might start. The order follows the kind of discussion, rather than a performance ranking.
1. 9 Whys: examine the purpose behind the work
9 Whys uses paired interviews to explore why participants’ work matters to them, before bringing their purposes into a group discussion. The original instructions include individual reflection, switching interviewer roles and considering what the shared purposes mean for the next steps.
Imagine a team considering more regular deal reviews. One person wants help thinking through opportunities; another wants a clearer forecast. Naming those purposes gives the team something to discuss before choosing an agenda. The method can help you examine what the meeting is for; you still need to agree how it will run.
The guide cautions that repeated why questions can feel rude in some cultures. Keep the invitation clear and use wording participants can engage with. This is an inquiry into purpose, with room for different answers.
2. Wicked Questions: keep two legitimate needs in view
Wicked Questions asks participants to formulate two realities that are in tension and need attention together. People first reflect individually, then refine their questions with others. The source includes the tension between an integrated organisation and locally adapted units.
For a hypothetical sales organisation, the discussion could concern keeping qualification consistent while leaving room for what different customers require. Ask the group to explain why both needs matter. Which part of the current working arrangement makes them difficult to pursue together?
A carefully phrased question leaves choices to make afterwards. Use this format to expose the tension you want to work on, then decide how to explore possible arrangements. The original guide advises avoiding questions that blame or complain.
3. Agreement and Certainty: examine the approach you are using
Agreement and Certainty has participants map challenges using degrees of agreement and certainty or predictability. Its instructions distinguish simple, complicated, complex and chaotic challenges, then ask groups to examine whether their current approaches fit.
Consider a team that treats every difficulty with a checklist. A known administrative sequence and an unfamiliar customer problem may need different kinds of work. This discussion gives people a way to compare how they understand the challenge before choosing an approach.
Treat a position on the matrix as something to examine together. If colleagues place the same challenge differently, ask what each has seen and what remains uncertain. The exercise does not establish the category as a measured property of the problem, or decide the solution for you.
4. What I Need from You: make requests across functions explicit
What I Need from You, or WINFY, structures requests and responses between functional groups. Groups identify what they need from each other; spokespeople hear requests, return to their groups to consider them and later give responses. The full instructions include a debrief.
This is a possible starting point when sales, Sales Engineering and another function describe what they need from each other in broad terms. A request such as receiving particular customer context before preparing a demonstration gives the receiving group something concrete to consider.
Read the response rules before choosing this method. WINFY deliberately constrains how spokespeople respond, and its guide asks the host to prepare participants for harsh feedback. The written requests still need a practical follow-through. Choose a different format if the group needs a conversation you cannot support within those constraints.
5. 15% Solutions: identify an action within existing discretion
15% Solutions asks what participants can do without more resources or authority. Individuals write ideas, share them in small groups and help each other examine whether the suggested actions are within their control. The percentage belongs to the exercise’s framing.
For example, someone might be able to improve the preparation for their own next customer meeting while a larger training decision remains open. Name the proposed action and check whether the person can actually carry it out. A dependency on another team belongs in that check.
Keep the limit visible. An available small action can be worth considering while a wider issue remains unresolved. It does not replace the decisions, resources or permissions that the wider issue requires. Agree what you will look at afterwards to understand what happened.
Choose the discussion you need before the format
Write down what the group needs to leave with. An explanation of purpose, a clearer tension, a comparison of approaches and an explicit request are different outputs. That choice helps you prepare the invitation and decide who needs to take part.
After the session, return to the work the conversation was meant to help with. What did participants agree to do, what remains unresolved and who will revisit it? Keep any proposed action separate from evidence that it happened.
For work on discovery and qualification in current opportunities, my Sales Engineering team training brings the account executive and Sales Engineer’s work into the same discussion. The enterprise-discovery resource guide offers a separate choice of preparation and practice resources.
Method icons: Liberating Structures, used unchanged under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Sources
Sources checked on 21 October 2026.