One session, no second chance
When you only get the process owner in a room once, running out of time before you reach the exceptions is the expensive failure mode — that's where the actual pain and the actual requirements usually live, not in the happy path everyone already agrees on.
What it does
- A fully timed run of show. Frame, boundaries, happy-path walkthrough, exceptions, handoffs and dependencies, volumes and pain, playback, close — each with a stated timebox.
- The recurring prompt built in. "And then what happens to it?" — the question that surfaces the next handoff every time.
- Exception-hunting questions. "When does this not work like that?", "what was the last one that went wrong?" — designed to pull out the workaround, not the official version.
- A playback step. Reads the process back in numbered steps and lets participants correct it live, catching most errors before they're written up.
- Watch-fors named up front. Silent step-skipping, the manager answering for the doer, and unquantified "usually"/"sometimes" hiding whole branches.
Example
Illustrative, not a real facilitation.
Process: supplier onboarding. Room: procurement lead, AP clerk. Session: 60 minutes.
EXCEPTIONS (15 min) - "When does this not work like that?" - "What was the last supplier that went wrong, and why?" - "Which suppliers get handled differently, and who decides that?" WATCH-FOR: if the procurement lead answers for the AP clerk, redirect the question back to whoever actually does the step.
How it works with Claude
Add it to Claude, a one-off 10-minute setup.
Give it the process, the attendees, and the session length.
Walk in with a timed script instead of a blank agenda.
FAQs
Why does an as-is interview need a script?
Without one, sessions run over on the happy path and never reach exceptions and handoffs, which is usually where the real pain and the real requirements live.
What's the single most useful step in the script?
Playback: reading the captured process back to participants in numbered steps and letting them correct it live. It catches most errors before they make it into the written document.