What you are asking for
“I’d like the questions to arrive before we’ve built the solution.”
You want to hear the doubts early enough for them to change something.
What the system hears
“If I ask this question, who will answer, and when?”
What that produces
A question left unanswered kills the next one. The person does not know whether they were forgotten or overstepped their role. Next time, they do not ask. They assume.
A question about a project’s goal gets answered in a meeting of three. The people who were not there carry on with their own reading. Two weeks later, two versions of the project are moving in parallel. Nobody lacked curiosity: the answer simply did not travel.
You do not have to answer straight away. You have to say when. “I’m looking into it, you’ll have the answer Thursday” is enough to keep the question alive.
The document or the thread where the work is discussed is enough to hold the question, who is taking it, and the date of the answer.
The decision
With the team, choose one place for the questions that bear on a decision. On the next one, say who is looking for the answer and by when. If it comes from a customer, keep their exact words with it.
At the end of the week, go back over the open questions. Check that each answer reached the people who needed it. An acknowledgement organises what comes next; it does not replace the answer.
To discuss
Which question has been waiting for an answer for more than a week?