Sometimes, you only have a limited time to assess a situation. You can try to look, listen and question but very quickly you have to have an opinion, a course of action or a response. The truth is that in our hectic world, we are giving each other less and less time to make judgments about people and situations. I think that this is often true for competitive intelligence, also.

Consultants commonly face the challenge of doing a quick analysis of a new organization. We have to be ready with the right set of questions to discern what is happening and what might improve the outcomes. I suppose that this is true inside organizations when competitive intelligence is applied to a new problem or within a new business.

If you are lucky, you will have sufficient time to analyze before prescribing action. Whether it is a short time or a long time, the time is still finite. Therefore, the right focus is important.

All of this got me to thinking about what I would asked if I were limited to five questions. That is, what five questions would give me the best possible picture of the competitive intelligence status of a company and some idea of what might improve the competitive intelligence value?

Here are my five questions that I would address to senior leaders of the company.

1. What are your strategies?
2. What results are you getting from those strategies?
3. What factors do you think most affect your strategies?
4. What are the established givens and outstanding puzzles for you in the competitive environment?
5. What are you already doing to understand, track and respond to competitive issues?

What would be your set of five questions?