Exploratory Interview
Also known as: Open-Ended Interview, Discovery Interview
An interview conducted to understand a problem space without any predetermined hypothesis about what the solution should be.
Full Definition
Exploratory interviews are the earliest form of stakeholder research. The interviewer enters with genuine curiosity and no attachment to a particular outcome. Unlike hypothesis-testing interviews, which confirm or disconfirm a specific assumption, exploratory interviews are designed to surface unknown unknowns — the things the team didn't know they didn't know.
Example
A team exploring surgical workflow inefficiencies conducts exploratory interviews with scrub techs, circulating nurses, and attending surgeons before forming any hypothesis about where the problem lies or what a solution might look like.