One thing I’ve learned very late in my career (I feel foolish for not having realised this earlier), is that researchers sit in the middle – and should have nearly as many questions for clients as they do for participants taking part in the research. In reality clients too are research participants. I recommend writing a guide/ list for the questions you need answers to:

• constraints: what are the limits and boundaries the client has – what can’t they do, from a culture point of view, practically, financially. These limits might need to be challenged, but you can only challenge them when you know what they are
• what they already know or have found out – read past reports, talk to people in the business, understand what needs not to be repeated, what needs to be done again, what gaps there are
• different perspectives and viewpoints in the culture: one approach I’ve taken to briefing sessions is ‘parent’s evening’, where there’s a main briefing – and also short 20-30 min chats with individuals to learn about their needs from the project and their speciaist knowledge. This has multiple advantages and is really worth the investment: you get to connect with a wider team, you get to know what is really needed in the project, you hold more questions in your head about the project
• culture and assumptions: perhaps a question for yourself more than an outright question to ask – but every business has its own culture, unspoken rules and assumptions that aren’t necessarily true – if you are to help them shift perspective – part of the purpose of research – then you need to ask ‘what’s going on here in client-land?’
• what’s their answer: I’m working on a project at the moment where the client is re-building their customer proposition – and – it could be anything… but to help participants have something to react to we need to build some stimulus to give us a starting point – I know the client has some ideas, maybe they are afraid to say them as they don’t want to constrain or bias the project, and that’s fair – but they do know how the new product is likely to turn out (because of all of the above), so I’ve designed a stimulus workshop based on asking them questions – effectively running a group with them to explore ‘what this could be’ from lots of angles..

So, my suggestion, develop a question sheet – or similar. Keep asking questions of clients (when they hear their answers they will learn something, they will like it), and keep adding to the question sheet. The more you ask, the more you’ll find out, the more you’ll find out, the more you will help them grow and change for the better