identifying clear objectives.

When first meeting the client it can be difficult to understand what it is that they exactly require from the project, and while the "user stories" offer a good way to get a grasp of how it looks like from the outside. As the product develops, its important to be able to see if the goals are being objectively met, and how the dynamic of introducing new goals into the project, will change the outcome of the product. A very effective way to establish these goals is through asking open ended questions to ensure the client is able to speak their mind about a subject. Qualitative Social Research has established that,"Furthermore, the information gathered thereby and especially in combination with open-ended questions can facilitate starting a conversation" In reference to interviewing individuals to extract more information in regards to subjects that they have spoken about.

Which bring up a very good point, which is starting a conversation around what are the direct implications of the subjective goals that are brought up. Without doing this one will run into the issue of fragmented ideas that come up in the production of the finalized product. 
An example would be that our client, wanted us to create a site that was cleaner, and had more organized content. However after running into unexpected issues in regards to accessing source code, we had essential started to rebuild the site from ground-up in order to achieve a viable product to show the client. Now going back to the original goal, of making the website more clean and organized, has the mark been hit? Does it still need further optimization? To attempt to see if the project has taken the correct direction in course, it often has to be directly asked to the client, "Hey in what ways can this be improved?" Often times when asking this question the client can point something out that was previously missed, and can be added to the product backlog. This act of working, then getting feedback from the client allows for a more refined, and personal project for the client.
Asking these types of questions will not only lead to an easier understanding of what is to be done with the project, it also ensures that the direction of the sprints are headed toward that goal. By not asking these types of questions, it only creates more work toward the end of the project when things need to get ironed out. Check to see if the question asked to the client hits one of the points in the chart below, if it does thats a good direction to start gathering more information.

Reference:
Open Ended Questions. (n.d.). Retrieved October 12, 2015, from http://www.creducation.org/resources/triad_meeting/threegameboard_r.png


Witzel, A. (n.d.). The Problem-centered Interview | Witzel | Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research. Retrieved October 11, 2015, from http://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/1132/2522