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We develop, advance, and promote a previously existing framework called the Qualitative-Quantitative-Qualitative workflow (Q1Q2Q3, pronounced “Q-Q-Q”) to systematically guide the content of interdisciplinary collaborations and improve the teaching of statistics and data science. The Q1Q2Q3 workflow is designed to help statisticians and data scientists develop skills and techniques for collaboration to work with domain experts across academic fields, industry sectors, and organizations. The Q1Q2Q3 workflow explicitly emphasizes the importance of the qualitative context of a project, as well as the qualitative interpretation of quantitative findings. We explain Q1Q2Q3 and provide guidance for implementing each stage of the workflow. We describe how we teach Q1Q2Q3 within a statistics and data science collaboration course and present data evaluating its effectiveness. We also describe how Q1Q2Q3 can be useful for educators teaching introductory, projects-based, and technical statistics and data science courses. We believe that the Q1Q2Q3 workflow is an easy-to-implement technique that is beneficial and necessary for statistics and data science education and practice. It can be used to weave ethics into each stage of practice so that statisticians and data scientists can successfully transform evidence into action for the benefit of society. 

The questions we ask and how we ask them will make a difference in how successful we are in meetings, in collaborations and in our careers as statisticians and data scientists. What makes a question good and what makes a good question great? Great questions elicit information useful for accomplishing the tasks of a project and strengthen the statistician–domain expert relationship. Great questions have three parts: the question, the answer and the paraphrasing of the answer to create shared understanding. We discuss three strategies for asking great questions: preface questions with statements about the intent behind asking the question; follow the question with behaviours and actions consistent with the prefaced words including actions such as listening, paraphrasing and summarizing; and model a collaborative relationship via the asking of a great question. We describe the methods and results of a study that shows how questions can be assessed, that statisticians can learn to ask great questions and that those who have learned this skill consider it to be valuable for their careers. We provide practical guidelines for learning how to ask great questions so that statisticians can improve their collaboration skills and thus increase their impact to help address societal challenges.