ABSTRACT
This chapter describes how people can tease out the tested approaches' inventional heuristics for advocacy purposes in a variety of settings, including industry and healthcare as much as the non-profit sector. It provides a brief review of literature and two case examples: appreciative inquiry and discovery and action dialogues. The chapter discusses the ways asset-based inquiry frameworks: expand the solution space in technical communication, by asking questions that complement deficit-based thinking; legitimize local ways of knowing and enable community-naming and community-building that does justice to a community's strengths and agentic potential; and can be implemented immediately into the inquiry processes of technical communicators. Asset-based inquiry as a competency meshes well with other competencies, and it provides an important avenue for advocacy by amplifying local knowledge, cultural wealth, and strengths. It is developed as a competency by sharpening our inquiry design skills to include "the positive question.".
