Coming up with research questions is a lot easier if I have a concrete artifact to get curious about

I found myself needing to come up with research questions this week about a dataset we're collecting at work. We have a bunch of survey data we collected for an ongoing research project, and a report some of my coworkers wrote that analyzes the data and presents their findings to our funder. I was asked to look at the data and see if there are any further analyses we might want to run on the data.

It's been a while since I've had to come up with questions, so at first I found myself put off and confused where to even start. Then I remembered it's a lot easier if you have something concrete to build off of. So, I looked at the report.

It sounds embarrassingly, blindingly obvious in hindsight, but looking at the report is really useful. I'm not even looking at the results we have yet — I've just been looking at the table of basic summary statistics. Coincidentally, this table reminds me of a bunch of info we're collecting that I had forgotten we collected because we haven't (as far as I know) used that info for anything yet. I look at the table and think, "Hmm, how do I think data X would connect with data Y we're collecting?" (This example would be much more helpful if it were concrete but I'm not sure how concrete I ought to be about an ongoing research project, so nyeh.) Getting curious about that table suggested new analyses that are worth running.

I think it holds generally that it's a lot easier to get curious about an existing thing and come up with questions inspired by it than to come up with questions from a blank slate. I've known people to do this with papers, for example, either one's own or others', and I might even have done it once or twice myself (I honestly can't remember if I have used that strategy). So the next time I need to come up with research questions, I should find something relevant and concrete to look at and get curious about it.