Scaling question

How it works

1. Choose a question, for example How are things now? Or type your own question.
2. Under Where are you now? choose the number that fits now. A green dot appears on the scale.
3. Under Where do you want to get to? choose the number that is good enough. A little flag appears on the scale.
4. Keep talking with the questions on the card To keep talking. Your number is already in them.
5. Print the scale and the questions, with space to write.

Together or on your own

In a conversation, place the scale so that you can both see it; a large screen or a tablet works best at a table. The other person taps the number themselves. Three questions are ready to use: how things are going now, how important something is, and how confident someone is that it will work. Print the scale at the end and give it to them to take home. Next time, put it next to the new one, and you can see together whether anything has shifted.

If you do it on your own, ask yourself the question and write down your answers. Do it again a week later, and you will see whether anything has changed.

Where it comes from

A scaling question comes from solution-focused working. There you mainly look at what already works and where someone wants to get to, and less at the problem itself. The scaling question is one of the questions that go with it, along with, for example, the question of when things did go better.

We wrote the questions on the card ourselves. They are about one small step, not the whole way to 10.

Good to know

• The number is not a school mark: a 4 is not a fail.
• Can’t decide between two numbers? Choose one, and talk about both.
• Everything works with the keyboard. Tab takes you to the next row, and the arrow keys choose a number.
• Choosing a different question empties the scale. A number belongs to one question.
• Have you not been feeling well for a while? Talk about it with your GP or with a care worker.

Sources

• Nederlands Jeugdinstituut (Netherlands Youth Institute), Solution-focused working (in Dutch) (external website). Read on 30 September 2026.
• Nederlands Jeugdinstituut (Netherlands Youth Institute), Solution-focused work with parents when child abuse is suspected (external website), with an example of a scaling question from 0 to 10. In Dutch. Read on 30 September 2026.