The three questions I ask in every first meeting

Three questions. They have not changed in two years and I have never had a first meeting where they failed to find something.

1. Walk me through last Thursday

Not a normal week. Last Thursday, specifically, because specificity defeats the rehearsed answer. People describe what actually happened rather than what usually happens, and what actually happened contains the exceptions.

2. What would you do with the time?

This moves from cost to value without anyone defending a budget. It also tells you instantly whether the project is real. If nobody can name what they would do with the hours, the hours were not the problem.

3. If you were off for a fortnight, what breaks first?

Finds the single points of failure immediately. The answer is almost always a person, not a system, and that person is usually in the room looking slightly uncomfortable.

What they have in common

None of them mention software. All of them are about how work actually moves, and every one of them produces answers a requirements document never would.

The temptation in a first meeting is to demonstrate expertise by talking about what you could build. Resist it. The person who asks the best questions in the room wins the work, and more importantly builds the right thing.