the answer is in the question

nothing very philosophical..
i participated in a business excellence assessment on behalf of CII [the confederation of Indian industry].
it was an interesting experience - as it has been in the last 9 years that i have been participating.
every time, a new learning - both from the fellow assessors as well as the applicant organization.

the main difference between an audit - which many organizations are used to - and revolves around non compliance, an assessment is more to understand the maturity of various aspects that contribute to excellence in the way the business is run.
this requires a lot of reading, both what is written and between the lines - and also probing to elicit more information..

so, it becomes very important to know how to ask and what to ask.
many times, we start without knowing whom to ask. that becomes clearer based on initial interactions.

i am reminded of a story about a young priest who asked his bishop if he could smoke while praying. not surprisingly, the bishop answers NO. later that day the young priest meets an older priest puffing away while praying. he tells the senior "you should not be smoking while praying. the bishop does not condone that".
"that is strange. i asked the bishop and he allowed me" says the other priest.
curious, the young priest asks him -"what did you ask him?"
"well, i asked him if i could pray while smoking and he said that it was OK to pray at any time".

i also get a lot of questions about how to search in Google. many times it so happens that some persons find relevant results quickly while others keep searching..

it is a combination of choice of right keywords, ignoring non-relevant results etc and expand the search based on some initial results.

like my childhood hobby of DXing - or hunting for distant radio stations, i guess 'wilfing' is a good time-pass..

also, through that, one can collect trivia and other information that could be useful later.
and help narrow down the searches in the future.

so, to quote an old song - "the answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind".
we just need to be receptive and tune in to pick the right one for us.

p.s. wilfing is to surf aimlessly or get lost while following one link after another and get to a point when we say 'What was I Looking For'