What worked well for me so far is asking "why" and "what do you want to achieve" (in the business domain, not technically), almost until it hurts, taking the cl

What worked well for me so far is asking "why" and "what do you want to achieve" (in the business domain, not technically), almost until it hurts, taking the client by the hand and walking slowly backwards together until we have a common understanding of what the real task is. Many times it was buried under layers of semi well thought out "solutions". The hard part is building trust that you really want to solve the problen together and not let the client lose face. I can wholeheartedly second your last paragraph!