“Ask 'why' five times about every matter”

Post by xyzzyz » Mon, May 09, 2016, 4:38 PM UTC

Bartweiss wrote: post #122

xyzzyz wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know what's even more annoying? People who ask very misguided questions, because they're obviously trying to solve a wrong problem, and yet insist on doing things their own way even though it will lead them nowhere. They're much more common than people who know what they're talking about, and it's usually easy to tell them apart based on the communication style.

More common perhaps, but not always more significant. Stack Overflow is a messy blend of the two: lots of questions want to do some strange thing, and it's not always clear why. The result is that people who don't know better are taught how to do dangerous things (like messing with the history of shared git repos), while people with weird special circumstances get second guessed and lectured. At least online, I absol…

Post by the4dpatrick » Mon, May 09, 2016, 4:56 PM UTC

Joeri wrote: post #43

iaskwhy wrote: post #9

I don't force it 5x but asking why was the best lesson I learnt working with users/clients as people tend to talk about solutions and not the problems. That's also where my nickname comes from.

Feature requests are really prone to this. Customers will only ask for features they can imagine, not the ones that really solve their problem. A significant chunk of the time the customer is better served by a different feature that takes less work. This is why i don't like tender-based software projects. The tender already describes the features needed, and they must be built even if they are suboptimal for the pro…

Post by ZeroGravitas » Mon, May 09, 2016, 5:09 PM UTC

awinter-py wrote: post #73

I know a certain 3 year-old who uses a similar trick to collect knowledge about the world. Not being sarcastic here; orgs can learn a lot from young children about how to acquire new skills and make decisions in the face of uncertainty. Before they can even walk infants learn to judge whether they're about to crawl off a cliff -- a skill the yahoo board (for example) could have really used.

Post by csours » Mon, May 09, 2016, 5:16 PM UTC

btowngar wrote: post #136

csours wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A problem without a suggested solution is a complaint. If your people only bring you complaints, it is a drain on everyone; it breeds discontent in the workforce and contempt in management.

I feel that some people are very good at seeing problems, and some people are very good at finding solutions to problems. I don't see any reason that the same skills should be present in any given individual, so you always need both types.

Post by sevensor » Mon, May 09, 2016, 5:19 PM UTC

arethuza wrote: post #68

wccrawford wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I usually ask, "What problem are you trying to solve?", to anyone who brings me a solution instead of a problem, but it comes down to the same thing. I guess I don't even really know which question would be more efficient at getting the real answer.

I wonder how that sits with "Don't bring me problems—bring me solutions" that I occasionally hear from non-technical managers...