I Don't Understand
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I Don't Understand
1–10 of 97 posts
Re: I Don't Understand
#2Totally agree. In fact, when I was working at my first programming job, I realised I'd reached a milestone in competency when I could confidently say "I don't understand" without fear of ridicule or feeling stupid or worrying about slowing down the rest of the team.
Re: I Don't Understand
#3This should be promoted in any company. If you cant say it or its "not cool" to ask these kind of questions get a new job.
It works against the biggest problem we all have miscommunication.
Re: I Don't Understand
#4It's so critical to foster a culture where "I don't understand" and (to risk going off on a tangent) "I don't think that's right" is acceptable, even if its an intern to a CEO.
Reminds me of The Checklist Manifesto which cites how OR nurses and doctors who communicated best--they know each others names and nurses can tell doctors "stop"--had fewer surgical errors.
Re: I Don't Understand
#5One thing that irks me is when you're given some sort of spec document and just told by someone senior the equivalent to RTFM; no questions tolerated ... you have to read and understand the document by yourself, and that's it. That's happened a couple of times to me... and its totally unproductive.
Re: I Don't Understand
#6I'm managing a project right now, and I've found that frequently if I don't understand something, then saying this is indeed helpful. It felt silly the first few times, as I'm supposed to know the hows and whys as the project manager. But it offers me an opportunity to learn, and a few times has found sections of code that weren't really understood by anybody (perhaps from prior developers or cut/pasted from god knows where).
Great advice.
Re: I Don't Understand
#7I first noticed this effect in college, when the prof would be talking about something that didn't make sense to me. If I remained silent, he'd never explain (of course) and I'd remain ignorant. However, whenever I asked him, everyone would start furiously writing down his explanation in their notes.
So I got into the habit of saying "I don't understand". Inevitably, there would be quite a number of other people who also didn't understand, but were afraid to ask, so I'd just ask first. That stuck with me throughout my career and served me well. If you don't understand, ask.
Also, contrary to common sentiment, there is no minimum competency level that grants you the privilege of saying "I don't understand." Ignorance is not a monopoly of the elite.
Re: I Don't Understand
#8Socrates, the ancient Greek philosopher from 2,500 years aging said this. "Wisest is he who knows he does not know".
And er, Donald Rumsfeld, when talking about unknown unknowns.
Re: I Don't Understand
#9One expression of this that I hear from newer devs (and clients) sometimes is "Can't we just...?" and what it really means is "I don't understand", but in a more socially safe way. If I address the question as if it were "what am I missing that makes this seemingly simple solution not viable?" it usually addresses the question and spreads better understanding. I also find that if someone is having trouble understanding my design, it is only rarely a lack of understanding on their part, and more often a lack of good design and good communication of that design on my part. "I don't understand" is a cue to try to make your architecture, design, and code more understandable.
Re: I Don't Understand
#10"I don't know" shouldn't be feared either.