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I Don't Understand

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Re: I Don't Understand

#41

Post by zaidf »

jaggederest wrote: post #32
Evbn wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it matter who is responsible for a mistake? Whence this antiquated notion that failures are to be blamed on a scapegoat?

More to the point, people turn off their brains when they hear 'This was my fault'. They stop investigating further once the blame has been assigned. It's more important to do the classic 'five whys' than to assign blame. A scenario: Maybe Joe forgot to do the maintenance task. Maybe he forgot because he's been working overtime and is tired. Maybe he's been working overtime because there aren't enough sysadmins. Mayb…

Sure, the way I see that in order for the 5 whys to work, you still need to know that Joe made the immediate mistake. Now, as part of the process, you create ways to prevent that mistake. When doing that preventative analysis, the other whys should pop up and the solution may well be something beyond Joe.

Re: I Don't Understand

#42

Post by ihsw »

asimjalis wrote: post #29

As an instructor I have the opposite problem. How can I encourage students to say “I don’t understand”?

Make a personal plea at the beginning of your semester stating that it's okay to say "I don't understand," and that even instructors say that often enough.

Make it clear that struggling is a perfectly normal factor of life -- in fact one could argue that intelligence is a measurement of someone's history of struggling.

One could even go so far that the top 5% of any class are simply people who have 'struggled' the most, or more to the point people who have stumbled (and overcome it) the most.

Here is an excellent article researching teaching methods in Japan:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/11/12/164793058/struggl...

Re: I Don't Understand

#43

Post by marquis »

Living in a country where you're learning the language is a good way to get used to saying 'I don't understand'. When I was really bad at the language I just often sat there and hoped someone would translate for me but as my confidence increased I was able to say 'Can you rephrase that for me' or 'I don't get the cultural reference'. Now I love asking questions, as so much extra knowledge comes with it and you can get people to go off on wonderful tangents.

Re: I Don't Understand

#44

Post by lizzard »

I would often do this in class (or at work, in meetings) either because I really didn't understand, or because I could tell a bunch of others didn't. But it is fine to phrase it something not being clear, asking if they can try to explain a different way to make it more clear, or trying to rephrase whatever it is myself.

Re: I Don't Understand

#45

Post by zaidf »

klibertp wrote: post #33
Evbn wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it matter who is responsible for a mistake? Whence this antiquated notion that failures are to be blamed on a scapegoat?

I understand this the following way: when nobody claims "ownership" of a mistake, everybody (ie. in a team) feels guilty about it, even of they had no control over what lead to this mistake. If someone says clearly that it was his mistake, everybody else may stop worrying and either concentrate on something else or help mistaken person avoid such mistakes in the future. This has nothing to do with scapegoats, but my…

You are right on.

Re: I Don't Understand

#46

Post by DigitalSea »

aquark wrote: post #17
DigitalSea wrote: post #13

I can see why there seems to be a stigma attached to admitting you don't understand something, especially if you've just started at a new place and you want to make a good impression and reassure them they made the right choice hiring you. I've been guilty too many times of not speaking up when I don't understand something and it comes back to bite you. It makes you look more incompetent being ignorant and not speaki…

The best new hires we've brought on are the ones that jump in and ask for explanations. When explaining things to a new hire I already know they don't understand everything, and I expect questions. Those questions help drive the discussion further in a way that hopefully fits in better with their thought process/learning style. It is much more frustrating trying to explain things to people that just nod and have to b…

I am glad to hear that. If only more companies would lead by example and understand that just because you hired a Javascript or Python gun does not mean they're going to be familiar or understand with the way your company works, its methodologies or best practices immediately. Adjusting to a new environment takes time, there will be questions. The issue seems to be like I said, a lot of places I've worked at have made you feel stupid for asking questions (at least the senior developers anyway), especially if said company works fast and has adopted a methodology like Agile and SCRUM which can sometimes cause a stressed and tense work environment when the sprint period is coming to an end and things aren't going the way as planned.

I wouldn't exactly say I don't know what I am doing, but even I struggle just like everyone else because I don't know everything and it's better to ask a colleague who might than it is to search Google. Managers need to train their staff to be more sympathetic and patient with new hires especially. Some places (by the sounds of it like yours) have created a comfortable environment where it's easy to ask for help and clarification, this is how it should be everywhere.

Re: I Don't Understand

#47

Post by jacktoole1 »

magic_haze wrote: post #22
ColinDabritz wrote: post #9

One 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 understandi…

I've been dealing with this exact experience the last couple of weeks, after being asked to take ownership of a huge codebase. From what I've noticed though, saying "I don't understand" usually triggers a more detailed explanation of the existing design, leaving out the "why" part unanswered, and ending with me still completely baffled. I've had to resort more often to "Can't we just..." type questions, and while tha…

I've been trying to use something closer to ColinDabritz's second wording: "What am I missing that makes ____ unreasonable?" or "I don't understand why ____ wouldn't work". Phrasing it like this hopefully conveys both that I'm aware that there's a gap in my understanding of the problem, not our solution to the problem, but still elicits a response more directed at my particular understanding. It's also easier for me to formulate what I don't understand as "here's what seems obvious, why is the solution different?" than "I don't understand this particular aspect", since I don't know the part of the solution to ask about.

Re: I Don't Understand

#48

Post by jacktoole1 »

MrVitaliy wrote: post #19

My analysis professor used to say, if you state that some part of the proof is trivial then it should be easy to just write it out. And when you have a hard time writing it out or it takes too long, perhaps it's not trivial after all.

I had a friend in college who used to use this, as well as "...is left as an exercise to the reader" on homework assignments, to my great amusement.

Re: I Don't Understand

#50

Post by ollysb »

brandall10 wrote: post #35
kstenerud wrote: post #7

I 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…

Did you usually just say "I don't understand"... or was it more like "I get how a works with b when c occurs. But you lost me when you were talking about how it happens over z, I don't get the distinction, could you go into that?" It's not about plain ignorance, but conscious incompetence. That can be a great deal of work to attain in a given domain, getting to that "I know what I don't know" place so you can actuall…

Yeah, I don't think you should ever say, "I don't understand", it comes off as lazy, you're making the other person do all the work. Give them a little more to go on, tell them what you've understood so far and what you need clarification on.
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