Asking Questionsλ︎
The way to get useful answers is to ask effective questions.
The act of creating an effective question can often produce the answer without even needing to share the question with others (although it is valuable to still ask for a wider scope of answers).
The act of creating a question allows for a clear analysis of what the problem is, what has been tried already.
No need to apologies for asking
People enjoy answering other peoples questions as it provides a sense of satisfaction that they could help. There is never a need to apologies that your are asking a question, especially if you think the answer should be obvious
There are no silly questions
People are not born omnicient, they spend their lifetime learning on a unique path. No two people will understand all the same things in the same way, even when working in the same area.
Ask an Engineering questionλ︎
The more detailed an engineering question is, the more likely that an appropriate answer will be given.
- Convey the goal of your question (what are you trying to achieve)
- Establish the facts as clearly as possible
- What steps did you try
- How does someone else reproduce this issue (create the simplest possible example)
- Convey assumptions made
- Examples, examples, examples
- Review and refactor (remove unnecessary words and information, reread and rewrite to ensure the question is easy to understand)
Fast questions take more time
Asking questions with little or no thought leads to much more time spent explaining the question once its out there.
Example questionsλ︎
Some example engineering questions (TODO: review questions in slack / stack exchange for useful, not so useful examples)
The Art of Asking Questionsλ︎
- Demonstrate preparedness for the conversation
- Illustrate your expertise without showing off
- Invite others to deepen or broaden their thinking and challenge held beliefs