In a previous post, I argued that a good question is the artifact of thinking, not the starting point. This post picks up where that one left off: once you’ve done the thinking, how do you transmit it without losing signal? Can you grab me a coffee? You text your friend: “Can you grab me a coffee?” They come back with a medium black coffee. You wanted a large oat milk latte with an extra shot. ...
“There are no bad questions.” It’s a popular saying in tech. The intent is good: we want to create psychological safety and lower the barrier for juniors asking for help. But while there may be no bad intentions behind a question, there are certainly poorly framed ones. These aren’t bad because the problem is simple; they are bad because the thinking behind them is incomplete. I was reminded of this recently in a DevOps community chat. Someone asked for help with a query they were stuck on. No context. No constraints. No indication of the end goal. People asked for clarification, but the follow-ups added little. Eventually, the thread just died. ...