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Re: Coaching less experienced folks on asking good questions
Subject:Re: Coaching less experienced folks on asking good questions From:Phil <philstokes03 -at- googlemail -dot- com> To:TECHWR-L list <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Mon, 28 Feb 2011 23:52:43 +0700
If you think of your new, inexperienced colleague as rather in terms of an "apprentice" - someone who needs to learn the domain but quickly - the idea of telling them they have "a question budget" strikes me as the worst kind of policy.
Regardless of how much homework they do, they are still going to rocked by doubts about their understanding, the more so the more complex the domain. What's missing in the advice so far in this thread is an appreciation of the learner's lack of self-confidence and spadefuls of doubt when starting in a new organisation and/or dealing with a new technical domain with nothing but senior "too-busy-to-answer-stupid-questions" kind of staff to rely on. This is exactly the kind of work environment that good managers try to avoid.
While much of the advice in this thread is good, if it is not backed up with supervision and support you're likely to end up with a technical writer making big mistakes in their documentation for fear of asking questions that will draw nothing but ire.
Advice for not asking stupid questions on an open-source help forum (referring back to the OP's link here) and advice for not asking questions in a professional environment (where all are supposed to be pulling towards the same goal) are rather different kettles of fish. Or so it seems to me.
Best
Phil
On 28 Feb 2011, at 09:27, Stuart Burnfield wrote:
> It's probably a lot more than you want, but User and Task Analysis for Interface Design, by Hackos and Redish, is terrific on asking the right questions, collecting the right information without asking questions, and organizing the information once it's collected. Despite the title it applies equally well to technical writers.
>
> The article Tammy refers us to says:
> 'You always have a "question budget"—a point at which others will stop answering your questions.'
>
> I think this is exactly right. Act as though you have a limited budget to spend. Imagine that poor questions are expensive, good questions are relatively cheap, and a question that you don't have to ask because you figured it out for yourself is free.
>
> A useful technique is to start by summarizing what you think you know already. This tells the SME you've done some homework, gives you a firm, shared, foundation to start from, and naturally leads into some fruitful question-and-answer.
>
> Similar ground covered here (I have the patent on the waterskis idea, BTW):
>http://www.techwr-l.com/archives/0706/techwhirl-0706-00348.html
>
> Stuart
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