How to Ask Smart Questions
By: Chelsie Librun
Tags: Coworking, Collaboration, Work, Questions, Meetings

I’ve done it. You’ve done it. We’ve all done it at some time in the past. We’ve asked a stupid question. It happens in both individual and group meetings at work. Hopefully, the employee that we ask is nice and patient, so they answer your question. But, if not, the employee will clearly show you how much disdain your question causes them.

I have to be honest. I’ve been at my current company for a few years now. I went from the newbie engineer who asks a ton of questions to the one who is the receiver of the questions. So I’ve seen all sides of the spectrum. And if you were to ask me which one of the engineers I am from the first paragraph, I will unfortunately say the second.

But I don’t mind questions… when they’re smart. A good question will bring about a good answer that will propel you forward in your project, and maybe even lead to a solution that’s even better than one I could come up with myself. A good question may lead to a recognizing a potential weakness in the team or the project. I love smart questions. So here are my tips that I use to make sure that my questions are smart.

Be Specific

One thing that always irks people is when they are asked a vague question or given a vague problem. To be more specific, these are questions that could only be responded to with giant answers.

“I don’t understand anything about this spreadsheet.”

“How exactly do we write a requirements document?”

“I think this table is broken.”

A rule of thumb is if it takes more than 30 seconds to answer the question, then it’s too big and vague. Focus your question to something more specific.

“What is this spreadsheet trying to show?

“Are there examples of requirements documents I can look at?

“The value in Cell F4 of the table seems higher than it should be. Is there something wrong?”

With this one step, you will immediately look more intelligent. Instead of looking completely lost, you’ll like a competent employee who is just missing one piece of vital information.

Avoid asking the first question that pops into your head. Examine the problem more and look for a bite size question that you can ask a coworker.

But what if you’re completely lost? My advice is: break up your question into smaller bite questions and distribute it among several engineers in your team. That way, no one person knows how much you’re completely lost.

State What You Already Know

Engineers will be happier to answer your question if they know that you’ve already put some leg work yourself. What have you done already to try to figure this out yourself? Even if you’re completely wrong, you still look better if you try. Just make sure you provide your justification.

“Tab XYZ has a lot of financial data in it. It looks like this spreadsheet may be the team budget.”

“I looked up a template of a requirements document online, but I want to make sure that I’m matching the format used in this company.”

“I looked at the formula in Cell F4, but it looks like the same formula found in all of the cells in the column. So I’m not sure what could be wrong.”

When I first started at my company, there was a coworker of mine that I asked coding questions to constantly. Every time something in the code would break, I would immediately send him a message to help me. Eventually, he started delaying his responses back to me. The reason why, he said, was because he felt that often times, people end up figuring out the problem on their own.

Even if I didn’t figure it out, I used that time during his delayed responses to get a better understanding of the problem. I could try different solutions to try to fix something or start on the project even when I didn’t feel fully comfortable. That way, when he actually did respond, we had a much more fruitful conversation about the problem.

Keep It Simple

Engineers are busy. Some are antisocial.

This means that no one wants to hear you rambling. Keep your questions short and to the point. I once had a new employee send me a bunch of questions via email about the company and the program we were working on. I didn’t mind this list of 15 questions because they were short, and required short responses.

There is no need to have more than 1–2 sentences max to explain your question.

“Hi John. I was looking at the schematics for the hydraulics system we’re working on. Could you tell me what this portion is supposed to represent?”

See, it’s a quick question necessitating a quick answer.

Be Polite

Your coworkers are doing you a favor by stopping their work and answering your question. You should be polite when you come to them. In fact, the more that they like you, the more they’ll be willing to answer your question in the future. So make sure you’re polite and respectful of your coworkers’ time and effort.

Be Confident

Last, in everything that you do at work, always be confident. You’re at this job because someone saw drive and intelligence in you. We all have questions. That doesn’t make us worse engineers. In fact, what makes a good engineer is being able to ask the right type of questions. You got this.

Are there any tips that you use to make your questions smarter? Leave your answers in the comments.