Introduction

Do you have an electric metal-cutting saw?

One Sunday afternoon, my wife, son, and I returned home after a walk in a nearby forest. As we left the car to go inside, one of the neighbours asked me a somewhat perplexing question: "Do you have an electric metal-cutting saw?"

At first, I was somewhat taken aback by the question and thought, "I have several tools capable of cutting metal: a hacksaw that I use for cutting metal and plastic pipes, an angle grinder, and a reciprocating saw." The word "electric" really threw me off, and I thought to myself, "Are you too lazy to use the hacksaw?" Or how is it relevant whether it is electric or not?

As I came to my senses, I tried to ask what he would use it for, but I didn't fully understand the response. So, I said instead, "Let me take off my hiking boots, and I will come right over. You can show me what you plan to cut, and I can provide you with the right tool for the job."

A few minutes later, I knocked on the door, and they opened it. As it turns out, they wanted to put a wardrobe in the entrance to store clothes, but the doorstop was in the way. When I understood that they had planned to cut off the doorstop with a metal-cutting saw, I said, "The doorstop is screwed into the skirting board. If you remove the rubber cap, there is a screw inside that holds it." Once this became clear, instead of asking for an electric metal-cutting saw, they asked for a Phillips screwdriver, which I happily provided. A minute later, the doorstop and screw were out of the wall, and the job was done.

How does this relate to the art of asking better questions? One crucial principle when asking questions is to seek help to solve the problem without introducing assumptions that may or may not be correct.

In this case, a better question could be, Can you help us remove the doorstop inside the hallway?

The difference between the first and the second is the introduction of the presupposition that cutting the metallic doorstop off is the best approach to removing it. Given that this presupposition is incorrect, it is essential to return to the question: What problem are you trying to solve?

Are you trying to remove the doorstop?

Are you trying to find the best way to cut it off, or could there be another way of removing it?

In this case, another approach that I could have taken would be to hand over the angle grinder and say, "Here you go, bring it back when you are done," or the reciprocating saw, which, when applied, would probably, rather than cutting the metal, would have likely jerked the doorstop from the skirting board. But instead of doing that, I offered to strip out the assumptions and asked to see what the problem they were trying to solve, and having understood the answers to the questions What are you trying to do? and Why are you trying to do it? I could help with the question How should you go about doing it? and then provide the correct tool for the job.

Although the current example might only seem relevant to DIY, I do see similar things on a more or less daily basis in more work in software engineering, where instead of a clear story focusing on the questions What? and Why? elements of the question How? creep in.

Typically, in software engineering, the What question is analysed by a business analyst. Once the requirements are established, the development team can determine the answer to the How question during the project's implementation phase.