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Communication

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It's very important to setup communication protocol between you and other world ;-)

Table of Contents

Theory

How to Ask Questions

Be aware, the next article is big and contains a lot of important small details You may found yourself re-reading it again and again ;-)

How To Ask Questions The Smart Way

Place a rubber duck on your monitor and describe your problems to it. There's something magical about stating your problems aloud that makes the solution more clear.

I have a question and I'm writing it to someone... but not sending it. In the moment when you transfer the question from your mind to some medium (paper, email, chart, thinking out loud) it turns on other parts of your brain and in next 5-10 minutes answer comes. Nine times out of ten. Amazing thing is that you find solution themselves and without spending time of others.

Question shouldn't contains NO/NOT

  • do NOT know
  • can NOT,
  • NOT possible
  • NO time
  • NO experience
  • etc

Instead it should be open and contains

  • How
  • Where
  • How much
  • Who
  • When
  • etc

Questions like

  • Why
  • What for

Dangerous because motivate to find guiltier. In case of addresses to themselves could drop you in deep recursive self-analyze

This effect among programmers called Teddy Bear Effect or Rubber Duck

You may remember when you are starting describe problem to someone but instead find solution without any output from your partner.

Let's summarize:

Simple algorithm
  1. You have a question
  2. Describe it in details to somebody how can give an answer, use some medium (email, chat, paper, etc)
  3. All statement with NO/NOT replace with How, Where, Who etc.
Example

Joe, I can not install this library to the project ?

Rewrite to

Joe, How can I install this library to the project ?

Re-read it and switch from the question to other activity: switch to other task, play in billiard, tennis, drink a cup of tea ... or just go for a walk. The main idea is to not think about question. You even can take another task for a while. If after 10-15 mins no any insight then you can ask question your colleges

Use your mind on 100%

Remember, if question appears in your mind, then answer already there, you just need to find it ...

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Additional

  1. How to Report Bug Effectively
  2. How to write E-Mails (ru)
  3. Communication Skills

Practice

Exercise 1

You have problems with installation of some program. It's a blocker! Write steps which you are going to take to resolve the issue.

I hope to get an interesting and expanded answer ;-)

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