Have you ever struggled to get answers to what should have been simple questions? Have you ever had a forum post had its requests completely ignored? There is a subtle art to asking for help in a way that grabs people’s interest and makes them want to get involved in what you’re working on, and it only takes a moment to do.
Include the question: Don’t just ping.
The first and most important key to asking a good question is to include the question in your message. This seems simple, but so often we leave that crucial detail out of the request. Without any info about the request, it’s very hard to prioritize and allocate time, which makes it much less appealing to volunteer.
Bad question: “Hello!”
Be respectful of people’s time! They can’t triage a hello. Instead of giving them the tools to begin thinking about the problem whenever they can get to the message, this pulls them away from what they were working on. Worse, it then makes them wait on hold until you see their response and actually type out the question.
Bad question: “Any change management experts around?”
Instead of being able to give you pointers on your actual request, this message style just limits your potential helpers. It implies that you can’t be bothered to describe your problem, which makes it unappealing to volunteer to help. The problem may not even need that expertise. Don’t just ask to ask; ask your question!
Good question: “How do you undo a change management document once it was submitted? I saved some changes I didn’t mean to.”
Presenting your question, even at a high level, gives your audience an incredible amount of information. It lets them know the scope of the problem and immediately start thinking about next steps. It also helps them point you to the right people if they don’t know the answer themselves. Other people can triage the severity and get a good idea of the time commitment, even just from this, making it much easier to volunteer to help.
Include context: what goal are you trying to achieve?
You’ve thought about what you are working on for some time now, but the people you are contacting likely have not. Without a little detail on what you are trying to accomplish, your question might not make sense. Worse, a low-level question in a vacuum can often lead away from the solution to your problem if you aren’t on the right track.
Bad question: “What is the best chatGPT plugin for COBOL?”
To give a good answer to this, you need a ton of follow-up questions to have any idea what is going on. Why COBOL? Why chatGPT? What do they mean by “plugin”? There’s not enough to go off of, and digging for better information is not a simple task. Would-be helpers must do a lot of work just to understand what this kind of question is asking. This is sometimes referred to as the XY problem, where a specific question about a specific solution leads to bad results. This is because WHY you are trying to do something is key to the answer you need (but often left out).
Good question: “Hi! Can you help me find someone who knows about COBOL? The client believes it is a good fit for their new chatbot app.”
This question lets your convo partner know what you are thinking about and why. Not only do they know the specific question, but they have a good idea of how you arrived where you are, and why you are thinking about the solution you’re asking about. This lets them know you are taking the problem seriously nd have thought about it. (If you aren’t, why should they?) It saves time for the people who would assist you, making it much easier and more interesting to get involved.
Describe what you observed, not your guess as to the problem.
Often, the key to answering the question you have is tied to what you saw happen. If you don’t share that, and instead give an interpretation of the cause, it often ends up hiding critical information. Your assistants will have to ask about it anyway, so it is worth summarizing in your question.
Bad question: “The laptop is broken. It’s not working no matter what I do.”
This could mean almost anything. Is the wifi turned off? Has the battery died? Is the screen disconnected? This person is more interested in venting frustration than sharing helpful info, which makes it very hard to be excited to help.
Good question: “I get this error message whenever I try to update my computer: […] What should I do?”
This question immediately provides exactly what the user saw go wrong and the context for what was happening at the time. It lets others know exactly what the stakes are, and what kind of knowledge you need to offer to help. It also provides some key things to Google if you don’t know the answer already! This question was asked by someone who respects the people they are asking for help.
Be part of the collaboration to find the solution.
If you are a partner in the journey, and you share your goal and what you have seen and tried, other problem-solving people will flock to you. A little effort in crafting a good question will be paid back tenfold in others’ efforts to assist you. With some simple phrasing tricks and providing a few details, you will find many people who can’t help but stop what they are doing to engage with the interesting mystery you brought up.
You have a choice: do you put off would-be helpers with lazy questions, or do you hook them so hard they’ll still be thinking about that cool problem days later? Choose carefully!