Do as toddlers do and ask...

Last Update: 25.06.2018. By Jens in Developers Life | Learning | Newsletter

Kids already sue the most powerful question in the world pretty early on.

It’s WHY.

Unfortunately, as adults, we seem to mostly forget this question and move on to the ones like HOW and WHAT. We are more focused on how and what we should do. If a client calls you or your boss to discuss an app idea or whatever, we are so conditioned to ask them how and what questions, so we can determine the scope of functionality and time consumptions. We are in doing mode.

Doing is important. But it should not be the first steps. Kids know that. They are still in the discovery phase. So they would ask your client, why do you want that? why is it important? why now? why not go to someone else? And on and on until the child’s curiosity is satisfied. Heck, as a parent that drove me nuts sometimes… Nonetheless, it is essential for her and I know that. I wasn’t afraid of having no answers. Sometimes it even showed me blindspots. So, being asked questions can help too. It’s about discovery and learning, not about what features to implement.

Tuning out of our doing mode actually helps and makes our dev lives easier. So, when was the last time you asked a client WHY questions?