It annoys the crap out of me when people ask questions that indicate lack of understanding. In the past I would tend to try to give context but people often (u

It annoys the crap out of me when people ask questions that indicate lack of understanding. In the past I would tend to try to give context but people often (usually) think that you’re either being condescending or that you’re wasting their time and why won’t you just tell them the information they need. You have to be very careful with techniques like the author suggests. For example, the “only ask yes/no” questions. It is really easy to come across as an asshole that way. I worked at Microsoft years ago and they taught similar techniques as “precision questioning”. It is frequently a humiliating experience for the person being questioned. Now, when someone asks me a bad question, I usually just ask “what’s the question behind the question” or “what are you trying to accomplish”. Then I can easily provide the right amount of information if I know it. [edit] fixed autocorrect error