5 ms·

Just as important: ask "stupid" questions if you're a Lead or a Principal or whatever. First, you don't know everything, no one does. Second, it makes it easier

Just as important: ask "stupid" questions if you're a Lead or a Principal or whatever. First, you don't know everything, no one does. Second, it makes it easier for the Junior devs to ask their questions.

sawmurai 5y ago
We had a rule during apprenticeship that we would would ask questions if we saw that a fellow was struggling to comprehend - and was too slow / shy to ask on their own, even if we already understood. We would ask these questions as stupidly as possible (within reasonable boundaries, of course) to make the teacher not just repeat what they already said but to make them find another way to explain it. That's when I learned that ego has no place in learning.
lelandfe 5y ago
I worked for a lead early on in my career who changed my life through observing his management style One thing he did: ask questions he already knew the answers to on big meetings I initially thought he had a bad memory. Instead, he was thinking like a new hire. What would a college hire want explained right now? And you’re also right, once someone with sway has asked a question - and been met with an honest answer - it makes it easier for others to do the same
- noirbot 5y ago
  The one difficulty with this, and one I've had trouble with before, is when this strays into me, as a team member, being unsure if we're intentionally trying to look dumb/make something look harder than it is to another party in the company as part of some sort of internal politics. Even less deviously, it can certainly throw a wrench into a meeting to have to explain some things to the least experienced person in the room, even if it's by proxy of someone more senior. I've had plenty of planning meetings get derailed because someone asked a lot of basic questions that 3/4 or more of the participants surely knew the answer to. Sometimes there's just value in following up later with your senior engineer about something you didn't understand instead of holding up a number of other people to get the explanation right now.

sawmurai 5y ago

We had a rule during apprenticeship that we would would ask questions if we saw that a fellow was struggling to comprehend - and was too slow / shy to ask on their own, even if we already understood. We would ask these questions as stupidly as possible (within reasonable boundaries, of course) to make the teacher not just repeat what they already said but to make them find another way to explain it. That's when I learned that ego has no place in learning.

lelandfe 5y ago

I worked for a lead early on in my career who changed my life through observing his management style One thing he did: ask questions he already knew the answers to on big meetings I initially thought he had a bad memory. Instead, he was thinking like a new hire. What would a college hire want explained right now? And you’re also right, once someone with sway has asked a question - and been met with an honest answer - it makes it easier for others to do the same

noirbot 5y ago
The one difficulty with this, and one I've had trouble with before, is when this strays into me, as a team member, being unsure if we're intentionally trying to look dumb/make something look harder than it is to another party in the company as part of some sort of internal politics. Even less deviously, it can certainly throw a wrench into a meeting to have to explain some things to the least experienced person in the room, even if it's by proxy of someone more senior. I've had plenty of planning meetings get derailed because someone asked a lot of basic questions that 3/4 or more of the participants surely knew the answer to. Sometimes there's just value in following up later with your senior engineer about something you didn't understand instead of holding up a number of other people to get the explanation right now.