The Art of Asking a Question

As a “subject matter expert” my job is often just answering questions, but giving a good answer sometimes is difficult because of the question itself. Some questions seem easy, like “what time will the sun rise tomorrow?”  but is that really a simple question?

There are a lot of assumptions in that question – are we in the same location? If I’m in Astoria and you’re a hundred miles southeast of me in Portland, sunrise can be almost 10 minutes different… in December; but it’s only two minutes different in June. And then there are things like tall hills that change when the sun will crest your horizon…

Context is very important in questions; if you’re asking a “simple” question like what time the sun rises, it might matter to know why you want to know. First light can be half an hour before sunrise, meaning the sky starts to get light and color starts to come back into the world and you can get out for a morning run or bike ride without worrying about having a lighting system.

But if you need your solar panel to start charging, you’re going to need to know when the rays of the sun will reach your panel, which might be well after sunrise depending on buildings or trees around you.

The question/answer gap gets worse when someone with very little experience asks a question without context to someone with a lot of experience. The questioner might get frustrated because they’re suddenly being asked questions about their question like, “do you mean first light, cresting sun, or full daylight?”

“I don’t know, I just want to know when the sun rises!”

Then the expert launches into a lecture on the subtle differences of twilight, gloaming, sunrise, daybreak… and the person asking the original question gets more frustrated because none of that seems to make any sense and we’re just going down a rabbit hole. The expert is no better at this point because this just pummels the questioner with unrelated facts again, without context.

The art of asking a question is context. You need to understand why you’re asking the question and what the outcome is you’re looking for. And you need to be able to articulate that outcome either as part of the question or as a follow up.

Asking,

What time does the sun rise?
I want to go for a run in the morning in Austin without a head lamp or reflectors, when is it light enough for me to start?”

gets you a different answer than

What time does the sun rise?
I live on a north facing hill in Astoria, what time of day will my solar panel start producing electricity?”

Both of which are very different answers than “7:53.”