Most people do not ask the right kind of questions when it comes to information gathering. If your questions can be answered with "yes" or "no", you are probably not getting as much information as you could if you would ask open questions. Open questions cannot be answered with "yes" or "no".

Yes and No Question Openers
If you start your questions with these words, you are very likely asking a yes or no question:

• Do – Do you think the server is the problem?
• Did – Did you reinstall the ODBC drivers?
• Are – Are you planning to install that new driver?
• Will – Will you be at the security training class?
• Were – Were you the one who updated the anti-virus definitions?
• Should – Should we consider an upgrade?

Open Question Openers
If you start your questions with these words, you are probably asking open questions:

• What – What do you think the problem is?
• Where – Where did you put the ODBC drivers?
• When – When will you be installing that new driver?
• Why – Why do you think we should attend the security training class?
• How – How should we do the upgrade?

Do you see the difference? (yes/no)

How do you think you can apply this knowledge? (with users, managers, consultants and vendors)

As you can see in these last two examples, yes and no questions can work as leaders to open questions. There is certainly a place for yes and no questions, but they are not the most powerful information gathering questions.

Examples of Open Question Rephrases
Here are a few examples of commonly asked yes or no questions rephrased as open questions:

• Did you do anything to the computer before it stopped working? (yes/no)
• What happened to the computer before it stopped working? (open)

• Are there any problems I should know about before buying this software? (yes/no)
• What are the biggest problems you've had with this software? (open)

• Have you worked with other companies in the same industry as ours? (yes/no)
• What other companies have you worked with in this industry? (open)

• Did you try rebooting? (yes/no)
• What have you tried so far? (open)

• Do you see the picture I'm painting in this article? (yes/no)
• What is the picture this article is painting in your mind? (open)

Summary
In summary, let me remind you of the important facts. There are times when we want to use yes and no questions; however, you'll gather more valuable information by asking open questions. Learn to rephrase your questions as open questions and you'll become a much better technical communicator.

The three levels of communications are:

• Level 1 – Intellectual
• Level 2 – Emotional
• Level 3 – Intellectual/Emotional

Level 1 Communications
Intellectual communications are very common in technical roles such as accounting, technology and engineering. It is a very important communication technique as it focuses on the practical side of any situation. When communicating intellectually you are communicating facts, figures, statistics, and processes.

Level 2 Communications
The emotional side of situations is also important to consider. There are many situations where the primary focus should be on the emotions involved such as some conflict resolution scenarios. Many times, the other party simply needs an empathetic ear. When you communicate emotionally you are communicating feelings, desires and sympathies.

Level 3 Communications
In most life situations, you will be most effective if you communicate both intellectually and emotionally. This is the core of what I call Level 3 Communications. At this level, you are communicating facts, figures and other intellectual information, but you are also considering the interest and concerns of the receiving party.

Level 3 Communications also allow you to listen effectively as you are focusing on the emotions of the other party and not just the words they are saying. It is important to remember that, in general communications, more than seventy percent of the meaning comes from the tone and body language of the communicator. Tone is often a reflection of emotion, as is body language. If you can learn to read facial expressions, tone of voice, and other subtle hints, you will be able to communicate with your work partners more effectively.

Summary
In the end, you will find the greatest effectiveness by combining intellectual and emotional communications into what I can Level 3 Communications. While I cover this in much greater detail in my Communicating IT book, seminars and audio program, this should get your thinking started in the right direction.

And now… a word from the IT Communications Doctor

The bad news: There is a tremendous disconnect between the average IT professional and the other groups in most organizations.

The good news: There is an easy solution.

The Disconnect

The average IT professional is extremely busy. With all the systems we support, applications we develop, data we warehouse and infrastructures we maintain, it seems impossible to get it all done. However, this busyness has caused many of us to seem disconnected from the rest of the organization.

Have you ever heard comments like this?

• “Those IT people just don’t understand what we need to get done.”
• “If the programmers just knew something about the business we’re in, we might be able to make some progress.”
• “I don’t understand why we need a new system. The old one was doing just fine.”

As the IT Communications Doctor™, let me diagnose these symptomatic statements.

Diagnosis: There is a disconnect between IT and these individuals – sometimes entire departments.

Prognosis: The IT group will have difficulty obtaining needed budget dollars and will be under continual stress from lacking accomplishments.

You may be thinking something like, “Tom, these people are just not technical enough to understand.” Are you ready for harsh reality? The problem is not entirely with “them”. It’s usually not that they are not “technical” enough. It’s usually that we, the IT professionals, are not “business” enough.

In order to connect with your cUStomERS, you must understand them. You must know how they do business. You must know what their business goals are. You must realize how they do their job and the reason they’re doing their job.

For example, can you answer these questions about the marketing manager in your organization?

• What is the marketing manager’s primary focus right now?
• What are some of the problems she/he is facing at this time?
• How does his/her department research a new product?

I know. You’re thinking, “I don’t have time to learn these things. I have my own job to do.”

You’re partly right. You don’t have to know all the nuances of how the marketing manager runs her department, but you should know the basics. The next time you’re tempted to say, “That’s not my job” ask yourself this question:

What is my job?

Here’s the answer. You are an Information Technology professional. What does this mean? It means you implement, manage and/or develop technologies that are used to manage, store and/or deliver information. Did you catch that? Information. Information!

How can we possibly implement technologies to deal with information if we don’t know what information we need to deal with or how our cUStomERS need to deal with that information? We can’t.

This is why we must remember that it is our job to understand how our organization operates from a business perspective.

If I am a database administrator, I need to understand how our databases are being used. I should know why information is being stored, how it is being retrieved and, at least basically, for what it is being used.

If I am a programmer, I should comprehend the processes in which my application will be used, how the process works from start to finish, what problem/need the process is intended to solve/fill and anything else that will have an impact on the users of my application.

Creating the Connection

Are you ready for the easy solution? It’s really simple: You have to create the connection.

Don’t rely on the other party to create the connection. Remember, you’re the expert in this scenario. They will be afraid to approach you. They will fear they might look stupid or unlearned. You have to create the connection.

How? By asking questions. Questions like these:

• What is the biggest challenge you’re facing at this time?
• How has technology impacted your group in the past year?
• What is the single most important area where we, the technology group, can help you do your job more efficiently?
• What is your short and long-term vision for your group?

Do you see how these questions create a connection? I am not trying to make the IT group look good. I am expressing a sincere interest in the other person’s problems, needs and dreams. When you do this, you begin to create connections.

Now, if you think you have the connections you need, answer this question honestly:

Can you remember a time in the last sixty days when you sat down with someone from another department or group and asked questions like those I’ve mentioned in this post?

If not, you don’t have the connections you need. The good news is that you can do this once or twice a month and it will begin to create these needed connections. The discussions will usually last less that thirty minutes to one hour and the rewards you reap will be tremendous.

Where do you start? That’s easy. Start with the group or individual that you feel is your biggest problem area. The group from which you hear the most complaints. The group that you think has a real problem with you. Begin to relate to this group or individual.

Before you meet with the group manager, prepare your questions and be prepared to listen without taking anything personally.

When you do these things you’ll begin to form connections that will lower your stress levels and really begin to show the “value of you” as an Information Technology professional.

To understand the issue from the cUStomERS' perspective, visit this blog post at another site titled The Great IT Disconnect. Or view other Professional Development posts here at TomCarpenter.net for the IT professional.

-Tom

In fact, I would suggest that the current economic conditions make communications more important than ever. If you are the IT manager or the IT director for your organization, I would encourage you to communicate the following information to your manager or director in the next two weeks – regardless of the normal procedures:

• What does your current budget look like and how can you help save the organization money in the next 12 months?
• Other than human capital, what can you cut while maintaining current service levels?
• What planned expenditures can be delayed and how will you deal with the productivity and functional limits the delay will cause?
• What are your top three ideas for running IT more efficiently?

Sharing this information will show that you’re thinking about the organization and you want to help everyone weather the storm. It not only builds good will; it is just plain good sense in times like these.

So maybe life seems so strangely hard to make because we have no idea how it started; maybe Earth’s conditions did not generate life but merely provided a good home.

Indeed, scientists have no fact-based idea of how life began. In fact, many have admitted that it is impossible to determine how it began. Some even suggest that it should not be considered and that time would be better spent by investigating ways to improve the life that is rather than guessing at how that life came to be. Regardless of where we stand on that issue, it does raise some interesting questions about IT operations and I’d like to focus on just one:

What can we do to solve a user problem regardless of who created it?

Maybe you’ve noticed it too. People seem to have a strong need to assign blame. For example, an IT professional may say, "Well, it was the user who deleted the table. So it’s not our fault." That statement may be true, but does it solve the problem. I don’t think so. Why not implement a solution that prevents the user from deleting the table in the first place? Maybe we didn’t think of this need during the genesis of the database implementation, but the current events should reveal the need. When we play the blame game, we tend to fix something quickly without implementing a permanent solution.

This cited example of the database table deletion is most revealing. If you are using Microsoft SQL Server, for example, it will take about one minute to create a DDL trigger that will prevent any user with permissions from deleting a table. One extra minute now could save hours later (how long will it take to rebuild a table and restore the data?). The point is that, while user training is great, sometimes it doesn’t matter how the problem (is life a problem? I’m not sure…) started as much as it is important to permanently solve it.