Tips to Formulate Inquiry More Effectively

Inquiry can be in a form of:

Asking question seeking for answer, or
Asking someone to help with/perform certain actions.

It usually is aimed at someone else, who’s inquired to get a solution to a problem that we can’t resolve on our own. Why is it important to formulate a more effective inquiry? The benefits includes but not limited to:

Answerer are more willing to answer immediately.
Faster resolution time: no unnecessary back and forth discussion.
Better solution quality: a good problem statement, leads to good quality solution.
Easier for both asker & answerer to digest, communicate, and collaborate.
and other good stuff!

When raising inquiries, if you have ever experienced long resolution time, back and forth discussion with no proper solutions, and lot of miscommunications, it likely means you can improve that with some of the tips we gonna explain here.

Now that you are convinced, so here is a few tips on how to formulate more effective inquiry.

1. Express The Context of the Inquiry

Sometime inquiry being asked only consists of only small-part of the whole problem statement. Yes, it is easy to ask and easy to answer. But it can lead you to not proper solution.

Express the Context/Why/Reason/Background of the inquiry. Poor context leads to poor solution, a clear context leads to proper solutions.

Question that can help you identify context:

What is the goal I’m trying to achieve by asking this inquiry?
What is the real problem that trigger this inquiry?
What kind of answer I want to have by asking this inquiry?
What is the outcome of this inquiry can help me with?

Once you identify the context, explicitly express it within your inquiry.

Case study:

Amy want to extract .rar compressed file she recieves on her Mac, she only knows she can extract with Winrar on Windows PC. She poorly express her inquiry to Bill by not expressing the whole context of her problem, and Bill have no context of what she wants to do.

A: How can I transfer file from Mac to Windows?
B: You can use USB drive, or share via Google Drive.
A: Ok, thanks! I’ll use USB drive.
– Proceed with USB drive to transfer file to Windows PC
– Turn on PC, waiting to turn on
– plug USB drive
A: My USB drive is not readable by Windows, what’s wrong?
B: You need to format it as FAT file system.
A: Ah, ok!
– format USB drive
A: Hey, do you know where to download Winrar?
B: Yeah, download from here: <url>.
– Download Winrar, Install Winrar on PC, extract the file
– Copy the output to USB drive
– Copy from USB drive to Mac
– Open the file
– it took +30 mins in total
– now everytime Amy get the same problem, Amy do this tedious steps over and over again.

Amy didn’t explain the context or the goal of the inquiry, she just blindly throws questions she can think of. Yes it eventually is solved, but it is not the most proper solution, which even can complicate future cases.

Improved inquiry, Amy express the context up front:

A: (Context) I received a compressed.rar file on my Mac, I want to open it but Mac couldn’t extract it. (Inquiry) I guess if I can transfer this to my Windows PC, I can extract it from there, how can I transfer the file? Do you think it will work?

B: It will be much simpler if you can install RAR Extractor from Mac’s App Store, then extract the file from your Mac.
A: Oh, that thing exists?! Thanks, will try!
– it took only 5 mins
– they live happily ever after

Bonus benefit:

Explaining your reason psychologically proven to be able to boost the chance of people helping/answering to your inquiry.
You can also explain urgency of the inquiry within the context. So people can decide to prioritize your answer. e.g:

“Can you help me answer X, because I encounter issue Y, and my boss need this before his presentation today before lunch.”

Helpful Syntax

Derived form “User Story” concept of Agile methodology, there is this simple language syntax that can be helpful to capture a context. Here’s the syntax:

As a <subject>, I want <explain goal> so that <explain reason>.

Example:

As a Mac OS user, I want to extract a .rar compressed file, so that I can open the actual file inside, and send it to my boss.

2. Cut Unnecessary Intro, Express Your Business

Many people are trying to be “polite” by not directly asking the inquiry, and doing some introductory first. But many times it end up doing more harm and only annoy the answerer. Express your business (inquiry in this case) as soon as you can.

Case Study

Bill is busy, and only check his message every 30 mins. Amy try to be polite by doing some intro.

13:08| A: Hello Bill
– 22 mins later
13:30| B: Hello Amy
13:32| A: Are you availble to help with technical questions?
– 28 mins later
14:00| B: Yeah, what is it?
14:03| A: Can you help me how to do X …
– 27 mins later, Bill read the question
– B need 5 mins to explain how to do X
14:35| B: Here’s how to do X …
– took total +90 mins, just to answer a 5 mins question

Because of Amy send meaningless “Hello” messages at the beginning, it wasted everyone’s time, and it is annoying for Bill to respond to just “Hello” with no context while he is busy.

You can be polite while also be productive, please do this instead:

13:08| A: Hi Bill, I’m Amy from Z team, when you are available, I need your help to explain how to do X …
13:35| B: Hi, yeah sure, here’s how to do X …
– it took less than 30 mins

Even when the answerer is busy, the inquiry is answered fairly quickly. Because it allows asynchronous communication, answerer can think about the inquiry immediately, then can answer ASAP.

Next time, don’t be surprised if anyone doesn’t answer to your “Hello”, because they probably not a fan of answering inefficient messages.

3. Provide as much Evidence, Fact, & Chronology

< This section is WIP, and will be updated later; but anyway the idea is to give as much of information in terms of any Evidence, Fact, & Chronology that are related to the qyestion >

4. Express Any Assumption

Assumptions is not a proven fact, assumptions can also varies between people. E.g: A laptop fails to turn on, Amy assume the battery is the issue, Bill assume the harddisk is the issue. Assumption should be avoided to prevent miscommunication, but in most cases it cannot be avoided. In such cases, it is critical to explicitly tell if you are providing an assumption to avoid conflicting with other person’s assumption.

Case Study

Amy’s kid was playing with Amy’s phone, then suddenly the phone is now unable to receive any call.

– Amy assume the antenna is broken, but didn’t say her assumption and use the assumption as inquiry
A: Is it possible a drop can break a phone’s antenna?
B: Yeah, possible, any hardware can break from a drop.
A: Oh no! I think I’m gonna need to take my phone to repair shop. My kid drop it and the antenna is broken, it unable to receive any call.
A: Yeah, try the repair shop.
– Inaccurate solution was given, due to inaccurate assumption was used as inquiry

It can be improved a lot if Amy provide all the facts & explicitly express her assumption:

A: Help!!! (Expressing Context) My Phone unable to receive any call. (Expressing facts) My kid was playing with it, touched the screens, and I saw she dropped it to the floor! (Expressing assumption) I assume the drop break the antenna?

– B answer based on the fact first, before using assumption
B: Kid touched the screens, huh? Have you check if the Airplane mode is turned on? Unlikely the antenna is broken.
A: Oh, right! That’s the issue, Airplane mode was accidentally turned on by my kid, solved now!

Much better and accurate solutions, isn’t it?

Assumption itself can be helpful (if it come from experienced expert) or harmful. But even expert’s assumption still need to be tested for validity. So expressing which one is assumption helps to expose which one to be tested, not to believed unconditionally.

5. Break Down Inquiry to Tiny Bits

It is often for an inquiry to have multiple question or multiple context. If you feel your inquiry is overly “too much”, you may need to break it down.

Breaking it down can help answerer answer each of it easily and keeping the context separated. Also it is easier to read for human’s eye.

Case Study

This poor inquiry jumbled together multiple inquiry and context:

A: I logged in to my email, I can’t find my “Spam Folder”, I also unable to find the email that Joe send me, today. What is the issue?
B: We just had email migration today.
– B overwhelmed with the question and answered with most easy short answer.

A better inquiry would be:

A: I found some issue when I log in to my email:
I am unable to find email that Joe send me today.
I want to look in “Spam Folder”, but “Spam Folder” is missing.
Does 1 & 2 related, is there any issue with my email in general?

B: After some investigation, here is what happen:
We had email migration, email will appear on inbox by end of day.
Looks like that is some UI issue, I need to check further.
Not related. Will check 2 further.

6. Express Your Expectation of the Answer

In some tricky situation where the inquiry can have multiple intepretation or unclear expectation, it is critical to express your expectation of the answer.

Case Study

Amy just want to check Bill availability to deliver a gift box for her. But her questions can imply multiple intepretation.

A: Do you think you can help deliver this gift box to Joe?
B: Sure I can.
– Bill then proceed to deliver the gift box right away to Joe’s desk.
B: I have deliver it!
A: Oh no! Not today, I haven’t put any gift inside it. I mean you should deliver it tomorrow at his birthday and after I have put gift on it.
B: How could I know???

This awkward result can be easily avoided if Amy express her expectation:

A: Are you available to help deliver a gift box for Joe? (Expressing expectation) If you are, I need it to be delivered tomorrow on his birthday, after I put the gift in it. And you will need to put it just in front of his room not on his desk, so he could notice. Please let me know your availability.
B: Sure, I am available tomorrow, I can help.

Much better, Bill knows what to answer and what to do next.

7. Show That You Already Made an Effort

People will be more willingly to answer on an Inquiry that the asker show that he already made an effort and he still needs help.

For example, which one of this would you more willing to help:

“Please help me do my homework”

versus

“Please help me with this question in my homework, I have looked for it in textbook and on Wikipedia, but found no proper answer. I think you are knowledgable on this area and can help me.”

Note that effort can’t be faked, so it is better that if you really have made your effort.

8. The BDD Formula

Well this one especially helpful for technical inquiry. It is derived from a method of Software Development called BDD, it stands for Behaviour Driven Development. In BDD there is a formula to express a scenario in a simple and easy to follow languange expression.

Here is the example of the expression:

Scenario: John creates a LinkedIn Account

GIVEN John is on LinkedIn Registration page
WHEN he enters all the required registration > information
AND he hits ‘join now’

Expected:
THEN his LinkedIn account should be created
AND he should be directed to the profile creation page

Actual:
UNEXPECTEDLY he got this error message: “invalid email”.
AND he is stuck.

So the syntax

Scenario: <explain the scenario>
GIVEN,WHEN <explain all the current condition & facts>

Expected:
THEN <explain the expected good outcomes>

Actual:
UNEXPECTEDLY <explain the actual issue encountered>

This actually a human-friendly syntax, and if done right, can capture a lot of required informations to understand the issue thoroughly, for the answerer.

Conclusion

You rarely need to do all of that together. You can use few of them according to your specific situations. In which some points may be applicable, some may not, for that situation.

So that’s it, hopefully all these tips can help you formulate a better inquiry, which result in all the benefits explained. Which is a win-win for all party involved.

Additionally these tips are not just specifically applicable to formulating inquiry/question, it can be applicable to any kind of communication in general. Which can help you communicate your point more accurately, more clear, and easier to understand.

Q&A

Isn’t these tips require longer time for me to raise an inquiry?

It may seems like it will take you longer to formulate the inquiry, it probably is. But the real benefit is: total resolution-time will be much more shorter. Because clear communication require less thinking-time, less conflict, less mistake, and less back-and-forth follow up questions.

Even if it slower, the solution-quality will still be much better. Which still is a benefit anyway.

Why should I trust your tips?

Good question. You don’t have to trust it, you should find what’s works for you, and for a starter you can try some of my tips. After all that’s how I found these things that works for me, through trials.

But as context, I’ve been dealing with inquiry in 4+ years of my professional career. Sometimes I ask inquiry, and most of the time I am answering inquiry. I’ve work with top-value clients my workplace has, exchanging inquiry on daily basis, those includes top tech Unicorns, Enterprises, Govt Institution, etc. I’ve been involved together with C-level managerial to help solve issues for those high value clients occasionally. As well as with Engineering and Business Team. So I have not just learn a lot from these experiences, both technical and business wise, but also apply these on daily basis. As far as I can tell, it works pretty well and lots of issues got identified and solved, thanks to proper formulation of inquiry.

How did you learn about these tips?

I am not quite a text book person, so I mostly didn’t learn these things from reading. Also by no means these tips is scientifically validated. Mostly I learn it from experience, experimenting best practices, and deriving from proven methodologies from various fields (especially tech fields like Agile).