Asking Questions Effectively

Why do people ask questions so inefficiently?  A majority of questions I receive about Revit are so poorly thought out that it is impossible to answer without further inquiry.  Would one go into a doctor’s office and just say, “I don’t feel well”?  How do you expect the doctor to even begin to help diagnose the issue with that amount of information?  You are forcing the doctor to waste time trying to narrow down the cause and thus causing you more time to get treatment.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t have a second to spare in my day.  If I get a question like this by email, “I am trying to do demolition work, it is not working how I thought it should. Can you help?”  Then the response is really NO, I cannot help because you did not provide any useful information for a respond.  Of course I am not going to say that I will not help, but their rate of response is going to be significantly longer.  I need to now ask the questions for the information they should have already sent.  If they had provided this information in the first place, then I could shoot them back a quick response with some things for them to try.

What information should be provided to ask a question effectively?

•  State what one is trying to accomplish
•  Is there an error? If so, what is the error and explain what you were doing at the time?
•  Is there a Process Issue?  If so, what did not work as expected and how did you do it?
•  Where can I see an example of the error or issue?
•  What steps have you already taken to figure out the issue?
•  What is degree of response need? Critical, Semi-Critical, Shortly or When Time Permits
•  Any additional information you can provide?

If at least some of the suggestions above are followed, then you would be able to quickly give suggestions to the question even if you are extremely busy and then follow-up later when time frees up.  The question really is, how do you actually get people to think through a question and not just blindly shoot off an email?  I was thinking that maybe there was a button, utilizing the Revit API menu, that would open a form for people within an office to ask for Revit support.  The form would then be emailed to the helpdesk or support individual.

Anyone else have any thoughts?

Comments

[David Wilt]

I love the idea of a button within revit that would open a form to fill out that would then emailed to the 'revit support'.

The list you gave could be part of the form to fill out. They HAVE to fill in each line item in order to send to 'support'. Did you ever put something like this together?

What information should be provided to ask a question effectively?

■ State what one is trying to accomplish
■ Is there an error? If so, what is the error and explain what you were doing at the time?
■ Is there a Process Issue? If so, what did not work as expected and how did you do it?
■ Where can I see an example of the error or issue?
■ What steps have you already taken to figure out the issue?
■ What is degree of response need? Critical, Semi-Critical, Shortly or When Time Permits
■ Any additional information you can provide?

[David Wilt]

...in case i didn't sound excited and interested in a 'revit support' button I am! I'm heading a group in our office of about 5 people. Right now, we have an email distribution list which people email with questions...but the idea of a button in revit would be great. I haven't gotten into the API yet...though have had an interest for quite some time. I did some programming quite some time ago and have been interested in finding some resource that could get me a better understanding of how to start. Any suggestions?

Thanks!

[Jason Grant]

David

Thanks for reminding me about this post and pointing out that it would be great within Revit. Perhaps I will look into it for an API project for internal emailing to the help desk.

[Jason Grant]

I would suggest c# as the programming language. If you install the Revit SDK and look at the samples and documentation it should help you get an understanding. Also, check out the Autodesk University sessions.