soft-skills
What is a good question? 2026-01-08 
Questions are generally either about information gathering or about delegation. This guide is about asking good informational questions. There is a separate article about delegation.
When asking questions it is important to be ready to receive questions back. These are not meant as criticism but are meant to reduce ambiguity. The same goes for people answering questions, if part of an answer is unclear you should definitely ask specific clarifying questions.
Questions need to have a few properties for them to be productive:
It must be intended to gather information
- If you want someone to do work you should delegate work to them, not ask a question
- If you are trying to point out problems without the expectation that they be solved by someone you should post in the Retro channel.
It should be directed at a specific person, not a group
When you ask questions to groups it is likely that you get on answer at all. If you want to ask a lot of people it helps to ask the question to everyone individually.
Try to be specific
Both the sender and receiver should ideally be able to understand what a good answer would look like. It's not bad to ask non-specific questions but you are likely to need a lot of roundtrips to get the information you need. For examples of specific quesions, see the list of question templates.
Prefer asking open ended questions
You often get a way better context by asking questions where the people answering can express ambiguity. In cases where you really need a Yes/No answer it's ok to ask a close ended question.
Show your work
When you ask someone a question they will not know what you have done before asking the question. It's important to summarize what you've tried.
Avoid blocking yourself
Make sure to ask questions that help you when answered and don't block you if unanswered. An example of a blocking question would be:
I think we should restart the Zulip server tomorrow to finish the upgrade, do you agree?
When you ask this question you are stalled until you receive an answer. Instead you can formulate it as follows:
I think we should restart the Zulip server to finish the upgrade. I intend to do so tomorrow between 12:00 and 14:00. Let me know if you have any objections.
Include all the relevant context
If you ask someone if they think you should restart Zulip it's important to include the fact that you are in the middle of an upgrade. Make sure to include the actions you took and the reasoning that got you to where you are.