soft-skills
What is the difference between a question (information gathering) and asking someone to do something (delegation)? 2026-01-09 
When asking questions it's important to clearly think about the intent of the question. Productive questions almost always fall in one of two categories: information gathering or delegation.
The easiest way to determine in which category a question falls is by figuring out if the receiver of the question is supposed to do more work than just answering off the top of their head. If they are expected to investigate or do work instead of answering 'I don't know' it is delegation.
A good example of a delegation is:
Would you mind restarting the Zulip server tomorrow between 12:00 and 13:00?
A good example of information gathering is:
I need to restart the Zulip server tomorrow, are there things that are important to check before doing so?
Sometimes there will be ambiguity in the exact categorization. This example is still delegation as it forces the receiver to come up with a full plan:
I've been told to restart the Zulip server tomorrow, what should I do?
Instead it's often better to phrase the question in a way where the recever can answer with 'I don't know':
I've been told to restart the Zulip server tomorrow, is there already a process for this?