January 17, 2010 at 22:11“A correctly asked question is half the answer” (c)
I thought, what can I share with reputable habretchitelami, except purely specialized knowledge. Probably, many consider chewing manuals to be superfluous, but for many years I have been doing just that, answering a ton of questions every day. And I know firsthand what it is like to answer unspoken questions :)
Therefore, I considered it possible to describe a few simple rules that, it seems to me, can help the communication process.
1. No need to get involved in jargon.Often people are shy and timid, communicating with more experienced interlocutors. Someone just keeps quiet, and someone begins to pour an abundance of pseudo-crazy words, slang, abbreviations. And the less a person understands and becomes more timid, the more incoherent the stream of consciousness becomes;) Probably, it is impressive for not too sophisticated interlocutors.
2. Try to speak simply . Even if you are fully versed in the issue and master the terminology, this does not mean that the interlocutor knows all the same words. In addition, simplicity brings together. In simple and understandable words, it is easier to achieve mutual understanding. There is a widespread opinion: if you can’t explain to a junior high school student how this works, then you don’t understand yourself :)
3. Formulate the question completely. It may turn out that there is no question either, or the first half of the “question” is not connected with the second.
4. Brevity is the sister of talent . Everyone knows, but interpreted differently. Often, for example, "conceal" part of the input data. They probably want to hit at the most interesting moment;)
5. And at the same time, you do not need to add unnecessary information that is not related to the issue . How often, trying to find out, say, about address translation, the question begins with a full description of the entire network, including printers and access points;)
6. Try to answer your own question yourself . Is it even possible? For example, people often like to ask rhetorical questions, but wait for real answers. And they’re even angry if they don’t answer :)
In order not to be unfounded, I will give a few examples. Forgive me for the topic of examples :)
Here is the splendor “I am linking policies to a link, shaping traffic, randomly dropping, but still the link is flapping.” it’s probably better to replace it with something like “The QoS rule for output works on the interface. When the queue is overloaded, packets drop randomly. Could this affect the periodic fall of the channel? ”
Or, directly, an article in Networkers: “The network uses high-performance equipment from different manufacturers and configured effective protocols that comply with the RFC to ensure fault tolerance and interoperability. When you try to use the modified timeouts, a drop in the performance of the entire network is observed. Attempts to localize the problem have not yet led to anything. How would you advise effectively to juggle this system? ” There are so many beautiful words here that by the end of the sentence you were already inspired by the coolness of the questioner, but alas, I forgot the question :). Perhaps it would be better to add the right one (a description of the technologies used) and throw out pathos. For example, like this: “The network uses switches of different companies. Between them are configured protocols RSTP and LACP. We tried to change some parameters of these protocols, but there were problems: performance drops sharply. We have not yet been able to solve them. Are there any pitfalls in setting up these protocols? ”
Or another masterpiece: "What do you advise me to do more on my network?" I understand that often the instructor is even cooler than the first teacher for junior high school students and must magically solve all the problems of the questioner, well-known and not yet known :) And even somehow embarrassingly like the ardor to extinguish :)
And I also allow myself the observation: the skill is slim, clear and simple to state my thoughts have not harmed anyone yet. And often it helped to occupy higher positions only due to the fact that a person can communicate normally with management. Without overloading the excess "technique", which often does not understand the head, but clearly explaining the problem (perhaps inventing on the fly :))
The objections and amendments are accepted with pleasure :)
(Brazen take advantage and be hid thof the resulting manual for my forum :)))
Sergey Fedorov, cisco teacher, CCIE Security
Therefore, I considered it possible to describe a few simple rules that, it seems to me, can help the communication process.
1. No need to get involved in jargon.Often people are shy and timid, communicating with more experienced interlocutors. Someone just keeps quiet, and someone begins to pour an abundance of pseudo-crazy words, slang, abbreviations. And the less a person understands and becomes more timid, the more incoherent the stream of consciousness becomes;) Probably, it is impressive for not too sophisticated interlocutors.
2. Try to speak simply . Even if you are fully versed in the issue and master the terminology, this does not mean that the interlocutor knows all the same words. In addition, simplicity brings together. In simple and understandable words, it is easier to achieve mutual understanding. There is a widespread opinion: if you can’t explain to a junior high school student how this works, then you don’t understand yourself :)
3. Formulate the question completely. It may turn out that there is no question either, or the first half of the “question” is not connected with the second.
4. Brevity is the sister of talent . Everyone knows, but interpreted differently. Often, for example, "conceal" part of the input data. They probably want to hit at the most interesting moment;)
5. And at the same time, you do not need to add unnecessary information that is not related to the issue . How often, trying to find out, say, about address translation, the question begins with a full description of the entire network, including printers and access points;)
6. Try to answer your own question yourself . Is it even possible? For example, people often like to ask rhetorical questions, but wait for real answers. And they’re even angry if they don’t answer :)
In order not to be unfounded, I will give a few examples. Forgive me for the topic of examples :)
Here is the splendor “I am linking policies to a link, shaping traffic, randomly dropping, but still the link is flapping.” it’s probably better to replace it with something like “The QoS rule for output works on the interface. When the queue is overloaded, packets drop randomly. Could this affect the periodic fall of the channel? ”
Or, directly, an article in Networkers: “The network uses high-performance equipment from different manufacturers and configured effective protocols that comply with the RFC to ensure fault tolerance and interoperability. When you try to use the modified timeouts, a drop in the performance of the entire network is observed. Attempts to localize the problem have not yet led to anything. How would you advise effectively to juggle this system? ” There are so many beautiful words here that by the end of the sentence you were already inspired by the coolness of the questioner, but alas, I forgot the question :). Perhaps it would be better to add the right one (a description of the technologies used) and throw out pathos. For example, like this: “The network uses switches of different companies. Between them are configured protocols RSTP and LACP. We tried to change some parameters of these protocols, but there were problems: performance drops sharply. We have not yet been able to solve them. Are there any pitfalls in setting up these protocols? ”
Or another masterpiece: "What do you advise me to do more on my network?" I understand that often the instructor is even cooler than the first teacher for junior high school students and must magically solve all the problems of the questioner, well-known and not yet known :) And even somehow embarrassingly like the ardor to extinguish :)
And I also allow myself the observation: the skill is slim, clear and simple to state my thoughts have not harmed anyone yet. And often it helped to occupy higher positions only due to the fact that a person can communicate normally with management. Without overloading the excess "technique", which often does not understand the head, but clearly explaining the problem (perhaps inventing on the fly :))
The objections and amendments are accepted with pleasure :)
(Brazen take advantage and be hid thof the resulting manual for my forum :)))
Sergey Fedorov, cisco teacher, CCIE Security