Answers for Inquisitive Managers

I found via Reeder (my preferred RSS feed reading app) a post by Glen Alleman on Herding Cats about the four answers to a manager’s (Business or Project) question. He lists them (I have made minor changes to clarify answer 4) as:

1. Yes
2. No
3. A Number
4. I'll get back to you on [day] with the answer that is 1, 2, or 3

This is a good list but the author (Alleman cites an unnamed colleague) has assumed all questions can be answered and this assumption is false if we use only the above list of possible answers. To complete the list we need to add a fifth option: “Here is a detailed explanation” (we also need to enhance Answer 4 to include a variant of “I don’t know” but that doesn’t extend Alleman’s list).

It is easy to see why “Here is a detailed explanation” isn’t on the list; many managers act as if all questions can be answered with a simple yes/no/number, assuming that the provision of additional energy (usually in the form of sound waves generated by bellowing) can overcome any problem.

In many cases they are right (although asking questions like “why is that”, “how can we resolve that problem”, “where are your supporting data”, “have you considered [x]” or “can you explain that assumption” can also be very effective) but there are often questions whose answers do not fit into the above categories. Here are some examples:

1. When will the team be up to strength? Unanswerable - we only know the vacancies are filled when the last team member turns up to work.
2. When will the next milestone be reached? Normally answered by 3 or 4 but if you have team vacancies, see point a.
3. When will major problem [x] be resolved? Unknown - you could guess but sometimes (especially in my field, software development) you just need to let your people work on the problem until it has been resolved.
4. Why did major problem [x] occur and what have we done to avoid a recurrence? “Why” or “How” questions often require more than a yes/no/number answer.

It may be that a careful manager could phrase questions to provoke only the four answers listed above but it is likely that most managers would want to ask whatever they felt was necessary.

Taking this into account, I propose the following list of possible answers for management:

1. Yes
2. No
3. A number (integer range, date estimate etc.)
4. Detailed answer 
5. I don’t know yet; I'll get back to you on [day] with an answer that is 1-4 

I have two further comments. Firstly, investigation (see answer 5) will sometimes lead to a detailed answer like “we can’t answer this question”; this is a perfectly reasonable response (although it may lead to a “try again” response). Secondly, detailed answers should be as brief as possible (summarise your summary, then remove extraneous words) because many people will ignore long, complicated answers (especially if they aren’t the answers they want).