The reflex
The request is written and you could start. Yet the expected result stays vague enough that you hesitate between several ways of doing it.
The builder’s reflex
Ask what problem the work has to solve, for whom, and what you need to know before committing further.
Why
A request can pass through several people. At each relay, details get selected to make the work understandable. It is worth recovering the ones that change the solution, without assuming every summary distorts the need.
A customer cannot find their invoices. The request becomes “add a search”. Examining one case, the team finds the expected invoices are attached to another account. A search may still be useful, but it does not necessarily answer this difficulty.
Understanding the goal helps you choose which cases to handle, which quality to preserve, and where to stop. It does not require knowing everything before you start. A first attempt can be exactly how you understand, provided it is bounded, authorised, and has no consequence that is hard to undo. Conversely, a costly decision, or one hard to reverse, deserves clarifying the important unknowns before the commitment. In an emergency, apply the frame that exists to protect the service, and note the questions to come back to.
If you are starting out, ask for a concrete example of the expected result. If you are helping someone learn, explain the context rather than making it a guessing game. Being unable to find missing information on your own is not a measure of the ability to build.
Try this
Before a task, write an honest assumption:
I understand this has to let [who] [do what], because today [difficulty]. Is that right?
Do not invent a wrong answer to provoke a reaction. Name what you are missing and the decision that information would change.
Agree what can start and what has to wait. After the first attempt, compare the result to the goal and correct your reading if you need to.
From where you sit
- Product: pass on the need as known and the assumptions still to be checked.
- Founder: state the service or learning goal before the commitment.
- Management: explain the goal before asking people to act.
- Customer relations: separate the need as expressed, its context, and the proposed solution.
- Recruiting: do not open a role whose problem to solve you cannot state.
To discuss
On which task would a clarification of the goal change our next decision?