Assumptions are nothing more than lies that we are telling ourselves — Don Miguel Ruiz
Hi there internet, it’s been a while since we’ve spoken. 2022 was a busy year as you already know: The war in Ukraine, a looming economic recession, and Elon Musk buying Twitter are a few things that have been eating up my attention and yours. I meant to continue with this series months ago, but better late than never, right?
Let’s continue with another engineering concept that has helped my personal and professional relationships: avoiding ambiguity.
When I was a child, I hated to read. Given the choice between throwing red shells at my friends in Mario Kart or dragging through pages to figure out if Mr. Sawyer finished white washing a fence, I’d choose the red shells one-hundred percent of the time. It wasn’t until I was adult that I grew an appreciation for leisurely reading.
One of the most influential books I’ve read is The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. This book talks about four agreements we can make with ourselves to live a more fulfilling life:
- Be Impeccable With Your Word.
- Don’t Take Anything Personally.
- Don’t Make Assumptions.
- Always Do Your Best.
Each of these agreements can be applied to your professional career, but as an engineer, the third agreement, “Don’t Make Assumptions”, is the one that resonated with my line of work.
We express our thoughts and desires with natural language, which is riddled with ambiguity. It’s these equivocal holes that allows us to create linguistic art forms such as poetry and riddles. As much as these art forms encourage lateral thinking and expression, natural language becomes a liability during the creation of software because of its ambiguous nature. Humans can process ambiguity; however, a computer can not. It needs precise instructions.
Software is created to solve problems, and before we can solve these problems we first have to identify what the problem is. Too often, software is written to solve a problem that no one asked to solve. When this happens, it’s usually caused by a misunderstanding of requirements.
Clients describe their problems using natural language, and it’s our responsibility as engineers to interpret what they say and provide a solution for their problems. Their descriptions, as innocuous as they seem, are filled with ambiguity. Even the last sentence you just read has ambiguity naturally built-in.
“Their descriptions, as innocuous as they seem, are filled with ambiguity.”
“Their” implicitly refers to the client; “they” refers to the descriptions. Rewritten, the explicit version of the sentence becomes:
“Clients’ descriptions, as innocuous as descriptions seem, are filled with ambiguity.”
The above example may appear trivial. We made reasonable assumptions while reading the sentence, but within the context of software development, such minor assumptions can snowball into avalanches of incorrect features, missed deadlines and demotivated teammates.
Ambiguity lives within the shroud of assumptions.
Requirements elicitation is a broad topic that would be out of scope for this post, but I will touch on a technique we use to facilitate the process: Asking clarifying questions.
Communication is a two-way street. Your interpretation of a requirement may differ from another person’s interpretation. This is why it’s imperative to ask clarifying questions to ensure all involved parties are on the same page. Let’s take a look at a simple example of gathering requirements for a project.
Marketing Team: We need a bike for the upcoming campaign we’re promoting.
Engineer: Ok, we can do that.
* 2 days later *
Engineer: Here’s the bike you requested.
Marketing Team: Hmm, this isn’t what we expected. You gave us a motorcycle, we expected a bicycle. The campaign is targeted at kids.
The above encounter resulted in two days of wasted development. Despite this example being minor, you can extrapolate how multiple errors like this can add days, weeks, and months to a project. Let’s repeat the interaction but we’ll add some clarifying questions to the interaction this time.
Marketing Team: We need a bike for the upcoming campaign we’re promoting.
Engineer: Ok, tell us more about the bike. Is there a specific color, size, make? Why do you need a bike, what is your campaign about?
Marketing Team: Good questions. We’re looking for a small bike that children can use. Our campaign is advocating for child safety on the streets. Preferably a red/orange colored bike. Research shows that customers respond positively to warmer colors.
Engineer: Ok, so you’re looking for a small, red/orange bicycle (not a motorbike) that a child can ride?
Marketing Team: Yup! That sounds correct.
* 2 days later *
Engineer: Here’s the bicycle you requested.
Marketing Team: Thank you! This is perfect for our campaign. Great job.
We see how asking clarifying questions removed ambiguity which resulted in effective engineering and a pleased stakeholder. Minimal actions such as these add up over the timeline of projects, and can make the difference between failed projects and successful ones.
“Ok, you’ve talked about engineering and work so far, how do I apply to this to my personal life Ashcir?”. Good question. Let me tell you.
I’ve battled with insecurities my entire life. Am I good enough? What will they think of me? Maybe I don’t deserve this? Are some of the questions I have asked myself throughout my life in a professional and romantic settings. In my past relationships these insecurities led me down a rabbit hole of foolish thoughts and assumptions that led to arguments and resentment.
If I had an issue with an ex, instead of communicating with them, I would assume they knew something was wrong. If they were in a bad mood, I’d assume I was the reason for their doleful state. I would fabricate an iceberg of senseless scenarios derived from assumptions.
This led to resentment, which led to unnecessary quarrels, which ultimately resulted in our breakup.
I wasted hours navigating around an insecurity iceberg when in reality it was more like an ice cube that could be melted by asking heartwarming, clarifying questions.
Instead of assuming my partner knew that I was upset, I started saying,
Me: “Hey, do you remember what you said during dinner last night about my friend? It made me feel uncomfortable, and it has been on my mind since the morning. Can we talk about it?”
Instead of assuming my partner was in a bad mood because of something I did, I started saying,
Me: “You seem off today. Are you ok? Is something bothering you, do you want to talk about it?”
I strive to ask the uncomfortable questions because I’ve learnt what happens if I do not. Nowadays, I enjoy more secure relationships where my partner and I support each other, as opposed to bickering over trivialities. Instead of wallowing in the pit of insecurities and doubt, we have to pull ourselves out of it with effective communication.
Effective and consistent communication improves relationships
Ambiguities and insecurities thrive in an assuming environment. They are weeds that cause unnecessary grief and torment in the garden of life. However, we can utilize questions which are the tools to remove these weeds and allow our garden to flourish. Using these tools requires strength and courage. The strength and courage to be vulnerable; to ask the questions that brings us closer to our loved ones. It requires strength and courage to face our fears which is an uncomfortable experience. But without it, there’s no growth, and what stops growing is on the path to dying.
In essence, remember the following:
- Mitigate assumptions; ask questions.
- If you feel insecure or unsure, talk to about it. Communication shreds insecurities.
- Consistent communication enforces reliability, and reliability builds trust.
If you found this enjoyable, check out the other posts I’ve written about communication and handling insecurities.
