Rands in Repose: The Twinge

Rands:

A Twinge is your experience speaking to you in an unexpected and possibly unstructured way, and while you don’t want to base your management strategy on these amorphous moments of clarity, I do want to explain their importance in the organization. ... As a manager, when the story doesn’t quite feel right, you demand specifics. You ask for the details of the story to prove that it is true. If the story can’t stand up to the first three questions that pops your mind, there’s an issue.

Gladwell:

When it comes to something like dating, we all readily admit to the importance of what happens in the first instant when two people meet. But we won't admit to the importance of what happens in the first two seconds when we talk about what happens when someone encounters a new idea, or when we interview someone for a job, or when a military general has to make a decision in the heat of battle. [1]

[1] http://www.gladwell.com/blink/index.html

> Sniffing around pisses people off. Sniffing around is often interpreted as micromanagement, a passive aggressive way of stating, “I don’t believe you can do your job.”

Too true. There are a lot of great things about managing engineers, but once or twice I've had direct reports who get extra-pissy when I would ask for details. ... details which, in fact, were vital to dig into, because once I had these details I found out that there were huge areas of rot in the structure of the plan.

At Microsoft, managers went through training to develop what he called "The Twinge." It's a technique called Precision Questioning & Answering: http://www.vervago.com/program_services.html

Absolutely fantastic. I can't recommend it enough. Well, except to warn that you have to try not to apply it in real life, as it tends to rub the untrained the wrong way.

Sounds like useful information for managing upwards as well. What information can you provide to your manager such that they don't need to rely on "The Twinge"?