Chris Fenning explains why you should verify someone can actually answer your question before asking it. Asking the wrong person wastes time, hurts your reputation, and keeps you from getting the right answer.
How to ask questions tip number 4: check that you're asking the right person. When you approach someone to ask a question, usually you'll know if you're speaking to the right person or not, but sometimes you might not be sure. If you're looking for information or advice, you may not know for certain that you're speaking to somebody who has the answer, so it's always best to check. Now, if you don't do this early in your question, you may end up asking one or more questions or giving a lot of detail and the person you're speaking to not being the right person to help you. When that happens, you're wasting your time and their time. It can damage your reputation, and more importantly, you don't get the information or answer that you need. So how can you check whether you're talking to the right person? Well, at the beginning of your conversation, ask a short question to check whether they're the person who can help. For example, hi, I'm trying to find information about a project from 2 years ago. Do you know, or do you have the information about Project ABC? You can ask the person if they have the information, or if they are the right person, before you then go into the detailed and specific questions that you want. If you do this, you're more likely to get the information you want from the right person, you're less likely to waste time, and you are going to ask good questions.
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