

Rands in Repose: The Twinge - filament
http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2010/04/26/the_twinge.html

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dpritchett
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>

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tjic
> 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.

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larsberg
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.

~~~
dpritchett
On the surface this looks similar to the Five Whys. [1] I wonder how well an
outsider can approximate PQA without buying a seminar?

[1] <http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/01/22.html>

~~~
kolya3
This seems like a useful synopsis of the seminar:
[http://sourcesofinsight.com/2009/01/14/precision-
questions-a...](http://sourcesofinsight.com/2009/01/14/precision-questions-
and-precision-answers/)

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Splines
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"?

