Welcome back to another edition of T-SQL Tuesday! This month’s edition is hosted by my good friend Tim Mitchell (b). In this month’s edition, Tim asks participants to share “What’s in your data detective toolkit?“

The All Powerful…

… Question. That is what I now believe is the most important tool for a Data Detective.

Asking Questions Effectively

This nuance involves HOW you ask a question. Some of this involves knowing your audience. Is this the right place or the right time? Sometimes there comes a point where asking questions is just counter-productive because your audience has no interest in answering. And it also means you need to make sure you’re asking the correct audience in the first place.

Asking Effective Questions

This nuance involves structuring an individual question to get the answer that you are after. There are times you just want a Yes or No – so say that as part of your question. There are other times you want more details… sometimes you best state that up front too.

Framing

Another critical aspect to asking questions effectively and asking effective questions, is to properly frame the entire interaction. State WHY you are asking what you are asking. If it is a higher-stress situation, doing this effectively can help others understand that you’re trying to work towards a common goal of solving a problem.

Active Listening

Finally, the most important thing to all of this is learning how to ACTIVELY LISTEN. Too often, people will only hear one or two tidbits then immediately start thinking about what they want to ask or say or do next, rather than continuing to listen to the respondent. If you are talking just as much or MORE than the respondent, you’re not questioning or listening effectively.

Stop Jumping to Conclusions

One thing I’ve see all too regularly, is that someone will present a problem or a challenge, and people will immediately try to start to answer or address the challenge. But more often than not, not enough information is ever given initially. Why are you seeking to do this? What have you tried thus far? What is your desired outcome? What problem are you trying to solve for here?

It’s not good enough to just ask questions. Questions can sometimes put people on the defensive. Why are you putting me on trial? One must also learn how to ask questions effectively and learn how to ask effective questions. Yes, these are two distinct but critical nuances.

A Recent Example…

I enjoy spending time on Reddit and also enjoy answering questions on the r/SQLServer subreddit. Recently, someone asked about a data load that was “overwhelming the resources” and “slowing the API down to a level that’s unacceptable in production.” Most of the immediate respondents jumped in, assuming this was an on-prem SQL Server and trying to solve the challenge using only the initial information given.

Instead, I saw the necessity to dig deeper. The original poster (OP) then shared that this was an Azure SQL Database. Okay, that changes some of the rules here… so I dug deeper.

And eventually the OP stated that it was a Azure SQL DB on a single vCore, General Purpose tier! FULL STOP! I/O characteristics and potential is tied directly to the number of vCores one has allocated to an Azure SQL DB and well, one vCore is basically the lowest one can go. Might be fine for development, but how can one expect to run a Production application on a single vCore?!

So while other respondents gave great advice on how to tune a data load, none of it would do any good until OP actually increases the number of vCores of their Azure SQL DB!

Conclusion

If you’re reading this, you’re most likely already an inquisitive and curious type. As such, I hope this blog will encourage you to dig deeper and hone your skills around asking effective questions and asking questions effectively.

Thanks for reading!