I have realized lately that my job as Product Manager actually consists of constantly asking questions (often naive questions) to get to the bottom of why things work the way they do, or why a design is heading in a particular direction. I didn’t realize there was a term for this kind of behavior, but I’ve been informed that there is — it’s Socratic. As in the philosopher Socrates.

“The only true wisdom consists of knowing you know nothing” - Bill philosophizing with Socrates

I end up doing this all the time. Asking questions to answer my question. It’s probably annoying sometimes, but it certainly works. As people explain designs to me I ask questions. But often times I’m just asking questions to help steer things in a direction that I think they need to go. Rather than just stating that something should be a certain way, I’ll ask questions to get the other person to realize that it should be a certain way.

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