Two weeks of tallying

For two weeks, keep a tally. Every time someone asks you something, write it down: the question, roughly as they asked it, and who asked. In chat, in email, at your desk, in the corridor. Do not answer differently; just record.

At the end you will have a list, and it will surprise you. Most people find that a small number of questions account for most of the asking, that the same question comes in a dozen phrasings, and that a proportion of what they answer is not knowledge at all but reassurance ("is it OK if I..."). All three are useful.

The tally is the specification for the assistant. It tells you what to build, in what order, and it gives you the exact phrasings to test against later.

In practice. An operations lead in a mid-sized firm kept the tally for ten working days. 143 questions. Twenty-two distinct ones. The top five accounted for 71. Two of the five were answered by a document that already existed and nobody could find. She had been a search engine.

At your desk. Start the tally today. A note on your phone is enough. Question, who, date. Two weeks. Do not build anything yet.

Write it down.

• Questions tallied so far:
• The one that comes up most:
• How many I answered by finding a document: