Suggest Without Full Context

dennyzhang

URL: https://quantcodedenny.com/posts/suggest-without-context/

A living runbook for learning from and giving suggestions to other teams Why This Matters: Cross-team collaboration is a critical part of tech lead work, yet you are often asked to provide input on projects where you don’t have full visibility.

  • Well-crafted suggestions, grounded in understanding and context, can amplify impact, build credibility, and accelerate learning for both teams.
  • Poorly framed suggestions can create friction, reduce trust, or block progress.

Core Principles

  1. Understand Before Suggesting

    • Do the deep dive yourself; validate information.
    • Focus on what (goal/outcome), not how.
    • Check: Do I understand their goal even with limited context?

  2. Respect People and Context

    • Acknowledge effort before giving input.
    • Match discussion level (process vs details).
    • Expect pushback as feedback, not resistance.

  3. Keep It Simple and Actionable

    • Avoid information overload.
    • Tie suggestions to metrics and outcomes they care about.
    • Clarify who owns follow-up actions.
    • Check: Are my suggestions relevant, concise, and actionable?

  4. Share and Co-Own (Optional)

    • Frame suggestions as options, not orders.
    • Offer help or co-ownership to turn ideas into action.
    • Check: Am I ready to co-own implementation or provide support if needed?

Scenarios & How to Engage

High-Pressure, Short-Context Scenarios

(Few minutes to give input, limited context)

  • Approach
    • Focus on the goal or desired outcome.
    • Ask high-leverage, pattern-based questions.
    • Prioritize comments that are high-impact and low-risk.
    • Signal limited context but contribute thoughtfully.
    • Clarify follow-up / ownership if action is triggered.
  • Examples
    • SEV postmortem review
    • Rapid design review
    • Urgent cross-team triage

Scenario: Standard Context Scenarios

(More time to explore context)

  • Approach
    • Deep dive into details if needed.
    • Understand tradeoffs and context fully.
    • Offer concrete suggestions with examples from prior experience.
    • Frame suggestions in alignment with team goals.
  • Examples
    • Process improvement sharing
    • Quarterly roadmap sync
    • Tooling/infra collaboration

LLM Prompt Template for Continuous Improvement

I’m updating my "Suggest Without Full Context" runbook.

Please:
1. Incorporate them into the blog structure (principles, scenarios, checklist).
2. Smooth the flow for readability.
3. Highlight new insights and actionable points.
4. Use org-mode format for output

Here are my raw notes in org-mode format:
<PASTE NOTES>