The shape of questions a system invites

A system shapes the questions that get asked of it.

Some systems make ordinary questions easy: who changed this, when, and why. Others bury those same questions under three layers of joins, two services, and a slack thread from last quarter. The system has not refused to answer — it has simply made the question expensive enough to abandon.

What you can ask quickly becomes what you investigate. What you investigate becomes what you understand. The questions a system invites are, eventually, the model people hold of it.

Build for the questions you want people to keep asking.