[pacaro]

This isn't an honesty thing. Many cultures (both in terms of social culture and work culture) have a strong aversion to saying no. Some languages barely have a word for it.

Even when those aren't issues yes/no questions rarely have the precision that you want, often you can phrase a question to seem like it only has a binary answer, but the real answer is way more complicated. Basic project management principles come into play here. As other posters have commented, asking what someone will be working on first, setting up tracking tasks etc.