[692]

at highlevel, you must know what you're supposed to deliver, which can be extremely difficult when not everyone does (incl yourself) so people start to second guess things to 'get things moving' which can be a huge risk and potentially completely wrong.

Understand the actual problem , write it down and repeat back to get confirmation.

write down the (non)functional requirements from the stakeholders, the exact scope of work before doing anything, again repeat back to get confirmation,

In the murky world of greyness where people do not really know information or the full set of data, agree (again before starting work) on little subtasks/ plans to get the information (PoC)

Write down the Risks/ Assumptions/ Issues/ Dependences of your actions and again get them signed off

all this takes time and can be extremely boring relative to getting stuff done, so a lot of people just do stuff they think is right

[skydhash]

I think that managers should involve themselves in that. I've worked with people who think that giving you a task and receiving an implementation or status report is their unique job. But when you want to flesh out the task and request for more information, they see you as bothersome.