← Benjamin J. Sunter 1 minute
Operating notes

The smallest ask that works

Benjamin J. Sunter · Sep 2026

Early on, I built intake forms around what I needed. I didn't think about what anyone would fill in.

I've seen a support request form run past a dozen pages, asking about the request, the person, the account and everything else under the sun. Half of what it collected was never read by whoever processed the request. It was there in case someone needed it. This was at Google, where the CRM already held most of those answers.

THE FORM I BUILT42 fields, twelve pagesread by the person processing the requestcollected in case somebody needed itTHE FORM NOWAccount ID. Everything else fills in automatically.
Every field costs somebody thirty seconds. Multiply that by everyone who ever files a request, then compare it to how often the answer gets looked at.

Nobody used those forms, and for a while I blamed the stakeholders.

The problem was me. I was asking people to type in things I couldn't look up myself, so my gaps became their extra work.

Now I ask for as little as I can. An account ID, and the rest fills in from the records system. The only free text left is for things no system holds, like any history with a partner you'd want to know about before you walk in.

I learned to query the data myself mostly so twenty other people didn't have to make up for what I couldn't do.