The invisible questions behind the literal question

If I ask a colleague "How is this project going?", it's generally (but not always) rooted in me wondering why it's taking longer than expected.

In the array of responses I've received, "yeah its going fine." is the worst. It's a bad, evasive response that shows that the responder is unable to anticipate what is going on in the mind of the person asking the question.

Whereas the best responses to such a question, answer the invisible questions behind the literal question.

In this case, the literal question is "How is this project going?". But the invisible questions are:

Why does it seem like it's taking longer than expected?
What progress has been made since the last time we spoke about it?
When will we be ready to discuss next steps?
What can be done to speed up progress?

My favourite people to work with answer these invisible questions proactively. The concept of invisible questions extends outside of a work setting too. For example if you come home late and your partner asks you "Mmm where were you?", an evasive and bad answer would be "I was in office". Instead you'd want to put your self in their shoes, determine what the invisible questions are and proactively address them.