diff --git a/documentation/dev-manual/dev-manual-common-tasks.xml b/documentation/dev-manual/dev-manual-common-tasks.xml
index 5ac167d051..0fcb7b7064 100644
--- a/documentation/dev-manual/dev-manual-common-tasks.xml
+++ b/documentation/dev-manual/dev-manual-common-tasks.xml
@@ -12525,6 +12525,16 @@
         <section id='dev-debugging-viewing-variable-values'>
             <title>Viewing Variable Values</title>
 
+            <para>
+                Sometimes you need to know the value of a variable as a
+                result of BitBake's parsing step.
+                This could be because some unexpected behavior occurred
+                in your project.
+                Perhaps an attempt to
+                <ulink url='&YOCTO_DOCS_BB_URL;#modifying-existing-variables'>modify a variable</ulink>
+                did not work out as expected.
+            </para>
+
             <para>
                 BitBake's <filename>-e</filename> option is used to display
                 variable values after parsing.