In an increasingly digitized and computerized world, the image of the solitary IT worker is rapidly disappearing; this may be as much an image change as the truth, but one cannot deny that communication skills are becoming increasingly important for IT teams.
Nobody can work in silos. Although coding jobs make programmers sit in isolated cubicles with computer monitors stuck to their faces, their lines of code will eventually have to talk to other lines of code that are developed by other programmers. Work cannot happen in isolation; products and services are a result of joint efforts. The collaboration effort will ensure success and the binding factor that brings in the collaborating elements together is communication.
For example, a customer might say that he needs a light colored website with an option to blog and a shopping cart among other items. What the customer wants and how well the project manager grasps the requirements is dependent on the effectiveness of the communication between the customer and the project manager. If the customer has excellent communication skills and if the project manager is a terrible listener, requirements take a hit and this results in the end product being out of sync. Once the project manager understands the requirements accurately, they will have to cascade this information to the rest of their team—where once again communication skills come into play. In this way, every instance of collaboration is held together by communication.
The following figure has become a meme in project management circles. It depicts the breakdown of communication in a project. What a customer wants and what they eventually get are like the flipsides of a coin. Everyone has their own vision, unconcerned with the customer and without any alignment with others:
It is this unity between departments and the respective roles within departments that ensures that individual tasks, larger projects, and even larger business objectives are met.
It is this issue that should lie at the heart of the development of your staff's communication skills—good communication should not simply be desired for itself, but is rather instrumental in getting effective results. Thinking of communication skills as "soft" is a little misleading, as if they are not really tied to the "hard facts" of business. The truth is, they are; good communication skills absolutely impact the bottom line.
Communication is a major risk affecting IT organizations worldwide. To mitigate it, employees need to be trained on various aspects of communication, the dos, don'ts, etiquettes and other related areas of study. Since the recession of early 2000s, organizations are looking to cut costs, and increase productivity to survive in the competitive IT market. One of the areas where most organizations have stopped funding is in the training function. These days, companies expect employees to self-learn and apply the results at work. The days of companies sponsoring and nurturing employees are long gone. This is precisely the area where this book comes into play. It benefits organizations to run their own training sessions with minimal preparation, and employees are treated to valuable on-the-job training that is relevant to the work they perform and the knowledge gained here can boost their performance and thrust their careers into new horizons. This book can be used:
- As a training guide: Due to the decentralized learning functions in companies, we have designed this guide for team managers to act as trainers who can impart the knowledge contained in this book. This guide consists of exercises that trainers can readily apply at the end of sessions, and incorporated exercises provide thought-provoking topics that will help teams come together and brainstorm ideas discussed in the book.
- As a self-study material: The book can also be used as self-help study material. Employees can read and understand the material on their own, perform individual exercises, and get together at least once a week to discuss the topics. The uncomplicated flow and structure of this guide can be just as easily digested by the employees themselves. And, it could potentially be as effective as a trainer led course as long as they work on the exercises and discuss the topics as a group.