Effective communication in IT projects (Part 1)
One of the most important factors for the success or failure of an IT project is communication. Effective communication can be a daunting task, especially when many professionals with different work experience, level of responsibility and authority are involved in the project. The problem is exacerbated when the participants involved in the project belong to different organizations with different work styles.
Imagine several scenarios. You will surely recall similar ones from your own practice:
As we can see, effective communication is critical. Without this, there are a lot of problems: lost time (which means lost money), bad code, inefficient software development, delays and products that do not meet expectations. The company's reputation and user trust are at risk.
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In this article, I will share the observations that I learned in IT projects for three years. As a development team, I worked with about 30 employees from different professions: developers, testers, system administrators, designers, usability specialists, project managers and employees on the client side. Working in a similar environment, I identified the main obstacles to effective communication.
I was also involved in the development of techniques to overcome such obstacles. We will discuss most of the problems and countermeasures in relation to teamwork, but freelancers can also find value in this information for working with clients and partners.
Effective communication saves money, time and labor, and this happens when the following requirements are met:
Proper communication leads to the following accomplishments:
Effective communication in IT projects can be briefly described in three words: explicitness, traceability, readability.
E-mail
E-mail is the basis of communication in the bulk of organizations. Surprisingly, many people still do not know how to use this tool correctly.
The subject of the letter is the first line that the addressee sees. The topic should be brief and explain the general meaning of the letter. The addressee may need to contact the letter in the future, perhaps in weeks or months. Therefore, the message subject must clearly contain the name of the project (including the name of the customer, for some organizations) and the subject of the conversation.
Of course, not every subject of conversation can be correlated with any project - in this case, make every effort to make the subject of the letter understandable. Take into account the fact that you can work on one project for a company and the topic “ACME Corp: New Pictures” may sound good for you, but in the marketing department there can be work on several projects for this organization, and each project includes “New Pictures".
The following are some successful message topics:
"Nicky" for customers and projects, the icon-separator - all this should be coordinated with all involved in the project. Further, all project participants can configure filters in mail clients for each project. This is especially important for managers who receive hundreds of email messages.
Here are some really bad email headers:
Especially if the last heading refers to a letter containing important project documentation. Unfortunately, this happens in life ...
The clear header of the letter quickly informs the addressee of the message content and gives an understanding of how urgent the response is and in what form. For this purpose, it is not necessary to change the subject throughout the entire correspondence (“By the way, about that task ...” - the road to nowhere). Either change the title, or write a separate letter.
The “To” and “Cc” fields help distinguish between the actual recipients of a message and those who simply need to be informed without having to take any action. As a rule, the addressee from the “To” field should read and possibly reply, while at the same time, the addressee of the “Cc” field can simply read the message.
Often, managers want to be informed, including cases for which they are not directly responsible, and they can configure mail filters to view such messages from time to time. Do not put in “Cc” someone from whom you expect a response.
The last rule, perhaps salutary, is to reflect everything in the draft in writing. People tend to forget arrangements made by telephone or verbally at meetings. It is also quite possible that other forms of communication, besides e-mail, may be useful in a project. We will discuss this further.
Effective communication takes place when the information is delivered, with the content value unchanged for the receiving party, as well as for the sender, and also initiates the expected action.
Why is it so important to communicate effectively?
Imagine several scenarios. You will surely recall similar ones from your own practice:
- A Tim Lead must monitor the status of the project. All tasks are stored in the accounting system of incidents. Unfortunately, the tasks were not descriptively named. For example, the error in the interface form of the application was named as: “Something is wrong with the form”, and the need for database backup is named as “Need help! URGENTLY! Timlid is forced to reopen the task every time in order to understand what is being said. Of course, the right decision would be to immediately rename the task without delay to “Violation of validation in the contact form” and “backup of db0245 @ host1”.
- An email comes to the developer, entitled "Only one question." He cannot quickly understand that the message relates to an error in the search engine and should be redirected to a colleague. He has to open the letter and delve into the essence of the matter only in order to carry out the shipment.
- The project manager organizes one or two hour meetings each week to discuss project progress with the whole team. Each participant talks about his site for a few minutes and then misses while others tell. From time to time, someone raises a big question, interesting only to him and the project manager. As a result, taking into account the employee's salary per hour of work, a large amount of the company's money was thrown to the wind as a result of such counterproductive meetings.
- The developer tries to focus on solving an important problem, but he is constantly distracted by phone calls from colleagues on various non-urgent issues.
As we can see, effective communication is critical. Without this, there are a lot of problems: lost time (which means lost money), bad code, inefficient software development, delays and products that do not meet expectations. The company's reputation and user trust are at risk.
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Employees involved in the process may feel that their time is not valued, which leads to frustration.
In this article, I will share the observations that I learned in IT projects for three years. As a development team, I worked with about 30 employees from different professions: developers, testers, system administrators, designers, usability specialists, project managers and employees on the client side. Working in a similar environment, I identified the main obstacles to effective communication.
I was also involved in the development of techniques to overcome such obstacles. We will discuss most of the problems and countermeasures in relation to teamwork, but freelancers can also find value in this information for working with clients and partners.
Effective communication saves money, time and labor, and this happens when the following requirements are met:
- Message threads should be easily identifiable (Herewith, by the word “messages” I mean not only e-mail, but any type of communication)
- The content of the message should be understood as quickly as possible.
- Describe events clearly and clearly in your message.
- Drive efficiently
- Only involve the resources (people, tools, etc.) that are needed to complete the task.
Proper communication leads to the following accomplishments:
- The rhythm of the project is smooth and measured.
- Tim leaders monitor progress on their project sites.
- People with different levels of responsibility are better involved in the project.
- People feel that their time and results are respected.
Effective communication in IT projects can be briefly described in three words: explicitness, traceability, readability.
E-mail is the basis of communication in the bulk of organizations. Surprisingly, many people still do not know how to use this tool correctly.
The subject of the letter is the first line that the addressee sees. The topic should be brief and explain the general meaning of the letter. The addressee may need to contact the letter in the future, perhaps in weeks or months. Therefore, the message subject must clearly contain the name of the project (including the name of the customer, for some organizations) and the subject of the conversation.
Of course, not every subject of conversation can be correlated with any project - in this case, make every effort to make the subject of the letter understandable. Take into account the fact that you can work on one project for a company and the topic “ACME Corp: New Pictures” may sound good for you, but in the marketing department there can be work on several projects for this organization, and each project includes “New Pictures".
The following are some successful message topics:
- ACME Corp. | HR Portal | Draft functional documentation, ver. 0.1
- ACME Product Page - questions after a meeting with the marketing department of the 5th of March
- Please send your report - deadline: March 10
"Nicky" for customers and projects, the icon-separator - all this should be coordinated with all involved in the project. Further, all project participants can configure filters in mail clients for each project. This is especially important for managers who receive hundreds of email messages.
Here are some really bad email headers:
- ACME
- Question
- Request
- New pictures
- We go for lunch at 13.00
Especially if the last heading refers to a letter containing important project documentation. Unfortunately, this happens in life ...
The clear header of the letter quickly informs the addressee of the message content and gives an understanding of how urgent the response is and in what form. For this purpose, it is not necessary to change the subject throughout the entire correspondence (“By the way, about that task ...” - the road to nowhere). Either change the title, or write a separate letter.
The “To” and “Cc” fields help distinguish between the actual recipients of a message and those who simply need to be informed without having to take any action. As a rule, the addressee from the “To” field should read and possibly reply, while at the same time, the addressee of the “Cc” field can simply read the message.
Often, managers want to be informed, including cases for which they are not directly responsible, and they can configure mail filters to view such messages from time to time. Do not put in “Cc” someone from whom you expect a response.
The last rule, perhaps salutary, is to reflect everything in the draft in writing. People tend to forget arrangements made by telephone or verbally at meetings. It is also quite possible that other forms of communication, besides e-mail, may be useful in a project. We will discuss this further.
After the call or meeting, write down everything and send it to everyone involved. So you do not miss anything.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/231091/
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