Communication for a Developer

Working with a large team in the workplace requires excellent communication skills - A skill that is most important to learn during one's educational journey while preparing for a career in IT. The workplace today has transitioned from the past. Team members are no longer in the same room - in fact they are no longer in the same continent. In such an atmosphere- speaking clearly, precisely and fearlessly is the most important aspect of workplace etiquette.

The project management techniques have also transitioned from a waterfall methodology to an agile or a hybrid model. These changes make it even more pertinent for the team members to communicate clearly and regularly.

The Agile model allows numerous features being delivered by many teams contributing to one product release - In such an environment, lack of communication becomes a roadblock that every team will constantly bump into - be it the Architects , BAs, Developers or Testers.

Communication becomes a necessity for every member - Developers can no longer rely just on their excellent coding skills - they need to work on their communication skills just as much. Along with verbal communication the data points collected for transparency and information transfer up the chain needs the use of good tools. Management dashboards, release dashboards, issue tracking dashboards all play a pivotal role in communication across teams.

The collaborative tools used by members of the team make communication easier on the channels being used. Sharing workspaces to provide a showcase of a module, or code review being done by two members sitting in two different continents, or brainstorming a design with the entire team. Learning the effective use of tools is an important aspect of communication.

As IT starts to encroach into every field of business - communication must become an essential skill that needs to be emphasized and developed along with software skills.