Essence of Software Development

You know the stereotype.  Programmers work in isolation, their office dark, littered with empty pizza boxes and soda cans.  Loathe to speak to customers, requirements are passed electronically via user stories.  E-mail serves to keep others at bay, until reluctantly, the programmer emerges to attend a meeting.

While this perception may hold elements of truth, building software products is a complex social process. Far from being isolated, today's programmers and their leaders must possess skills in communication and negotiation.

After all, what is software development?  How does it begin?  Does it begin when one individual determines a problem exists?  No. It begins when someone communicates the existence of a problem to another.  Nothing occurs (regarding software development) until this communication takes place. Ultimately, quality of communication governs quality of solutions.

In the software development process, collections of individuals (customers) communicate with collections of others (software developers).  Even if we assume one point of contact between customer and developer, each representative communicates internally with many others.  Those others have different needs and filters.  A software engineer wants to know, "What do I build?"  A technical writer wants to know, "What do I document?"  And a software tester wants to know, "How and what do I test?"  These are refinements of a more general question, "What problem are we trying to solve?"

This communication occurs regardless of tools, processes, methods, and language.  In other words, communication is an essential element of software development.   I ask you to reflect for a moment, based on your experience, how many software managers receive communication skills training?  How many software managers possess exemplary written and verbal communication skills?  How many software managers understand human communication models? My anecdotal evidence suggest very few.

Moreover, even perfect communication does not eliminate challenges.  Real world constraints prevent fulfilling every customer whim, desire, need, or want.  Thus, a second essential element of software development: negotiation.

A software leader must possess skills to navigate the sea of conflicting constraints imposed by cost, schedule, quality, people, and resources.  This leads to an analogous set of questions: How many software managers receive negotiation skills training?  How many software managers possess exemplary (or any) negotiation skills?  How many software managers understand facilitation and mediation methods? My anecdotal evidence again suggests very few.

While technical ability is important, ultimate success is tied equally to communication and negotiation skills.   If you are or aspire to become a software leader, consider courses or workshops on communication models and negotiation. It is ironic that many associate software development with isolation and socially inept individuals.  This myth contributes to our difficulties in software development as much as the combined lack of processes, methods, and tools. Instead of hiring software managers solely based on their technical ability, I encourage you to also investigate their ability to communicate and negotiate.

For me, these skills are non-negotiable.