How to improve communication for developers

Under my experience as a tech Manager, communication is something that most of devs want or needs to improve, due to Covid19 and full remote everywhere this soft skill is now even more important.

Context

Few years ago people were surprised about Jason Fried answer in an interview

Our top hiring criteria — in addition to having the skills to do the job — is, are you a great writer? You have to be a great writer to work here, in every single position, because the majority of our communication is written, primarily because a lot of us work remotely but also because writing is quieter. And we like long-form writing where people really think through an idea and present it.

Now with a lot of tech companies doing fully remote forced because of Covid-19 , people are feeling the main benefits of a good communication or in some cases the downsides of the lack of good communication skills.

Spending time in communication is a time saver for the readers and for the writer because there is less meetings/chats for clarification. Also improves efficiency of your work, because everyone understand what is needed to achieve the goal.

Tips and process to improve communication

I will share some tips and process that can help to improve your communication skills, most of them quite obvious but we tend to forget about common sense...

Active and empathic listener

First of all, a good communication is something that implies effort from the emisor and receptor . If you want to be effective as an emisor, lead by example, and start spending time being an active listener/reader.

Two things that helps me

• Sketchnoting while reading/listening to increase concentration, as Mike Rohde says in his book “when your mind and body are working in tandem, there is little room left for distractions”
• In case of doubt with a sentence tone of voice always choose the more positive option. As Claire Lew suggest in her guide to managing remote teams “emphasize empathy, in the absence of in-person cues”

Questions before start writing

To improve communication you will need to spend some time preparing what you want to write. Once you get used to do it you will spend less time, but at the beginning it’s important to think for this basic questions.

• Objective: What are you looking for with your communication?
  Take a decision / Share info / Ask for help / Get approval …
  You need a clear idea of what you want to achieve with your communication, more than one objective is not a good idea.
• Audience: Who will be the audience for your communication?
  Your team / Other tech teams / Product / The company / …
  It’s a key answer because it will make you rethink the context needed or the tech details you want to add, among other things.
• Channel: What will be the channel for your communication?
  Email / Slack / Collaborative Doc / Post / Pull request / …
  Each channel should have different “rules”, urgency and tone, and also can be more useful depending on the objective. Be sure you have clarity about it before start.

Let’s write!

Now that you have a clear idea of what do you want, it’s time to write. I recommend to structure your text in this 4 parts, help the reader to identify them easily.

• Title: It’s really important, be really explicit about the content of the text because will be responsible of people reading more or not. You don’t have to sell nothing but you have to be clear about what it’s inside.
  Examples: “Feedback needed for the new project X / Sharing info about the new deployment system / I need your OK to unblock the storage system decision / …”
  I try to rewrite the title at least three times in three different moments to be sure is the right one.
• Context: Same content needs different context for different audience. If the communication is for your team mates no need for extensive context but if it’s for a different team they probably don’t know a lot of stuff that for you are obvious because is your daily work.
  The more context you give the more chances to be understood , but if you give too much people probably will be lost before getting to the content. My suggestion is to create a clear part called “Context” so anyone can skip or return if needed.
• Content: Here is were you introduce all the info/request needed. Take profit of the different channels characteristics.
  The use of emojis will make the read lighter and easier to remember or if the info is too complex use an image to illustrate what you want to express.
  About the tone, remember that writing communication can lead to misunderstanding especially on debates or sharing feedback. To avoid this, share facts, be as objective as posible and follow the non violent communication principles.
• Objective/Conclusion: I recommend to end the communication with a really explicit demand for the reader.
  Examples: “Do you agree with the async solution for microservices? / Can you help me with patterns suggestion to solve this problem? / …”

But they don’t get it!

Writing and communicating is an art, you need to practice a lot and the most important part, if they misunderstood your message or they don’t get it, it’s the responsibility of the receiver and also the emisor, that it’s you.

Be humble,
- If you have to repeat the same thing in every Pull request maybe it’s time to rephrase how you do it
- If you need 20 meetings to clarify your request maybe it’s time to add more time to prepare the communication

“If you want different results, do not do the same things.”
— Albert Einstein

Meeting and talking is not evil, remember this agile principle “The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation” , but trying to minimize this real time conversation is ok too.
And i recommend not to add too many bureaucracy/rules to avoid communication issues because as the agile manifesto says “Individuals and interactions over processes and tools”

Just give you time to get there, and meanwhile use the direct conversation when needed .

How to improve

Im’ sure that following this tips will help you to improve, but good communication is an art that not only depends on you. I will suggest some practices to improve.

Ask for feedback

Talk with your manager or some colleague about your willing to improve communication and ask them for explicit feedback after every communication. They will take extra attention on how you do it, and the feedback is the best way to see if you are improving and the effects on the changes you do.

Start writing posts for different audiences

Find time to start writing posts even if you don’t publish them, it will help you to practice structure and complex ideas. Think about the most complex project you have worked in the last year, write it down first for your colleagues and then for your parents.

Community of practice

You can create a community of practice with other colleagues that also wants to improve their communication skills. In this group you can try things like “Pair communicating”, doing a communication with the review of one of your colleagues or even together as in pair programming. Another option, pick every week one candidate, and read and review together on some communication created especially for the event.

Conclusion

With everyone full remote is even more important a good writing communication skill, and that needs preparation and practice. If you do it, i’m sure it will have a clear impact in the mood of the team, avoiding misinterpretations, and also this will help you in the speaking communication when you come back to the office.