Communication is one of the most critical aspects of everyday life. IT Projects are no exception. Effective communication within a team, between team members and with stakeholders can make or break the success of any project. What COVID showed is we can work remotely. We can be effective and there’s no way back to the way we used to work.
What I noticed over the last couple of years is that the biggest problems of remote work is… (surprise! Surprise!) communication!
Problem?
So what is exactly the problem? We can communicate using MS Teams/Slack/Zoom, Emails so what’s the problem?
Well, we are not exchanging enough information. We’ve lost much (if not all) of the non-verbal communication, bonding, engaging everybody in conversation, brainstorming etc. Is there anyone who disagrees with the statement that we can convey more information within 10 minute chat than 10 days of emails? 5 minute call vs half an hour of chatting over Teams? One day onsite workshops vs 5 four 4-hour long Teams sessions?
What makes certain communication channels more effective than the others? I would guess that it’s the purpose — each excels in certain situations and contributes to the overall communication. I will focus however only one the ones we lost — face-to-face meetings.
Let’s break down the key problems:
- Not everyone is participating in the meetings. Usually we have two or three people talking the rest being silent participants.
- Not everybody is interested in the topic. Truth be told, people have a bad habit of adding everybody to every meeting. As a result we have lots of unnecessary meetings (that could have been an email), less time for actual work.
- People are focused on what they need, not on what they can give to others. This generates a lot of frustration and misunderstanding since management assumes (wrongly) that everybody is on the same page since they participated in every meeting while people grow more and more frustrated with the waste of time. They stop actively participating in those meetings.
So what can we do about it? It’s not like we’re going to go back to the office and do onsite workshops for every customer.
So what can we do about it? It’s not like we’re going to go back to the office and do onsite workshops for every customer.
Tips
Here are some tips I use that help me make better connection with the team and with the customer, build trust and better understanding. I’ve divided that into two categories:
Stop doing:
- Adding everyone to every meeting. This is a no-brainer. Get only the people who are needed. You can summarize topics on daily/status meetings for everybody else.
- “Confession” type dailies/statuses. Everyone is focused on what they want to say when it’s their turn and not on what is actually being said. Try focusing on the areas instead of people. You can go through user stories by status (all done, then all in tests, all active, etc) switching people. All to often I see project where everyone only wants to say “I did this, I plan to do that”
- Assuming everyone knows the context. Don’t say “About that thing we discussed yesterday, it’s almost finished, I’m waiting for that input X promised”. Nobody knows what was discussed and what input you are waiting for. That is a useless status.
Start doing:
- Turn on camera. When possible try to have video calls. You convey more information and come across as more open.
- Collaborate on the design. This might stand in contradiction to “don’t invite everyone on every meeting” but trust me, you want to have everyone here. When we flush out the design for a carousel service to automatically distribute work, or when we design a complex printing service that gets data from every possible system, we want everyone to have an idea how it works. It’s also a great way for you junior developers to learn on design. What things need to be included, what is the thought process of some senior developers/architects. Of course there’s no need in sitting and looking over an architect’s shoulder for couple of hours as he draws the solution, but there’s great value in presenting the idea.
- Activate everyone. Although the meetings are online, be aware of all the participants, engage them. Be it small talk, or asking them for their opinion, try making everybody contribute to the meetings.
- Have onsite meetings. I know it’s not always possible, but having them once in a while is a good practice for building team as a whole. You can discuss more openly and engage those silent participants I was talking about earlier.
Conclusion?
Is there any conclusion that’s not banal? Let’s try 🙂
Usually, when project goes sideways we all feel where the problem is — communication. TV
Don’t necessarily wait for the scrum master, or project manager. It is up to us to facilitate our meetings in such a way that we limit the impact of communication method on what we’re trying to say.
I try to approach Teams meetings as if they were held onsite. How about you?
Happy coding!
