Everything that software and IT systems do is fundamentally communication, and equally everything we do as consultants is communication of some sort too.
Everything that we do as tech workers (whether we’re analysts, devs UXers, delivery or anything else) is based around communication. That’s obvious for most of the roles - we’re about talking to clients after all. But even when we’re actively writing code we’re still all about communication.
- Software is the medium by which clients communicate with their customers
- Source code is nothing more than the most rigorous possible description of the client’s business process
- Software is built by teams, working together, communicating with each other and with stakeholders
- Source code is a message that the next maintainer needs to understand
- We can’t write code until we understand what’s needed (then we need to check that’s what we’ve created)
Consultancy is communication. We are working with new people and new teams all the time. We have to know how to settle in quickly in a new environment, learn about our new co-workers and build trusting relationships with them. We are bringing new ideas from outside, and learning about how the existing teams do things - that means understanding and communicating empathically.
Career development is built on communication. All the tech skills in the world mean nothing if no one knows you have them. To build credibility you need to not only know how to do the work, but how to communicate to people that you have that knowledge.
In the next post I'll start to talk about what we can do to improve our communication and ensure our message gets across.
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