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Ask Slashdot: Communication Skills For Programmers?
An anonymous reader writes "As a new developer at a young-ish software company, I've been told my communication skills need some work. I'm not painfully introverted or socially inept, but I get lost in my work and only contact people if I need something from them or they ask me a question. Traditional advice isn't relevant to casual, less hierarchical companies — I don't have to hold my tongue when someone is wrong or worry about formalities. But I do need to connect with people professionally, since my team members and managers decide my perf and advancement. How do you keep colleagues abreast of your work without having exponentially many needless conversations?"
This IEEE article is the only answer the poster needs. I read it all the way through, and it is spot on, matching my personal experience. I sometimes wondered what exactly I had done to garner such high praise from my colleagues and managers, but as it turns out I was doing all nine of their "Star Work Habits". Paraphrasing some of their findings with my experience:
Those "needless conversations" are where you can ask about other people's projects and experiences. Find out what their areas of expertise are so you can go to them when you need help, or can point others in direction--becoming a clearing-house for technical advice makes you conspicuously valuable and is a great way to gain exposure to all sorts of people and problems in your organization.
At the same time, you can also discover other opportunities. When I first joined as an intern, I quickly became part of the team by volunteering to help out on projects way above my pay grade because knew I had the skills to do them as well or better than the senior engineers. By delivering quality work on those assignments, my boss put me on the fast-track to more interesting projects and responsibilities.
More advanced forms of "communication" include knowing when to push back against your boss on requirements or schedule in order to benefit the organization in the long term, proactively stepping in to resolve conflicts among teammates, promoting others' good ideas when they are not being heard, and learning the ins and outs of the corporate culture so you can communicate effectively with other departments and managers.
It may seem like a waste of time, but you can learn a lot of valuable information by listening to the old-timers ramble on about this and that. More importantly, if you listen to their stores, they will be more willing to help you out when you need their advice.
So my immediate advice for the poster is: Get out there, chat with your coworkers at lunch or the water cooler, and don't worry too much about keeping track of how many dogs they have or where they went to vacation last year. Do ask them about technical topics or share what you are working on--it may be a more comfortable topic for them as well, and vastly more useful.