Essentials of Business Communication solutions

Some businesses have teams that do their software development in house, while others choose to outsource the work. Both routes have pros and cons, but one thing is constant regardless of which approach you choose: communication must be good between you as a business stakeholder and your software development team. If communication is either nonexistent or poor, the end result will be far from the target, and we can say with certainty that neither party will be pleased—not the development team, and certainly not you.

What can you do to improve communication between the people who decide what needs to be done software-wise and the people who make it happen? How can you avoid the communication pitfalls that lead to failed projects, blown budgets, and ever-delayed delivery times?

It is possible to foster good communication between your business and your web development team, whether software development is under your roof or outsourced elsewhere. Let’s talk about some things that will help.

In order for effective communication to take place when it comes to software development (really, when it comes to any type of collaborative effort), there are a few characteristics that must be practiced by all parties involved. What are they? Let’s take a look:

• Listening. A no-brainer, right? In order to have good communication, we must listen to the person speaking. The development team must listen to the requirements being presented, but the stakeholder must also listen to what the development team says—what’s realistic, what’s possible, how long it will take, etc.

• Understanding. Both sides need to understand the full scope of the project. Not an understanding down into the nitty gritty details about individual lines of code, but a true understanding of what the project needs are and what is being undertaken. Misunderstandings that are not clarified and corrected near the beginning of a project can be extremely difficult (and costly) to rectify later.

• Realism. A big tension between visionaries (those who decide what needs to be developed) and enactors (those who actually make it happen) can arise when there is not a good grasp of reality—and software development projects do not escape this tension. What is possible technically? What is possible financially? Everyone around the table must be realistic about the project in order for things to run smoothly.

• Intuition. Intuition is not a substitute for hard work and discipline, but intuition can sometimes help avoid mistakes. Is someone on either side (the development team or the business team) raising a red flag about the scope, timeframe, or budget of the project? It pays to listen—that person may have a gut feeling that proves to be