Workshop in a Box: Communication Skills for IT Developers: Unlock the secrets of effective communication to transform the way you interact and solve problems with your team, and maximize the value of your IT skills

I once attended a seminar where one of the speakers, representing project managers, emphasized that communication is most important to managers as they are the people who act as a bond between the senior members of an organization and the wider workforce. They are required to translate business requirements into project activities, report on the project statuses to the customer, and liaise with vendors.

As I thought more about the speech, it made me realize that the speaker was missing the hidden truth about communication in the workplace—there is no central power base, but a complex web of interactions, all of which need to be treated seriously. Many organizations follow a pyramid structure of hierarchy, where staff at a lower level outnumber their superiors; it seems utterly crazy that the core of communication should be confined to such a small cross-section of an organization's structure. If the bottom half of the organization makes up most of...

Governance is about leadership, oversight, and consistent management in organizations. The decisions made by the governance body binds the organization together in reaching a targeted objective—in our case, the governance body has decided to improve the communication skillsets of IT employees, and has employed the services of this training guide. It is therefore fair to state that the development of communication starts budding with the seeds planted in the governance layer. The decisions undertaken trickle down from the governance through various layers of the organization to the targeted group—employees.

In fact, most enterprises these days have treaded this path with a documented communication policy that acts as a bible when it comes to communicating across mediums, roles, layers, vendors, and customers. To ensure that the elements of the policy are acted out, several communication-training sessions are held and feedback from managers obtained on a regular...

Policies define boundaries, set rules, and give the direction for an individual or group to take within an organization. A process, meanwhile, addresses the means of achieving the objective as directed by the policy. A process can be defined as a series of coordinated actions aimed towards achieving a preset goal. For a process, there are inputs, a trigger to set it in motion and an objective that it needs to achieve or you could call it the output of a process. It is the policy in action.

The idea of a "process" can be elucidated with the following example:

In this example, the manager's instructions got you started on preparing the report, so this becomes the trigger for the process. A process needs inputs to churn...

While official policies and processes are essential for good communication, the individual skills of employees are where great communication happens. Policies and procedures are nothing on their own—only by having the necessary skills can their requirements be fulfilled. If great communication was as easy as following rules and edicts it would be easy, and you probably wouldn't need this book. Yet we need policies and processes in place to create a suitable environment for communication training to be aligned with the organization's goals and stay effective and consistent. The next few sections will provide an overview of the core ideas of communication and its applicability to IT organizations.

The rest of this chapter is designed in a self-help model where readers can study the topics and understand the concepts on their own. The requirement of a trainer to go through the basics of communication is optional. Each section has exercises built into it, and we encourage...

In this chapter, we have moved from the official policies and processes that govern communication in an organization, to the individual skills that are integral for communication in everyday scenarios. They may seem like completely separate things, but in the workplace they are closely related.

As this chapter ends, you should have an understanding of the following: