Learning to Communicate with Other Developers

Working With Teams – The Home Page

Communication can be difficult.

I know people who are really good at communication. In five minutes they can tell you exactly what you need to know to understand a situation. In those five minutes you can go from knowing nothing about whatever situation to having a pretty good grip on where things lie.

There are some other people I know who struggle to communicate. After five minutes of discussing a situation you are more confused than ever you were to begin with.

I find myself in the second group fairly often. Not always because I intend to be… but I end up in that group for various reasons.

Thinking on My Feet

One big part of communication comes down to how well a person thinks on their feet. Unfortunately for me, I am no good at this. Maybe that isn’t quite true, but I do struggle to think on my feet, I do a lot better if I can spend some time thinking (or writing) about a problem before discussing it.

However, discussion is a really good way to get thoughts to come together and get new thoughts to show up. Discussing a single part of the “problem at hand” can bring up issues that had never previously been thought of.

The Power of More Minds

Yesterday (and today) I had the opportunity to work with a group of other guys from my class. The idea, I believe, is that we would learn how to work together as a team.

One thing became very obvious from the get go. We were going to have a lot of different opinions, both on the overall scope of the project and how various parts of it should function.

The power in that, I believe, is incredibly important. Instead of getting hung up on what I think an app should look like and do, working with others allows me to see reasons that my way of doing things may be perfectly good… or potentially not a good way to go at all.

Overall, having more minds thinking about the problem at hand is incredibly helpful.

Working as a Group

The difficulty of working as a group is apparent. Having different people on the same project can cause friction.

I would contend though, after several hours of experiencing this dynamic and friction, that the friction and the accountability that come with the group setting are both vital parts of good development.

Now if we can just all agree on my way of doing things… 🙂