3 lessons on effective communication for engineers

Effective communication is one of the most important skills we need. It greatly improves our productivity. And multiplies the positive impact that we have on the products we build and the people we work with. In this talk, we are going to explore three lessons on better communication. First, we’ll start with key principles for building trust and good relationships with the people around us. Then, we’ll see why and how to manage expectations. And we’ll explore how requirements facilitation can make our work easier. We are also going to see how to apply code reviews to our communication and scale it to amplify our impact. And most importantly, we’ll go over some real-world examples of how to apply these lessons in our everyday work to become better engineers.

Transcript

1. 3 lessons on effective communication for engineers Nikolay Stoitsev, Engineering Manager at Halo Diagnostics
2. We communicate a lot
3. We communicate a lot … with each other
4. We communicate a lot … with each other … with our managers
5. We communicate a lot … with each other … with our managers … with non-tech people
6. We communicate a lot … with each other … with our managers … with non-tech people … with clients
7. What’s up? What is the progress? Can you give me a quick update?
8. #1 Building Trust
9. Transparency is the key
10. Frequent status updates
11. Overcommunicate
12. Something you don’t know?
13. 1. Admit you aren't certain. 2. Own the follow-up to determine the answer. 3. Give a timeline for when you will follow up. 4. Deliver a correct, concise, and thoughtful response.
14. Be proactive
15. … please, improve the quality of the product
16. #2 Manage Expectations
17. What is expected from you?
18. Explain how you are going to achieve it
19. Example: Please, improve the quality of the product
20. Requirements facilitation
21. Example: Please, implement a feature to search for photos
22. #3 Improve and scale your communication
23. Code review your communication
24. Write documentation
25. Filememos
26. Thanks!