Business People and Engineers. Part 1: Communication
People who have ever worked in software companies aware of multiple issues and conflicts between a company's technical and business departments. This is the first article from the cycle that addresses these problems, and here we are going to discuss communication issues, solutions, and best practices.
Where It Starts
Everything starts with the inability to understand the issues of the opposite side. Ordinary business people are usually not technical people, so they may struggle with understanding technical concepts and problems. On the opposite, the average engineers do not have a business background and can only see only a superficial outcome of a businessman's actions and did not get all the detail of how it works.
Consequently, these two sides may choose a very different way to solve the same customer's problem. A business person will start talking to customers, figuring out what went wrong, and proposing an alternative approach. On the other hand, an engineer may solve the exact customer's problem; however, this solution may lead to new unpredictable issues in the customer's data and workflows.
So, what can this team do to decrease the impact or even avoid these issues?
Share An Experience
First of all, both sides need some basic knowledge in the area that may become useful for them in the future. An engineer may visit business and marketing classes to cover his gaps in understanding customers' use cases to avoid unpredictable consequences. A business person may need to spend some time with somebody from the technical department to figure out the technical details — this way, he will b able to propose a better solution to the customer and give him exactly what he wants.
The next possible step could be checking the real uses cases from the past. Customers' businesses in the same area often have relatively similar structures, demands, and marketing strategies. It makes sense to check how people solved similar problems in the past and use it as a first option. Solutions from the past may also give a clue on possible alternatives that can be discussed with a customer.
Business people and engineers have to establish common ground, share an experience, and try to figure out the best solution together. If the problem is unusual or requires a lot of effort to solve, both sides have to work together to find a reasonable approach and a suitable solution to the current problem.
Think Together
After business people and engineers shared the necessary experience and established a common ground, they may start thinking about the solution.
The first step is to identify the problem. Because both sides work together on this problem, both can contribute to identification. A business person can describe how the issue affects a customer and why it is crucial, while an engineer may explain the situation from the technical side and figure out what caused it.
The next step is to discuss the problem and find a solution. There are lots of approaches to do it — iterative, mind storm, external consulting, etc. One way or another, a business person and an engineer have to agree on the source of the problem, list of consequences, and the best solution to prevent them. It may be useful to draw a table, describe all found consequences, and list alternative solutions. Then they can see which one solves most of the consequences — this one will be the best solution from all perspectives. Here is an example of such a table:
| Consequence | Solution A | Solution B | Solution C |
| Business Issue 1 | Solves | ||
| Business Issue 2 | Solves | Solves | |
| Financial Issue 1 | Solves | Solves | |
| Financial Issue 2 | Solves | Solves | Solves |
| Technical Issue 1 | Solves | Solves | |
| Technical Issue 2 | Solves | Solves |
Solution A is the best option here as it resolves all the issues.
Finally, both a business person and an engineer have to agree on preventing the problem in the future. Sometimes it may be only a business recommendation, sometimes only a technical fix, but commonly it is better to add a safety catch from both sides. This way, if one part fails, another can still prevent the problem.
Follow The Best Practices
When the solution is found, the team needs to set up a communication best practices on the problem-solving process and then use them daily. Every team is unique, and so the best practices may differ too. However, these practices often can be used on multiple occasions, so it makes sense to see if they can help in other areas with potential communication issues.
If some new communication issue appears, need to repeat discovering the problem, discussion, and solving phases. This iterative approach may introduce some changes to the existing process — and this is fine as every process have to be adapted to the changing environment.
Finally, all team members should remain open, proactive, and react quickly to new business and technical issues. This way, they can guarantee smooth communication and bring solutions as soon as possible.
The next chapter will describe how to set up and adjust workflows for both businessman's and engineer's needs. See you next week!