Effective communication starts with understanding the unique roles of each team member and how they affect the outcome of the project.
For example, our product manager is the SME for functional requirements and project rollout, our designer is responsible for UX and collecting usability feedback for customers, and our QA is responsible for creating E2E tests to validate features against regression. Even within the engineering discipline, there are multiple specialties: frontend, backend, platform, etc.
Communication can occur via meetings (sync), instant messaging/email (async), google docs/confluence (collaboration), Jira (work trackers). However, the communication is only effective if it’s relevant to the recipient.
In my most recent sub-project Other Locations I worked with engineers, product managers, designers and QA. During this project, I tried to make the communication effective in three ways.
Cover the key concepts
The entire team needs to be familiar with the key concepts.
For Other Locations, key concepts included:
- External Timesheet
- Primary Workplace
- Secondary Workplace
and many more.
Key concepts keeps everyone aligned on what we’re building, and each discipline can communicate using an agreed set of terms. This reduces friction when collaborating.
“Dive deep” as needed
Take the time to meet with specific team members and discuss what you’re working on in detail.
Some examples of areas to dive deep are:
- I need Product to advise on specific functional requirements and scope. These are noted down in the Project Plan document.
- I need Design and Frontend to discuss how we will present this feature on the page and whether the mockup by Design is feasible.
- I need Backend to discuss how we will implement these requirements (functional and non-functional) into the existing system without causing regression. We also identify broad changes that are broken down into specific tasks.
Because each discussion is isolated only to the most relevant individuals, we can dive deep on the problem without having to stop to explain things. This also reduces time wastage for individuals who are not required to contribute.
This type of communication style sets a clear agenda and respects your teammate’s time.
This seems like it should be common sense, and yet most meetings I attend only have 2-3 people discussing the problem, while the remaining 8 people don’t contribute (and I don’t blame them, it’s frankly not relevant most of the time, let them do their work!).
Catalogue your documentation
Your meeting artefacts need to be organised and searchable (confluence or google doc). Another way to think about this is: you need to build a library.
Otherwise, you repeat yourself over and over again – you should not be the source of truth! Not to mention, people tend to feel shame when they have to ask a question that they should know the answer to already. Having this stuff written down allows them to save face.
Consider using Google Docs, Confluence or Notion to create structured, searchable reference material. Google Sheets and Jira are also great options if you have tasks or tabular data that needs to be recorded.
Conclusion
In summary, there’s 3 main things to try when you want effective communication and team alignment:
- Everyone needs the big picture to see where they fit in.
- Deep dive with small groups to optimise time usage.
- Catalogue everything as reference material – in an organised, searchable, readable way.
Have you ever had this responsibility? Do you agree or disagree, and what worked for you? Let me know in the comments or send me an email at arie.oldman@vhs7.tv.
