Effective communication — why is it important as a software engineer?
Communication could be simply defined as delivering information. However, effective communication is when that information is actually received by the audience. It doesn’t matter how good your communication is, it is ineffective when the information isn’t received and understood by the audience. To give an example of this, the best-written computer program makes no sense to a physician. Here the information is well delivered but not received/understood at all. Now that we have understood what effective communication means, why should a software engineer care about it? Isn’t delivering code enough? The answer is NO!!
Before we understand why effective communication is important and the key areas to prioritize, let’s understand some of the basic problems of ineffective communication. The number one problem of ineffective communication is wasted time, both for the speaker and the listener. It could lead to misunderstandings and disagreements. This can include making mistakes or completing tasks incorrectly, causing arguments, or hurting your relationship with the team members. If you don’t want any of these, working on communication is very important.
There are many areas we can focus on to make our communication effective and can find tons of articles on the internet. But here are the few to consider…
