Communication 101 as a Techie in Data

Communication in the business world is crucial to your success. Misunderstandings lead to unmet expectations and false perceptions. These are killers for productivity, motivation, recognition and many other important things we need to succeed in our careers.

As data engineers, navigating this puzzle of “people” can be tricky. If we tell them the index has a stack overflow, and the flux capacitor is out of sync, they should just understand what we are saying, right?

This is incorrect dear friend. What other people perceive is sometimes more important than reality, even though don't want it to be so.

There are a multitude of books and guides out in the wild about how to communicate effectively. These tips are what have seen me through many an email and Teams meeting successfully. Hopefully at least one of them will prove useful to you as well.

1. Over Communicate

   1. If they don’t tell you to shut up and stop bothering them, you might not be keeping them in the loop as much as you should.

   2. People should not be wondering what you are working on, or what progress you are making.

   3. Be like a vegan, tell everyone!

2. Use the Pyramid Principle

   1. Lead with your conclusion - this might be the only part of your message most people read.

   2. Support it with high level facts so that weight is attached to the conclusion.

   3. Back it up with data, analysis, evidence.

   4. There is a handy article by My Consulting Offer on this topic.

3. Asynchronous Communication

   1. With remote work, not everyone can quickly walk around the watercooler to update someone on a task.

   2. Leverage the tools at your disposal to communicate when you can and give your correspondent time to act on it when they have time. Not everything is as urgent as you think it is.

   3. What does this look like?

      1. Reacting to a Teams message so they know you have read it and will action it.

      2. Sending a Teams message when you need an answer to a non-critical question.

      3. Sending an email when you have a lengthier message, or a much wider audience, where you don’t expect a conversation, but more one-way communication.

4. Be Proactive

   1. If you see risks or concerns start to materialize, even when it is early on, throw it in someone's face (politely).

   2. Risks and other unwanted scenarios cannot be handled via the ostrich method - you should not stick your head in the sand and hope the danger goes away. You must become the danger!

   3. A known risk that has an impact level and likelihood level is manageable. An unknown risk is not.

5. Put it in Writing

   1. No, you will not remember what that complicated piece of code did when you look back on it a year from now, let alone 3 weeks from now. Be real.

   2. Similarly, when decisions are made in meetings about how problems need to be solved, document it.

   3. This is not intended to be used to play the name and shame game, it is intended to have a clear trail of how we got to where we are and why.

   4. This will prevent many merry-go-rounds of “Why is this being done this way? We need 3 meetings to discuss and get to the bottom of it”. That is unproductive and nonsensical, when you could do everyone a favor and note it down after the meeting.

This is but a drop in the metaphorical ocean of things I have seen work and used myself in the past to great effect.

Hopefully this helps you on your journey on becoming that annoying person that won't stop talking about all the work they are doing!

Till next time, stay in school kids.