A simple lesson in communication: to stay competitive, developers should learn the language of their business customers

Frontline Solutions, August, 2004 by Rick Duris

I'm kicking myself as I write this column. At this moment, I'm working on a big systems project--a very big project. But this time, after almost 30 years being on the implementation side of things, I'm on the customer side.

And unfortunately for me, it is not going very well.

In fact, according to the project plan, we're two days away from going live, and we haven't even started testing.

I am such an idiot. You'd think that after all these years I'd know better than to maneuver myself into such a situation. You'd think I'd be the perfect client, one who is empathetic and appreciates the needs of software people. How did I get into this predicament?

I let the developers get by without communicating with me.

It's one thing to miss deadlines, blow budgets, have buggy software, and commit a million other sins of the software industry. But it's quite another when software developers have not learned the fundamentals of communication.

Thirty years ago, business communication skills separated the professionals from the hacks in this business. I'm convinced nothing has changed in thirty years--except that now we have global competition.

When the outsourcing of software projects became popular a few years ago, I thought "My gosh, how can someone who doesn't even speak the language do a project from half-way around the world and compete with a company in the United States?"

Now I know: It's because software developers don't even speak their own language.

Recently, I had a conversation with an American business owner who prefers using software resources from India because he says they actually communicate better than resources in America. In fact, he believes that comparatively not only are we overpriced, we're arrogant.

Don't get distracted here and start complaining about trade imbalances and cost/standard-of-living differentials. I am focusing squarely on our ability to communicate.

* We don't appreciate that clients and users want us to talk in their language, not ours.

* Although we may understand the system requirements or the needs of the business, we don't understand the needs of the client--the person who matters most.

* We don't appreciate that clients actually want to help us succeed, rather than viewing us as adversaries.

* We don't appreciate the basics of standard business etiquette, such as returning phone calls, providing proactive status reports, and other such meaningless and nonproductive tasks (so we think).

* We don't have a clue about how to communicate bad or negative news without jeopardizing the relationship with the client--so we pretend nothing is wrong.

* We don't appreciate the client's aversion to smoke screens.

If you're in the software industry, can appreciate what I'm saying without being insulted, and are really astute, here's the best part for you and your company: If you reversed this situation, you could really differentiate yourself in the marketplace. Plus, your client attrition would drop to zero. I believe (maybe naively) that you could actually own your market. That's right. Given the current competition here or abroad, you could own your market.

But are there any bright spots in my current dilemma?

Yes. One of the developers on my project not only produces good work, on time, and within budget, she is actually a joy to communicate with. She's responsive, proactive, empathetic, and intuitively understands my needs as a client.

She's a gem. I wish I could clone her.

See you next month.

Rick Duris is president of Business Technology Group. You can reach him at IntegratorsNotebook@Frontlinetoday.com.