Workshop in a Box: Communication Skills for IT Developers: Unlock the secrets of effective communication to transform the way you interact and solve problems with your team, and maximize the value of your IT skills

Communication is a major risk affecting IT organizations worldwide. To mitigate it, employees need to be trained on various aspects of communication, the dos, don'ts, etiquettes and other related areas of study. Since the recession of early 2000s, organizations are looking to cut costs, and increase productivity to survive in the competitive IT market. One of the areas where most organizations have stopped funding is in the training function. These days, companies expect employees to self-learn and apply the results at work. The days of companies sponsoring and nurturing employees are long gone. This is precisely the area where this book comes into play. It benefits organizations to run their own training sessions with minimal preparation, and employees are treated to valuable on-the-job training that is relevant to the work they perform and the knowledge gained here can boost their performance and thrust their careers into new horizons. This book can be used:

One of my professional roles is that of a corporate trainer. I train IT people in a classroom setting, and there are a few things I have learned along that way that has helped me develop as a better trainer than when I started out. I am going to share a couple of tools that are most useful, and they are result-bound. These tools are:

When you go shopping for a product, say a television, you would invariably want to get the most value for your money, in layman's terms—you want a quality product. Have you thought of what the word quality means to you? The fact is that the term quality can have multiple definitions depending on the context. There is no one single definition that can be attributed to quality. Meets the requirements, does what it is supposed to, works well for a number of years, suits my need perfectly, and there are many more suitors. In the case of the television, I would define quality as picture in high definition resolution, crisp and clear audio, and the product must last at least five years without any maintenance in between. As I mentioned earlier, quality means different things to different people. Ask yourself or your neighbor what quality means to them in relation to buying a television. They will give you a separate list of requirements and definitions.

When you go hunting for a professional training session, you would like to get a hang on everything there is to the subject you are intending to be trained in—in other words you are looking for quality training. Have you ever thought of what the word quality means to you? The word quality can have different meanings depending on the context. I cannot state a single sentence to define quality. Some IT professionals may relate quality training to the depth of knowledge that was imparted and some might give importance to the content that helps them get certifications. If you ask me what quality means, I would say that it should impart in-depth knowledge of the subject, provide sufficient examples for me to understand the concepts with ease, and if a certification is involved the focus should be on strategies to answer the certification exam. You might have a completely different expectation of what quality training is.

How can you differentiate a quality product from a non-quality one? The answer is improvement, not just once but on a regular basis. Regular improvements go by a Japanese word kaizen, which stands for continuous improvement. Kaizen ensures that the products and services are bound by continuous improvement, even if the improvement is miniscule. By improving continuously, products and services are always a notch or two ahead of the rest.

In communication, kaizen has a special meaning. The effectiveness of communication and the productivity must be improved on a regular basis. As individuals, you must always try to improve your communication skills by understanding and implementing the 7 Cs in your personal and work life, understand your own communication style and that of others who you regularly communicate with and make a conceited effort in building rapport with people who matter. This is not a one-time activity; you need to keep doing this as and when the situation demands it. To state an example, you can run this workshop multiple times, and the effectiveness in communication is bound to increase by a percentage every time you run it. Perhaps you can improvise by adding customized exercises based on your organization's cases. The underlying principle is that such workshops, whether they are on communication or any other topic, is not a standalone activity, but a process that has to be imbibed into the DNA of the organization.

Let's see what other aspects could render communication as a quality product or otherwise. Communication is of quality if it is effective in:

When you start to answer the question of what quality means to you in communication, you could come up with an entirely different set, plus or minus the set I have put forth. For me, if my communication can meet my quality requirements as stated here, then I can subsequently consider it to be precisely that—quality. This quality message serves as a baseline, from which I could then begin to work on the principle of kaizen through one of the methods that I discuss in the next section, The PDCA circle.

The PDCA circle is a popular model in practicing continuous improvement or kaizen. PDCA abbreviates to a four activity iterative approach—plan, do, check, and act:

This concept was tested in the real world and made popular by William Edwards Deming, and it is also commonly known as the Deming cycle. The cycle was, however, theorized by Walter Stewhart, and Deming during his years in Japan referred to the cycle as the Stewhart cycle.

When you create a new product, it is likely that it is far from perfect. However, you will probably have a basic or vague understanding of what perfect looks like. So, you start taking baby steps towards the perfection through the use of PDCA cycle. You will get to the point of near perfection as you keep making incremental and nonstop improvements. You can see your product evolve in every step of the way. Most, if not all, organizations use this methodology to make their products or services the best they can possibly be. Apple products did not come out chiseled the way they seem to be.

They grew slowly through multiple iterations of improvements, adding one feature at a time and one product launch after another. PDCA plays a major role in industries where the time to market is as long as the lifespan of a housefly. Let me take you through the individual stages of the PDCA cycle:

I used the example of a product mainly to explain the concept of PDCA. Apart from products, service industries can leverage on it too to improve the services they provide—potential areas could be IT services, hospitality, utilities and so on. You would definitely need to rely on this model if you are looking to bring about improvements into projects. I can probably go on for the next few pages on the industries where the Deming cycle would be applicable and still have a few more pages left. I will not do this, and instead hope that you understand the depth and compatibility with various systems, objects, and processes.

In this workshop, you will see PDCA in action. You will plan the workshop and then run the training to your employees and at the end of every chapter there is an assessment test provided. This test is a good reflector of how well your students understand the topics of this workshop. If you find the results of the assessment unsatisfactory, take a step back, and find another way to train them on the topics where they didn't score well. This way, you are not just delivering the training, but checking the understanding and doing what is necessary to bridge the gap.

As this chapter ends, you are expected to know the following:

In the next chapter, we will look into how companies are organized and dissect the term governance and its impact on communication, along with the communication process. We will delve into the basics of communication, the styles of communication, conflicts that could arise out of communication, and the importance of relationships and rapport to make communication effective and productive. In short, a number of exciting topics await you!