Company Manual (View All)

Communication

     Introduction

      Communication is one of the most difficult challenges you will face in this organization. You need to be able to quickly communicate complicated ideas to multiple people: those you are currently working with and those that will read your work in subsequent semesters. Communication is a critical part of business and is a large part of what makes or breaks professional organizations. This chapter has been written as a guide to help get you started.

      You will find that there are problems inside your company. That's because it's populated with ordinary folks like yourself trying to figure out how to get something good done in a limited time frame with limited direction from the sponsor. Many times you will think you have a solution to the problem. DON'T HOLD BACK ON VOICING YOUR IDEA. You might think to yourself that it's none of your business or it's not your job; this is false. If you see a problem, you own it! Failures that you saw coming but did nothing about are at least partially your fault. You are responsible for making sure the problems you find are solved. No one is stopping you but yourself.

      Of course, in order to have influence, you'll need to apply (and possibly develop) positive communication skills. We challenge you to take this aspect seriously. If you do, it has the potential to bless you in your professional career for many years.

     The Project Wiki

      A Project Wiki is one of the ways information is passed between semesters and across the organization. You must launch a wiki for your project in order to keep a record of what you've done and manage the flow of information. It is essential to keep it up to date. Everyone is responsible for keeping this updated. The quicker and clearer ideas can be passed around the company, the better it will run.

      This also means that everyone in the company is responsible for utilizing the wiki as a fundamental communication source. Use some of your billable time each week to keep up with the latest developments across the development group.

      You will find documentation on the wiki explaining how stuff works and how to do other stuff. If you don't understand what the documentation is trying to say, figure it out and then edit the document so it's more clear for the next person to come along. Similarly, if you get an error working with a HOWTO page, you are responsible for finding the answer and then adding a section that explains the fix. Be liberal with your changes. You cannot break the wiki because it can always be rolled back. Constant editing yields quality pages. It's also an exercise in taking responsibility rather than sitting around waiting for someone to fix things for you.

     Conclusion

      During this semester you will hopefully begin to understand more clearly some of the key concepts from The Mythical Man Month and Peopleware; Communication is far more costly than you may have ever imagined. At the same time, effective communication is imperative to creating a good product and sharing a common vision. You are being given a great opportunity to work as teams during class, so make sure that you use the time well to line up your sights and move together. Communicate greatness and you will learn more than just Computer Science, you will learn how to motivate people and work as a united team; you will learn one of the most critical lessons of Software Engineering.