Communication and Organization

Communication and Organization

1. the point of companies is to provide value

   • requirements help engineers organize how software will provide value
   • Individuals in a software org. take on different roles to achieve that value
     • Marketers look for opportunities to provide that value
     • product managers decide what value the product will provide
     • Designers decide how software will provide that value
     • software engineers write code to inplement requirements envisioned by designers.
     • Sales try to sell the product to audiences that marketers have identified
     • support helps the people using the product, use it successfully
     • engineering managers help move information between higher and lower parts of large organizations
     • data scientists facilitate decision making
       • all decisions are made under uncertainty = risk
     • researchers help make product decisions
     • ethics and policy specialists anticipate and prevent harm

2. good software must maintain conceptual integrity

   • done through communication

3. Conway's Law: any design system will reflect the communication structures involved in producing it

4. Not all communication is helpful: communication should be efficient, not disruptive

5. Communication is also about relationships and identity

   • Cultural Competency: the ability for individuals and organization to work together efficiently when their cultural perspectives are different
   • Create a safe, professional, healthy culture in the workplace

6. Knowledge Sharing tools: any information system that stores facts that developers would normally have to retrieve from a person

   • reduces the amount of necessary communication
     • GitHub, Slack, MS Team, Stack Overflow

7. Cross Training: rotating developers through different projects ensures that the knowledge to maintain a project is evenly distributed amongst multiple engineers