I'm working in a little company as a Software Engineer. In my daily work I encounter different problems between the development department and the members of the other once (Marketing, Sales, Product Management).
What the departments need
💹 Marketing
Needs to understand what the key benefits of a specific feature/product is. This is required to come up with a strategy on how to market the specific component. What messages will be the best to transport the benefits?
For this reason the marketing collegues need to understand the core working and what problem is solved.
📉 Sales
The sales collegues need similar information as the marketing team but with a little more inside knowledge. They do not need some general message they need for a campaign but enough knowledge to adapt to each customer situation and needs. Therefore they must be able to adapt to different use cases and transfer this to the best solution for the client.
📦 Product Management
Understands what problems the customers face and have a superficial
understanding of the technical side of our product. This department mostly needs the help from development and their technical knowledge to bring a product feature to life. It is important to show an understanding that they often lack the knowledge of technical insides.
👨💻 Development
We as software developers need well definied Requirements. How should the feature look like? What is the state that marks the feature as complete? Where in the architecture is the best place to fit in the feature?
🚩 The problem
Product management misses some clear requirement definition which is frustrating the developers because they have to get more information from other persons. The developers show this to product management by letting them know what is missing but the tone plays the music.
Also I observe from time to time that engineers love to show off there knowledge often makes the participants in the conversation feel uncomfortable. This created a big gap between engineers and the other departments
💡 Possible solutions
Knowledge transfer between software developers and product management. This will help the product management team to get a better knowledge about the software architecture and the components
Create a transfer position. Someone that has a very good technical understanding but is also able to transfer the complex technical details into easy-to-consume information for the other departments. Therefore someone is required with the skil to be able to explain technical details in a simple way
Training for developers on how to get into the view of collegues from the other departments and how to communicate with someone else in a respectful manner that do not have the same technical knowledge
Get representatives from every department on one table. There everybody has the chance to speak open about the problems with the other departments.
In general I think we lost our ability to talk to persons with other interests/views. We all insist on our mindset and concepts. But talking to each other and consider the ideas of others will bring us far more forward.
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