I was having a conversation about communication skills with a few colleagues just today. I work with a lot of off-shore people based in India, and yes most of

I was having a conversation about communication skills with a few colleagues just today. I work with a lot of off-shore people based in India, and yes most of them are just code monkeys. While their English is generally (but not always) excellent, the single worst trait we have spotted is terrible communication skills. If you work on something that is technically difficult and requires a great coder and not a code monkey, then perhaps great coding trumps communication at all times, however in the big enterprise world, I already know I am going to encounter countless code monkeys, but if they cannot communicate its just sole destroying attempting to set their direction and manage them. This can be in several ways: * Extracting information is a painful process - they are never keen to offer it up and when they do, they leave vital pieces out, or forget bits and don't tell you about it until you ask as second or third time when you suspect things don't seem quite correct. * Developers send you emails with questions or explanations devoid of context assuming you can read their mind - This just wastes everyones time, as I have to then reply asking for more information or call them. * The communication is so bad, that they explain something in a way that it allows it to be assumed to be something else entirely, and the team/project/whatever heads off in the wrong direction entirely, until someone hopefully catches it! * They give managers extra anxiety, as they never send progress report of keep him up to date on what is going on, which means the manager has to spend a lot of time chasing things up.