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Do not underestimate social skills. A SW project is rarely (never?) a one man's job, you have to deal with other team members, business, client expectation, tes

by seren 12y ago

Do not underestimate social skills. A SW project is rarely (never?) a one man's job, you have to deal with other team members, business, client expectation, testers, QA, etc. I have worked in company where people had generally good social skills, were helpful, able to listen carefully and receive feedback and criticism without going mad. On the other hand, have worked in environment where most people were passive-aggressive, unable to compromise or negotiate, unwilling to empathize with other teams. It should come as no surprise that in the latter situation, projects were always running very late behind schedule. (Causation could also have been the other way round, since everyone was stressed out, the basic defense mechanism was to stop worrying about other people, which in turn was slowing down the project further...) I would add that the different behavior were not really due to individuals but rather to the overall "culture", and modeled after the top manager behavior. Maybe I am wrong, but early in my career, I used to believe that SW project were technical challenges, but for bigger project, it is much more an organizational challenge, and the way people interact with each other is a big part of that. And being able to listen is as important as being able to communicate clearly.

mercer 12y ago
> Do not underestimate social skills. Absolutely! I didn't mean to imply that social skills are unimportant. If I were to hire a programmer to work for me in a team context, the better choice from a business perspective, often, would be to hire the less-competent but socially-skilled. But that sucks. Because the best way a socially awkward or socially underdeveloped individual will learn the very essential skill of being more social is through acceptance, a safe environment, and constructive feedback. Furthermore, it's often not the real problem. A big problem in almost all companies I've worked for is that the managers (who usually are very socially capable non-geeks) were just not skilled at dealing with their developers. And in my opinion that's a core element of their job, to learn how to handle introverts or those less skilled in the social things. Some of the developers I've worked with were very socially awkward, but if you figured out how to talk to them, they had no trouble communicating what needed to be communicated. To a degree, I think the ones who are socially skilled should use their strength to help those who are not. And if you're a manager, I'd say you're partly paid to do exactly that.

by seren 12y ago

mercer 12y ago

> Do not underestimate social skills. Absolutely! I didn't mean to imply that social skills are unimportant. If I were to hire a programmer to work for me in a team context, the better choice from a business perspective, often, would be to hire the less-competent but socially-skilled. But that sucks. Because the best way a socially awkward or socially underdeveloped individual will learn the very essential skill of being more social is through acceptance, a safe environment, and constructive feedback. Furthermore, it's often not the real problem. A big problem in almost all companies I've worked for is that the managers (who usually are very socially capable non-geeks) were just not skilled at dealing with their developers. And in my opinion that's a core element of their job, to learn how to handle introverts or those less skilled in the social things. Some of the developers I've worked with were very socially awkward, but if you figured out how to talk to them, they had no trouble communicating what needed to be communicated. To a degree, I think the ones who are socially skilled should use their strength to help those who are not. And if you're a manager, I'd say you're partly paid to do exactly that.