Quadruple your effectiveness! Use coding out loud
Developers can no longer be an island.
Coding is now a team sport. Toiling away in obscurity doesn’t help your career or your company.
Coding Out Loud
It simply means sharing frequent updates. Document what you are doing in multiple places.
Your teammates should know what you are doing. No surprises.
Share
Be ready to give an update to your team. Whether you have stand-up or other meetings keep your notes up to date.
Overcommunicate
Don’t assume that you share it once everyone knows. Answer this question, how often do you listen? So say it a few times.
Pair when you can
Pair or Mob when you can. Sometimes work doesn’t lend itself to that. Or perhaps your partner is out.
If you can’t then code out loud!
Multi-channel
My preference is email. Yours might be Slack or Teams. Others prefer text messages or WhatsApp.
Make sure you understand your team. Communicate accordingly.
Clarify
I have assumed what I needed to deliver. Then missed the mark by a wide margin.
It is much easier to ask questions. Understand all the criteria. Clarify what is expected.
All sides
Make sure all your teammates are communicated to. Include your Product Owner, Testers, Scrum Master, and others.
One often missed is our manager. Keep them in the loop too. They will evaluate you at some point. Better they understand your value.
Cadence
Establish a cadence to your updates. It creates an expectation of timing.
For instance, you may have a morning stand-up. To supplement that you could share an afternoon update.
Introvert’s dilemma
This advice may fall on deaf ears. Many of us people of the code are introverts.
I have two feet planted in the introvert camp. However, I have realized that we need to let people know what we are doing.
Accommodate them
Eric was painfully shy. He asked me if he could skip all meetings and we emailed him the requirements.
I explained to him that we need his expertise in meetings. I did help him by ensuring every meeting had an agenda.
Eric didn’t respond well to questions. On the other hand, if he knew the topic he would prepare.
In closing, developers need to keep their teams in the loop. Don’t code and think everyone is hanging on your every commit. They have their work to do.
Share what you did in the stand-up. Update your user story in Jira. Don’t leave anything to chance.