Greetings my fellow cubicle dwellers.
I've found my role gradually change from "feature-maintainer" to "feature-developer". While much of the former would consist of fixing and/or updating an existing feature (and quietly grumbling about it's implementation with complete naiveté), in this new role I find:
Have to communicate with immediate management to define the development requirements to turnaround the new feature
Have to communicate with design to determine the user requirements of the new feature
Have to communicate with QA to determine test sets for the new feature, as well as it's current state during development.
Have to communicate with producers/project-managers to define remaining turnaround time as well as updates in development requirements.
and finally, have to occasionally communicate with upper-management to defend the new feature and demonstrate it's minimized risk to the upcoming release.
The last item is key here, and this took me a couple occasions to completely realize. In all, though, it becomes very apparent that communication skills ARE important, even or especially as such for developers who feel they 'own' the feature they're working on.
All of this said, I recognize it's importance and would like to improve my skills in this area further. I enjoy one-on-one communication but find I tend to stutter a bit when speaking to any group larger than a few people I know well.
Where can I find good resources to improve my own communication skills?
