How to Win Friends and Influence People (on the Programming Team)

Are you a project manager or site owner who works closely with developers? Does it sometimes seem like they are speaking a different language? Is it frustrating when you put in a request and get back a totally different result than you expected? Why won’t developers commit to an estimate?

Over nearly two decades of working with programmers (and watching other people die trying),  I’ve noticed that a lot of the disconnect between front and back of house stems from a fundamental lack of knowledge about what the other team does.

In this session, we’ll talk about some common frustrations that non-technical folks have when working with developers. We’ll learn more about the nature of programming, which will help explain the seemingly quirky and inexplicable habits of your dev team.

Then we’ll outline how you can have a more effective relationship with your developers by asking the right questions, and by tweaking your approach to task assignment and bug reporting.

We’ll wrap things up by focusing on the big picture - collaborating with programmers to solve problems by setting realistic expectations, encouraging their creativity and prioritizing effective communication. We’ll also think about how we further bridge the gap between teams by helping your dev team better understand YOUR job.