5 simple rules for effective communication

One of the most common points of feedback I provide the students I mentor is just how key strong communication is as part of being a strong IT professionals, particularly for those students aiming to become business analysts.

The challenge being, it’s often hard to provide objective feedback and strategies on what is a mechanism that requires a degree of subjectivity and empathy.

Through this, I always bring them back to applying these five key steps to creating and delivering effective communication:

1. Set the stage — Provide background to what your communication is about, and set an early goal on why you’re communicating to this person (eg. “X happened, I need your help to make a decision on how to proceed”)
2. Know your audience — Communicate in a language that is meaningful to your audience (eg. Managers want to know about risks/rewards if you’re asking them to make a decision. A finance expert may want to know the cost)
3. Stick to the point — Ensure you identify why you’re communicating to someone (You want them to make a decision, or provide input, or just be aware of something), and stick to focusing on only the required information to inform that point. If what you’re telling the person isn’t informing them around the goal of your communication, then you need to leave that out.
4. Keep it as concise as possible — Not everything can be described in a short block of communication, but similarly, you should aim to only use as many words as absolutely necessary to describe the situation and question. Too many words and you can either over-describe the problem, or can stray from the point of the communication.
5. Come back to the purpose — Always finish the communication by re-iterating what you’re trying to achieve with the communication about. If you’re asking for help after you’ve described the problem ensure that you come back to re-enforce the areas in which you need help and why.

Through these five steps, you can find a simple process to begin to enhance and refine your communication.