Internal communication

Once you have facilitated the inbound communication to your team, internal communication is all about opening up enough channels between your development or project team members. This is where it gets really interesting, and where a great manager can add a tremendous amount of value.

Conceptually, imagine a mesh network where all of the nodes are connected to each other directly or indirectly, as opposed to a neat and tidy star shape with the manager sitting in the middle. A manager who is great at communicating will always ensure that every team member can communicate with other team members openly, freely, and quickly, with or without the manager involved.

Depending on the size and complexity of your team, there are various considerations that the manager needs to think about, including geography, language, culture, and personalities. The manager's key role is in enabling meaningful dialog by identifying and removing any barriers that may hinder that process.

For example, it could be as simple as fixing someone's Skype so they can instant message others or establishing a daily huddle for everyone to share what they are working on and what they might need help with. It could even be by enabling them to lighten the mood by giving the team permission to joke around a little in order to break the ice.

This may be a cliché, but it really is good to talk! Even if the amount of talking is taken to the extreme, given a choice between a team who talks too much and a team who talks too little, I would choose the former, every time. In my experience, a lot of talking is a healthy sign and easier to manage than if you were facing the opposite and having to constantly encourage any conversation at all, which could be a danger sign that your team doesn't have a lot in common.

The key to managing the amount of talk or communications within your team to an appropriate level is first of all to be flexible, and then second to know and trust your team to self-regulate that right level. Counter-intuitively, it's actually not your unilateral decision on how much or little the team chooses to talk. However, you do have a say and an oversight for their overall effectiveness.

So, if the team as a whole is ineffective, you can and should provide this as feedback in order to help them to adjust accordingly. By being flexible, it means there is no pre-set level or method of internal communication that is always deemed optimum. Different situations will require different behaviors.

In an "all hands-on deck" situation, you would want an elevated amount of communication and volume, which reflects the urgency and importance. However, a period of less chatter and an overall quieter environment will be more appropriate if there is a critical task that requires individual concentration from separate team members, such as hardcore solo coding to meet a tight deadline.

A nuance to this, which also supports the more talk is better idea, is the relationship building effect of more open communication. Something that you may think is uninteresting, insignificant, or inconsequential could be very relevant to another team member. So, while this is not a license to spam other team members, sharing a seemingly minute detail can spark an idea and build rapport. There is a reason why astronauts write everything down in a log, which is then read by other astronauts. When it comes to internal communications, over-communicating is better than under-communicating.