The 5 Deadly Sins of Text Communication for Software Developers
The help to get you faster help.
In college, I thought being a 10x developer meant having at least 5 screens, typing at lightning speed, mastering Vim, and using countless plugins.
As it turns out, developers often spend more time in useless meetings, writing more messages to clarify the requirements than coding, supporting others with their unsolved issues, and begging others to review merge requests.
In this blog, we’ll focus on the common mistakes and give some tips I’ve learned over the years that can help you get faster helpful replies to be the efficient developer you’ve always aspired to be. Let’s get started…
1. STOP Just Saying Hello or Hi 👋
Dropping a “Hello Mike, how are you?” instead of asking your actual question is both polite and extremely disrespectful :)
Consider this example…
You: Hi Mike, Whatsup?
Mike: (Thinking…) let me finish this task really quick.
-3 hours later- Hi John, i’m good, you?You: I’m fine, thanks. I want you to ask about X. can you help me with the requirement?
Mike: Sorry dude, I have no idea about that, Steve is working on it :)
Not asking your question immediately after greetings is often a lose-lose situation:
- You may interrupt Mike’s focus twice or make him wait while you type the question.
- Mike might delay his response, assuming you’ll ask a weird decrypted question. However, if he knows the answer or even better someone else who can help, he’d likely respond quickly to assist you.
As a result, when you just drop a “Hello” you may end up waiting longer for Mike to mentally prepare for your question, wasting both your time and his.
Just saying “Hello” pissed someone off so much that they had to create a website called nohello.net for it 😂
2. Not Providing Enough Context 😵💫
Picture this scenario: You’re working on a stupid bug for a week but you can’t figure out what’s wrong. Now besides regretting being a Developer and wishing you were a fish, you decide to reach out for help…
Since you were telling what’s going on every day on the daily stand-ups you assume that your colleagues have listened right? Wrong! Anyways you ask the the most generic question ever…
Hey Steve, I’m still working on the ‘create new profile’ bug but I can’t figure it out anymore can you check it out please?
Now Steve has been watching Netflix the whole time and has no idea what you’re talking about. So he asks 900 follow-up questions to understand how he can help you. Questions like…
Which task? What is the problem? Which branch? Have you restarted your laptop 5 times? What is a profile? Who are you? etc…
In this case, you waste both of your time because…
- You’ll need to provide these answers eventually, so it’s best to include them upfront.
- Steve will do so much to determine what he must ask and look for.
- A lot of time will be wasted while waiting for questions and answers. and trying what you’ve already tried.
A better approach is to assume that the other person has no idea -unless you were pair programming- and provide enough context to at least give them a good start and what to look for. At least try to provide…
- What is the problem and the expected behavior? + the task link.
- Which branch/version you’re working on?
- What you’ve tried but didn’t work -if any-
- Any special cases like specific theme/user/flow.
For example…
Hey Steve, I’m trying to solve a bug related to creating a new profile flow [link], when a user creates a new profile, instead of showing success dialog and navigating to the privious screen, it shows a success but stays in the same screen.
You can reproduce this issue using this [phone number] in the test environment. this bug were introduced after the version 1.2.0. Can you check it out when you have time?
This version is longer but gives Steve enough context to start helping you immediately.
The fewer WTF moments for Steve, the faster help you will get. Plus Steve will be willing to help you more in the future.
Tip: Review your messages before sending them to make sure that they’re concise, easy to read and have enough context.
3. Writing 3–4 Words Per Message 🤦♂️
Just consider the fact that…
well,
the other person
is not
your girlfriend :)
Sending 900 messages instead of one well-crafted message WILL place you in the “muted zone” forever.
Joking aside, composing a clear and concise message shows respect for the recipient’s time and energy. Therefore helps you get faster responses.
4. Not Trying hard before asking for help 🫠
How often have you solved the problem simply by explaining it to your colleague? so embarrassing right? Happens to all of us :)
It’s important to try hard before asking, otherwise, the other person will start to notice that you’re relying on him too much. As a result, he might delay his help gradually or even worse not respond to you at all.
Before asking for help, here’s some useful tips…
- Explain the problem to a Rubber Duck: Explaining your problem out loud to an object often helps you spot the solution by forcing you to articulate and examine the issue step-by-step.
- Prepare for the meeting: If you can’t figure out what’s wrong, get ready before reaching out for help. At least you should be able to explain what’s wrong and what is the goal you’re trying to achieve. Plus of course, run the code instead of the awkward silence when waiting to build the project :)
5. Not Making Investments 📈
I’ve noticed that most people mirror the way you communicate with them. Knowing that; you can make investments that will pay you off in the future, for example…
- Reply fast when possible.
- Write concise messages with enough context, code snippets, and images.
- Be thankful for the help, the fast response, the amazing things you learned when reviewing a PR, etc.
Doing that will also open up an opportunity for deeper friendships, more efficient communication, and faster help from others.
Tip: Use threads in public channels. it keeps conversations organized, notifies only interested people, makes discussions easier to track, and reduces clutter in main channels.
Conclusion
Composing a good message is similar to writing good code: it’s challenging but rewarding in the long run.
Also, empathy is so important in communication. Before hitting “Send” Ask yourself: Will others easily understand this message without losing 5 hours decrypting it?
The more you get better in this form of communication the faster you will get help and therefore finish your tasks.
That’s it and I hope you loved the blog ❤️
