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Continuing from, What happens when you enter ‘professional development’ or how about ‘IT professional development’. What do you find? (Pt. 1).

Below I’ve provided some examples on how some communication discussion and documentation techniques.

Communication examples:

You talking to a web developer, describing a web interface issue.

“I’m working on this website that processes online payments for customers. When the customer enters the card and pin into the text field and hits submit. The card and pin disappear but the page remains idle. The page does not move to the confirmation or acknowledgement page. Can you check the logs, identify this payment event at such and such time and check what might have gone wrong? Maybe the payment API not configured or setup up.”

You are talking to a business analyst, describing what the integration requirements are needed for an ecommerce website for a client.

“The client has requested their website to be integrated into ABC accounting systems. What we’re going to need from the client is an example of their current report outputs. For example, what are they expecting when we integrate into ABC accounting systems. We need examples of how the client wants their reports to be presented, how they want it delivered (email, attachment etc), and the timings of when this report is to be in a completed state. It is important we define these client requirements, so we deliver the exact items the client requests.”

You talking to a senior tech lead on a critical function that needs to be included on a new phone app.

“I understand this new social media function will cost extra money and time, however not delivering this for the client now, will mean we’ll need to add this function development later. It will need to be included in a sprint later in the year and we already have a lot on our plate. What I’ll do is work with a developer, quickly code a ‘proof of concept’ of this new social media function and in 3 days we should have a working demo on how this social media function will work. If you like what you see let’s, then chat about implementing this in the next deployment.”

Documentation:

Examples coming soon