Persuading Your Software Team and IT Management

Ever wanted to do something new, or make a change on your project - but other people on your software team won't support you? Let me share what I learned over 15 years of software development consulting about persuading it management and other technologists on your software team. Persuasion is a soft skill that is more valuable than many people realize!

The first thing to understand is that people aren't persuaded by logic alone. It takes having an authentic relationship with the manager, other programmer, QA tester, UX designer, DevOps person - whatever role they hold on your team. Persuasion is much more effective if you think about how humans decide not just rationally, but emotionally.

It's a given that you've taken the time to come up with good arguments for why your code change, process change, or some other way we work together to deliver software is worthwhile. But you need to align the benefits with each person you talk to. As a programmer, maybe it helps you write higher quality code, or have an easier time refactoring or deploying. As a QA tester, the change you want to recommend makes it easier to verify features, or perform regression tests. As a manager, maybe the change makes it easier for you to get support from the CEO, CTO, or Director above you who wants to understand whether the software project is on track.

But most people are asking: "What's in it for me?" and it's your job to connect the dots between what the benefit of the change to coding or whatever other aspect of programming or deliver software you want to make is - and how that helps THEM do their job. When persuading your IT management, or someone else in a position of authority, benefits to you (or sometimes even the business!) aren't enough. You'll want to consider how supporting you makes them look. Will it impact how their performance is measured? Do you know them well enough to understand what motivates them in their tech career?

But this isn't enough. You'll face getting your point across simply, and so creating visual artifacts like charts, graphs, and animations can really hammer home the benefits and help you with persuading people who have less time to make decisions the higher up the IT management chain they are. If your manager or the other person your persuading now has these visual assets, they can share them with other people and help you get buy-in from other programmers, managers, or whoever could also be a barrier to your idea.

As programmers we often look to coding, frameworks, tools, or processes to improve our developer experience and help us deliver better software. But sometimes (as is the case in persuasion) it gets down to your relationship with the people! I hope these steps I learned as an IT consultant help you have a healthier, more successful career in software development!

#programming #persuasion #consulting


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CHAPTER MARKERS

0:00 Introduction
1:13 10 Steps to Persuade Others
1:21 #1 Be Honest About Your Skills
1:57 #2 Have an Authentic Relationship
3:40 #3 Know How To Measure Success
4:43 #4 Identify Benefits To Others
5:44 #5 Incremental Persuasion
7:00 #6 Create Visual Aids and Assets
8:38 #7 Future-Pace The Benefits
9:53 #8 Know How They're Measured
11:08 #9 Timebox The Response for Support
12:29 #10 Practice Persuasion
13:39 #11 Episode Groove

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