The divide between Engineering, Sales, Product, and Support has been noted, and dozens of attempts have been made to connect the groups. Technique aside, it comes down to communication. To get the partnership they need, tech teams must pave the way for other groups to communicate and collaborate.

If you’re a part of a technical team and frustrated by other groups (cough, Support, Product, or Sales, cough) constantly asking for updates, scope, reprioritization of features, more documentation, more training… the list goes on; then perhaps it’s time to take a step back and consider how to help those groups help themselves. If what you want is to be left alone to do your work, you’ll want to listen in. In “You Can’t Always Get What You Want (Or Can You?)” we’ll touch on tried-and-true and data-driven methodologies for communicating with the other teams in your organization.

We’ll (quickly!) cover the following:

• Learning to identify the real problem (between the lines!) they’re coming to you with
• Reusing systems, tools, and practices you already use to communicate beyond your team
• Refocusing the conversation to advocate for your team
• Onboarding non-technical team members into your workflow so they understand how you work

You work hard to build your products - don’t get derailed by internal confusion and communication. Get what you want by learning how to save time and headache by giving non-technical teams exactly what they need before they even ask!

Kristen Gallagher is the founder of Edify, a learning strategy consultancy that solves people operations problems for growing companies. Specializing in onboarding systems, manager development, and