A little verbal processing here.

Lately I have been really into survival techniques. Things like fire starting, cleaning hunted animals and stuff like that. I have also been really digging deeply into the skills that I have worked over the course of a career in IT to hone – to better understand not only management strategies but to get a better feel for the engineering processes that surround successful development and deployment of software. I know, I know – yawn. But this stuff is my job and I am really uncomfortable “settling” with failing projects. I want to succeed and I’m the kind of guy that will push the buttons that need pushed in order to steer the inertia of a project into the realm of success.

The main emphasis of what I am discovering brings all the process and layers of complexity of software boiling down to one point, and I’d quote from Peopleware but their copyright forbids it so I’ll summarize: Success of a project stems from good communication by all participants, and the failures are rooted in poor communication.

Good communication, eh? That’s it?

I think you’ll find there is alot of evidence of that in life. I certainly believe it after reading How to Win Friends and Influence People.

So while I used to believe that having good communication skills was just a commodity – I am beginning to realize and understand that it is A SURVIVAL SKILL. In a world of shrinking 401Ks, receding economies, imploding real estate markets and general instability – you need as many things going for you as possible. It is worth it to study up on effective communication.