Agile Communication: A new era of communication

October 8, 2023 by News Desk

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Md. Ishaque Faruquee

Communication is the greatest portion of the entire world. It’s not what it implies for IT, transportation, or language abilities. Communication is bigger than that. In many places, traditional communication theories and practices are lessening due to personal, social, economic, environmental, cultural, mental, scientific, industrial, geological, hydrological, digital, beneficial, intellectual, and methodological changes. From home to market; government to non-government; proprietorship to corporate; mass media to digital; organic to artificial; national to international—the viability of communication stands on agility or fragility. What do we do now to get good results? Agile communication or what? This is the perfect time to assess our needs.

Communication

Based on the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the definition of `communication’ is a process by which information is exchanged between individuals through a common system of symbols, signs, or behaviors. Also the exchange of information. The Cambridge Dictionary mentions that communication is the various methods of sending information between people and places, especially paper, phone, television, radio, internet, etc. The word “communication” has its root in the Latin verb ‘communicate’, which implies `to share’ or `to make common’. The basic communication model consists of five elements of communication: the sender, the receiver, the message, the channel, and feedback.

For human communication, a central distinction is between verbal and non-verbal communication. Verbal communication includes the exchange of messages in linguistic form, including spoken and written messages as well as sign language. Non-verbal communication happens without the use of a linguistic framework, for example, by utilising body language, touch, and pitch. Another refinement is between interpersonal and intrapersonal communication. Interpersonal communication happens between distinct people, such as when welcoming somebody on the road. Intrapersonal communication is communication with oneself. It can happen inside as inward dialogue or remotely, like when writing down a shopping list. Non-human forms of communication include animal and plant communication. There is also written and visual communication. Written communication is the exchange of data, thoughts, or messages through written dialect within the frame of letters, emails, notes, and more. Visual communication is the use of visual components to communicate thoughts and data that incorporate (but are not restricted to) signs, typography, drawing, graphic design, illustration, industrial design, advertising, animation, and electronic resources.

Clarity, conciseness, creativity, correctness, concreteness, confidence, coherence, and courtesy are the principles of effective communication. Benefits of effective communication: Mitigated conflict; progressed understanding and clarity; expanded efficiency; improved teamwork; way better decision-making; expanded employee/mate/team member engagement; moved forward client relations; solid working environment culture; improved direction for employees/mates/team members; boosted employee/mate/team member job/task satisfaction; increased innovation; moved forward public impression.

Agile

Based on the Cambridge Dictionary, the definition of ‘agile’ is being able to move your body quickly and easily and being able to think quickly and clearly. Agile could be a persistent, recurrent process that energizes experimentation and flexibility.

Agile methodology considers these steps: requirements, plan, design, develop, release, track, and monitor. These are adaptable and advancing, and they often overlap one another, so multiple projects are in process at the same time. In human resources management, agile management focuses on speed and customers, which creates adaptability, innovation, and speed. Agile HR’s jobs include implementing programs, systems, and strategies that foster expertise, collaboration, and decision-making. These are different from the waterfall strategy.

Tech visionaries are addressing these agile principles: focus on customer satisfaction, accept changes, deliver work frequently, work as a team, work with a motivated team, have face-to-face interactions with the team, focus on the working products, ensure sustainable development, enhance agility, have simplicity, maintain a self-organized team, reflect, and update. These points are different from traditional methods.

Agile Communication

In computer program development, agile practices incorporate requirements disclosure and solution improvement through the collaborative exertion of self-organizing and cross-functional groups with their customers and users. Scrum is an agile project management framework commonly used in software development and other businesses. It portrays a set of gatherings, tools, and roles for productive project delivery. Much like a sports group practicing huge coordination, scrum practices permit groups to self-manage, learn from involvement, and adapt to change.

Scrum is very effective for communication. Professional Scrum Trainer Simon Kneafsey mentioned that Scrum requires certain minimal forms of documentation, such as the product backlog and sprint backlog. But when doing complex work, there is a vital need for people to communicate in real time to exchange ideas, ask questions, and increase their collective understanding.

There are common mistakes between `Intra’ and `Inter’. If I say `intra-personal communication’, some of people read or pronounce it `inter-personal communication’. Interpersonal communication happens between two or more people; intrapersonal communication is done with oneself. To practice agility in communication, you need to combine intra-personal communication and inter-personal communication.

Process of Agile Communication

Agile communication is a cycle. To follow the cycle, everyone needs to go through it. Here is the process of Agile communication.

Plan: organizing thoughts into actionable steps with vital, strategic, operational, and possibility of work. Define roles and objectives.
Design: It is also part of planning. Design a work plan based on vision. But things about the sender, receiver, message, challenge, environment, context, and feedback.
Develop: Mature ideas based on requirements, Motivation, Surrounding, Prototyping, and Approval.
Test by self-practice: Establish the quality, execution, or reliability of self-practice or self-learning to improve intellectual abilities.
Integration: Collaboration is a more valuable thing to do better. As we know unity is power.
Execution with Adaptation: Act of doing or performing something in a planned way. Also, focus on the current situation. Be flexible, but don’t be distracted. Always focus on your goal. Strategies are sometimes revised.
Evaluation: To develop a sustainable environment, we need to collect and analyze data on all exercises, characteristics, and results.
Feedback: This is a more important thing to improve anything.

Agile Team Communication

Characterize Roles and Objectives at the Starting. it ought not to be unbending or set in stone. Changes are bound to happen and the group should be agile and adjust.
Continuously empower the group to ask questions. Questions lead to clarifications, revelation, and in some cases process improvements.
Mistakes should be encouraged and openly discussed at the beginning.
Review meetings are basic to opening up communication channels. Amid the reflective meeting, the group should focus on what went right and (most imperatively!) what went wrong. The objective is to be profitable and not spend the total time pointing fingers or complaining about things.
Feedback is the most excellent thing to grant and receive. Hence, begin by giving criticism regularly and to everyone. Did someone handle something well? Allow them positive input on what they did and the effect it had. Did they miss a deadline? Why? Provide them input on how to move forward.

Communicator, You are Agile!

Agile communication helps to define plans and roadmaps and move towards a goal efficiently.
Agile communication puts less accentuation on nitty gritty and complex documentation in favor of speedy and messy face-to-face discussions. This approach veers intensely from conventional communication plans that center on documentation and intensely organized meeting calendars.
Agile communication instead prioritizes closer collaboration and data sharing between partners to ensure alignment and permit fast decision-making and turns all through the method.
Agile communication requires high-level arranging that encourages clear information-sharing and beneficial face-to-face meetings.
Agile doesn’t totally toss out documentation, it places a much higher esteem on useful deliverables. In other words, Agile prefers to appear over tell amid normal sprint reviews.

To practice agility in communication, we need to focus on self-awareness and being mindful of others; taking responsibility for the message and the way it is received; treating others with respect and kindness and being careful of their feelings and points of view; being legitimate and straightforward in communication and building mutual trust and respect among the audience; being open to modern thoughts, thinking outside the box, and being willing to take risks.

Now, we can define Agile communication this way-

Exchanging information through the collaborative effort of the self-organizing and multidisciplinary team by oneself and others to find necessities and improve solutions.

Author: Communication Specialist, Development Worker, Soft Skill Developer

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https://www.linkedin.com/in/md-ishaque-faruquee-b9476818b/