ErgoHOWL

Quarter Four 2023

Tips for Communicating and Collaborating with Engineers

Communication and effective collaboration between different groups in organizations can be challenging.  One area where barriers to communication and collaboration are particularly difficult is between engineering design teams and safety professionals. Let’s look at some ways these barriers can be overcome to ensure your projects have the best chance for success.

• Understand your Audience

To communicate effectively, you need to consider who you are talking to and how they prefer to receive information. Different engineers have different backgrounds, levels of expertise, interests, and expectations. You need to tailor your message according to your audience and use appropriate language, tone, and format. Avoid jargon, idioms, and complicated phrasing. Try to speak slowly and one at a time. Stop and check that everyone is on the same page and that your message has been understood. If you are explaining a technical concept to a junior engineer, you may need to provide more details and examples than if you are talking to a senior engineer. Additionally, if you are writing a report for a client, you will want to use more formal and concise language than if you are chatting with a colleague.

• Use clean and concise language that engineers understand.

Poor communication breakdowns are often the result of vague, uncertain, or erroneous language. Engineering is a field that relies on precision, accuracy, and clarity, so you need to use language that exhibits these qualities. Avoid slang, or acronyms that engineers may not understand, and clearly define any technical terms that you use. Use simple and direct sentences and avoid unnecessary words or phrases. Proofread your communication before sending or presenting it. If you are using any diagrams, graphs, or tables, make sure they are labeled, and consistent with your text.

• Respect their time.

This is essential in any office or team and goes for everyone. But it’s especially important with engineers who are often working without a project manager and are juggling numerous projects for different teams, especially if they are responsible for those outcomes. The old saying that time is precious really does apply here. To get the most of your time with an engineer, it’s important that you schedule and structure meetings in advance. Make sure the meetings have a set agenda and that they stay focused. Put the meetings on the calendar and send out the agendas in advance. Avoid unnecessary small talk and ask about solutions instead of trying to always give one. Determine next steps and set deadlines.

• Listen actively and respectfully

Communication is not only about sending information, but also about receiving and understanding it. To communicate effectively with engineers, you need to listen actively and respectfully to what they have to say. Ask questions, stay open-minded and be ready to discuss options. By listening actively and respectfully, you can show your interest and appreciation, clarify any doubts or confusion, and build rapport and trust with your audience. Often, the final solutions for systems design and other projects come from the meshed perspectives of many parties with radically different approaches to the problems.

• Develop trust between teams

Healthy, productive relationships require trust. Trust is built from respect, inclusion, collaboration, listening and talking with team members as you work towards achieving a common goal. Trust can be developed one small win at a time. Each time you solve a problem together, talk about non-work-related subjects, or achieve a goal together, you are adding to the trust within your team.

• Include engineers in your brainstorming sessions

It makes good sense to include engineers in your brainstorming sessions from the beginning, ensuring you develop realistic and practical solutions and that you have buy-in from the engineering team. However, it’s not enough just to invite them to the sessions and propose them your solution. A much better approach is to ask them for their solutions. Tell them the problem you want to solve and see what they come up with.

• Adapt and improve

Communication is a dynamic and continuing process that requires constant adaptation and improvement. You should examine and evaluate how successful your communication is with your engineering team and seek feedback from them and yourself. You need to identify your strengths and limitations and learn from your mistakes and successes. By adapting and improving, you can enhance your communication competence and achieve a strong and fruitful working relationship with your engineers.

• Conclusion

Successful teams require good communication between all parties. Including engineers in all phases of a project is a good way to ensure this success. Understanding communication strategies that resonate with engineering teams is an essential factor in this process.