Five Reasons Why Great Technology Is Unconditionally Human - Forbes

In the future, I believe that all companies will be tech companies. Traditional firms must upgrade their technological capabilities to match those of their competitors -- or else they face extinction. Look at the disruption that Netflix, Amazon and Airbnb have created in their industries and beyond, and you'll see how technology is becoming an integral part of companies’ strategy and competitive advantage.

But that doesn’t mean work becomes any less human. In fact, working collaboratively becomes all the more important. Here are five reasons why I believe great tech requires great, face-to-face, working relationships:

1. Most technology problems are human problems.

There’s nothing like sharing an elevator with a coworker or getting coffee with a colleague downstairs in the canteen. You become friends. You come to trust each other and understand one another’s needs and wants. That’s useful because nearly every problem in a technological project boils down to questions like: Have we understood each other? Are we talking about the same thing? What are our priorities? What do we actually want to solve? Whatever technical adjustments need to be carried out will always get sorted in the end; it’s much harder to build good, honest rapport with co-workers. Trust is vital.

2. Assumed problems might not be the real problems.

The more knowledge we have, the better decisions we make. There needs to be a constant exchange of information for us to be able to steer projects in the direction that creates real success. Rather than having everyone fixated on an arbitrary goal set at the beginning of the project (an objective that is usually just guesswork), we are free to make changes and adjustments along the way. Often, we might find a more fitting solution buried underneath the various assumptions we made at the beginning of a project. But this can only happen when we’re working side by side and meeting on a daily basis.

3. Problems can be solved more quickly.

Speed, or more to the point, velocity (speed in a specific direction) matters in technology. Too many tech projects get dragged on for months, even years, making the end result outdated before its release. From my experience, collaborative, face-to-face, amicable working relationships with everyone involved translate to better technological products with a significantly faster time-to-market. Decisions can be reached more quickly because the decision makers are consulted straight away; they don’t need to be thoroughly briefed on the progress of the project each time since they’ve witnessed its development firsthand. This equates to no more emails about “circling back” or waiting on managerial bottlenecks. Instead, there is a real feedback loop and leaders can step up and provide resources for the team based on its real-time needs. That saves time and money, resulting in greater efficiency.

4. Technology demands agility.

Technological needs are constantly changing. When we are working collaboratively with one another, I believe we can steer the project in a direction that solves those needs more efficiently and more quickly. Rather than rigidly sticking to a project plan and having developers build something in a black-box manner, wherein they only occasionally check in with decision makers, leaders instead are able to constantly oversee the product’s development. Offering constant, tangible progress for everyone to see might help your team feel less stressed as well. Instead of sitting through endless presentations full of big promises, everyone will be able to see the actual progress in the working software.

5. New learning opportunities emerge.

When tech teams work collaboratively with the rest of the staff, that know-how is passed on to everyone in both obvious and subtle ways. When the project ends, those capabilities remain -- not only in terms of technological skills, but also in terms of concepts like project management, agile working culture and social adaptability. We leverage this tactic at my company, and as one of our customers put it, we leave our “working DNA” behind when we leave their building.

Nowadays, the cliché of developers working on green matrix-like code in a basement surrounded by empty cans of energy drinks couldn’t be further from the truth: Instead, it’s a human business.

By working alongside developers and tech experts and consulting them daily on a face-to-face basis, you can add a human layer to your technology without compromising on quality. That’s what brilliant technology is all about: It’s made for people, by people, solving real human needs.

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