zondag 19 februari 2012

Becoming a writer

You're reading this. That means my language must be - at least - bearable. I'm well aware that it will never be great. This is partly because English is not my native language. Now that will never change. Also, I lack talent. That won't change, either. What can change, and what has changed in the past years, is that I've become much better at producing reasonable stuff. And I'm faster, too.

When I press my team members to start getting good at it, they often say they are not so interested. They want to program, design, test - and so forth. I think that's a big mistake. If you want to become a great software maker, then your communication skills need to be great, too. That involves many many skills, and the ability to create good texts is one of them. It's not the least of them either. And (this must sound as music to Agile ears) it's re-usable! You'll find these skills useful in many parts of your work and life in general.

It is so important that I always press people to get on with it and do it. The complaint that you're not good at it won't hold: you were not good at writing programs either, years ago. How did you manage to become the programmer/designer/[your job here] you are today? Indeed, the usual way. Studying the art, and doing it - a lot.

So don't try to hide when a text is required from someone but take the opportunity to invest in yourself. "You're worth it".

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