Berlin

November 4 & 5, 2024

New York

September 4 & 5, 2024

Dates and deadlines...it's complicated

Learn key communication habits that clarify dates and deadlines, build trust, and improve team cohesion—especially in distributed teams—while making deadlines a positive, motivating factor.

Speakers: Sara Hicks

October 10, 2024

Setting and communicating dates and deadlines is one of the more challenging things to do in software development.

While setting dates is an important reality in business, they are often demotivating and counterproductive to bringing teams together and helping them to work more effectively. Even when dates are set and communicated, it’s usually not clear to different team members what the dates even mean. Then, when dates shift, it causes even more confusion and can contribute to a lack of trust. 

Good communication within a team is incredibly challenging! It’s even more challenging for distributed teams. Dates and the communication patterns around them are a vital element to establishing credibility and building upon values and principles within teams. 

This talk will explore several communication habits that can improve communication and knowledge sharing within your team around dates and deadlines. What communication habits are most important for a team to develop around dates? How can you communicate and ensure a common understanding around dates? What principles can you put in place to bring more confidence and understanding around the dates you set? How can dates become a positive contributing factor to your overall goals? Through specific examples and learnings, this talk will share habits and a common vocabulary around dates that, when used, can help teams to be more effective, motivated, cohesive, and even productive.