How Soft Skills Can Accelerate and Ensure the Quality of Your Software Development Deliveries

When companies hire, many tend to cast a wide net as they look for a range of hard skills. If you look at any technical job application, candidates often try and match a potential employer's zeal with all the acronyms listed in the job requirements. While hard skills are good, there's more to software development than just tapping out code.

Here are three reasons why soft skills can accelerate and ensure the quality of your software development deliveries:

1. Software Is a Digital Translation of Ideas

Code does not and cannot exist in isolation. The most effective pieces of software are ones that solve a problem. Software developers are translators of business ideas, strategies and rules into code - and in order to be able to effectively play this role, they also need a strong understanding of how things work.

This is where soft skills such as analytical thinking, initiative, problem solving, and communication come in. An effective developer will have self-sustaining mobility that permits them to move between the lines. This will allow them to clarify and point out potential flaws from a different perspective, as well as to problem solve before they start coding.

This means less micro-management from you and more productive output from the software developer.

2. Synthesis Works Best When a Developer is Intrinsically Creative

When you hire a developer, you are hiring them for their ability to translate ideas into reality. However, there are different grades of software development work.

The most ineffective kinds occur when you have to hold their hands through every step. The hard part is, you might not know where to step next because software development isn't your thing. You might be a healthcare provider, a food operator, or a retail owner. Your job isn't to figure out what kind of infrastructure or software development models you need. That's what the software developer is for.

Creativity is an overlooked soft skill because it is often associated with fine art areas such as graphic design and marketing. But creativity takes shape in many forms.

Creativity in relation to technology is when a software developer is able to piece together different parts of their knowledge in order to create something that effectively delivers what you need. It's one thing to know a lot of different technologies, but it's another to be able to stitch the pieces together.

3. Software Development Isn't Always Linear

The days of waterfall software development are long gone. Agile delivery is something that many businesses are working to transition into, if it isn't already part of their core strategy.

Back in the old days of dial up, the world moved a lot slower. It could take months, if not years, for any kind of software to be completed and delivered.

Nowadays, a business cannot survive without having anything to show for that long. Software development is no longer a linear process. The new way of working involves starting small, testing the market quickly, and scaling up if the idea works. It becomes all about how short you can make the feedback loop.

Software development has therefore shifted towards modular and component based processes. Effective developers are ones that can easily adapt to changes and communicate any roadblocks or issues that may come up. This benefits the business because you're not wasting time trying to uncover potential pitfalls in your software development process, and instead you’re left with time to work on the running of your business.

How We Can Help

Soft skills are often uncovered over a period of time. The developer’s ability to communicate, participate productively in a team, display acts of critical thinking and have a positive attitude towards their work often only reveals itself after they've started working.

For many businesses looking to hire a software development team, this can be a massive risk. Once you sign them on, they become part of your on-going, long term overhead.

At SRG, we reduce this risk because our developers are experienced and highly curated in their hard and soft skills. Our teams know how to work with each other and with other external teams efficiently.

If you have an idea or are already in the process of looking to develop your software product, talk to us today about how we can help you.

Co-authored by:

Dave Wesley ~ President, SRG
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Aphinya Dechalert ~ Marketing Communications, SRG
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