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Once a week we have a half hour session where we talk about a few features in our application or explain a customer question to our employees(sales, support, technical services, and development). This session is to teach our employees the application we sell and to help them improve the service to our customers. Once every two weeks, this session is mandatory. Unfortunately, some of our employees do not take this too seriously.

How can we, as developers, gain more involvement from the rest of the company? And make them understand the application we're building, selling and supporting more?

Sorskoot
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    I think this is a great question, but probably should be community wiki :) – warren Aug 31 '09 at 10:14
  • Funny you came across this old question. I agree somewhat if I look back at the question today. It's not about programming but was raised as an issue coming from software development. Today this problem might be solved using sprint reviews or something. I also voted to close, it's outdated... – Sorskoot Oct 09 '17 at 11:36

4 Answers4

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Ask them to present the topic in front of you after some days from the session day.

Another good way is to make them suggest new features and modifications in the project.

rahul
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  • This session is always open to suggestions. We often use a complicated customer question from last week. – Sorskoot Aug 31 '09 at 10:13
  • "open to suggestions" is not the same as "you must attend and speak". Every manager says they're willing to listen when most are not actually willing to listen at all. – S.Lott Aug 31 '09 at 10:49
  • I don't really agree with forcing people to do things, especially managers. Rather get them involved with incentives than telling them to do it. It will lead to the same problem. – Kyle Rosendo Aug 31 '09 at 11:00
  • Its not about forcing, its about participation. – rahul Aug 31 '09 at 11:04
  • I think there's a thin line between asking to participate and forcing. A request for participation can be feel like forcing and may result in less involvement. – Sorskoot Aug 31 '09 at 11:17
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If you have any hidden "tricks" or "easter eggs" in your application then start showing them one every week.

Make it interesting and tell them how a trick can help a customer.

Shoban
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Couple of points:

  • Make them feel important. Give them direct input using proper questions, even if you need to resort to analogies.
  • Speak with them, not at them. When people are being lectured there's a natural instinct to not take any notice.
  • Use analogies for things they do not understand, and again, give them direct input.

The main goal is giving the person a stake in the project. If they do not have anything valuable in the project (even an opinion that led to a feature classes in here), they will not care.

Kyle Rosendo
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You can't get any more involvement from your employees because subconsciously they know they will not get any more benefits through exercise of extra involvement.

Reasons?

  • They may not agree with your development strategy or with your customer relationship model. So they feel as they don't really belong here.

  • Their work will not profit from any extra insight, so for them it's a waste of time

  • They don't get paid enough so they are at a minimum accepted performance

  • They have other personal problems in mind and don't want to take extra mental burden during their working hours

  • They long since learned the company does not care about their opinion and improvement ideas, so they shut down their involvement service

  • They're that kind of people that are not interested in being involved (hire strategy issue)

Recognized anything? Then you know what to fix.

The important thing to understand that you should not just cure the disease but the reasons of its emergence. You may threaten people with some punishment actions if they don't get involved. You may play to emulate the need for their involvement. It will work for a brief time then fade out. Until you get to the origin of the problem, nothing will help.