How Soft Skills Can Boost Your Software Implementation
Knowing how to interact with the various members of your team is vital in ensuring adoption of a new software solution is widespread throughout your organization.
Regardless of your role, you’ll need to communicate, problem-solve, and collaborate with other team members. Taking time to build up your soft skills will improve your interactions with any member of your team and beyond; it’ll also set you up for a smoother implementation process.
What are Soft Skills?
Soft Skills are interpersonal attributes that enhance an individual's interaction, job performance, and career prospects. Unlike technical skills, which are specific to a particular task, soft skills are transferable across various jobs and industries. Discussing these soft skills highlights our shared unity in using and always improving these skills.
In this blog, we are going to focus on three soft skills:
- Communication
- Problem-Solving
- Collaboration
Who Uses Soft Skills During a Project?
The simple answer is everyone. Whether you are a c-level executive, a team leader, a team member, or any other role, soft skills are important to deploy as they get everyone on board.
The more people who are actively engaged in a project the better.
Let’s break down each of the three soft skills above and go over their overall function within a project and some key questions to consider as your team navigates through change.
Communication
Communication is a critical skill everywhere you go. Forbes even lists it as the #1 essential skill in 2024. Communication skills are showcased by your ability to listen and understand, and your ability to effectively communicate your message through verbal and/or written communication.
Both speakers and listeners use nonverbal communication. Managing your nonverbal communication well plays a huge role in highlighting your communication skills and competence.
As a project team member, here are some questions to consider as you evaluate your communication skills:
- How do you maintain active listening during project calls?
- Are there strategies you could use to improve your active listening to retain more of the knowledge shared?
- What sort of non-verbal messages are you sending?
Take action and begin enhancing your communication by applying one or more of the following action steps:
- Take notes during a call
- Ask to drive the screen share to learn through "muscle memory"
- For audio calls, monitor the tone of your voice, check audio quality, limit background noise, and time your pauses – It’s ok to tell someone you are taking a moment to think
- For video calls, you can show active communication by monitoring your tone of voice, facial expressions, posture, and camera angle
Problem-Solving
Any software implementation or adoption will run into roadblocks. Whether it's training issues, technical errors, or a lack of buy-in, knowing how to step back and develop a plan can help you solve these problems.
Problem-solving houses three additional soft skills that are also very important: critical thinking, adaptability, and resilience. These skills are needed to identify and address complex challenges and opportunities throughout the lifecycle of your implementation.
Critical thinking and adaptability contribute to your problem-solving abilities as you identify and address complex challenges and opportunities in many implementation phases. These phases can be very fluid, increasing the adaptability needed to adjust to those and the critical thinking skills necessary to address these changes. Resilience also increases your problem-solving skills, as it drives you to find a solution in the face of setbacks.
As a project team member, here are some questions to consider as you evaluate your problem-solving skills:
- Do you consider multiple perspectives and scenarios before finalizing a solution?
- Do you take time to distance yourself from the problem?
- How do you make space for creative thinking and new ideas?
Take action and begin enhancing your problem-solving skills by applying one or more of these action steps:
- Ask your other team members open-ended questions, as opposed to leading or closed-ended questions
- Use Microsoft Copilot by asking if it can give you tips on how different personas involved in a project might respond to different types of challenges
- To distance yourself from a problem, you can take some time away from your computer and incorporate movement into your day. Don't be afraid to book this on your calendar
- Take a brainstorming call from your phone while you take the walk. The "creative juices" are more likely to start flowing
- Consider switching your work location to provide a change of scenery and a fresh perspective
Collaboration
When working on a project team, collaboration can occasionally feel like it "makes or breaks" the experience, as effective collaborations directly impact the level of teamwork. When responsibility is shared and accountability is established, collaboration becomes easier, leading to a more successful and enjoyable project. Not only will the project be more successful, but good collaboration skills can enhance your own professional goal attainment and job satisfaction.
Think about how you and your team collaborate and then ask yourself the following questions:
- Do you confirm and track the tasks you are accountable for?
- Do you speak up to help when you can?
- Do you ask questions when something is unclear?
- Do you keep your goals top of mind?
- Am I Are you aware of different preferences that your team members may have?
- Do you try to communicate and work together in a way that is best suited to the team or an individual?
Take action to enhance your collaborating skills by following these actions steps:
- One key thing you can do is use a shared task tracker and verbally confirm action items after meetings with your team.
- Be considerate and realistic about your and your team members’ workloads and try to spread tasks out evenly.
- Pause, reflect, and connect with individuals on your team about the specific tasks they are working on. Remember, your tasks - and the tasks of your team members - are part of a larger picture you are all working towards.
- Establish, or review if it already exists, your team member's preferences in work and communication style. As mentioned above, not everyone operates the same way, so try to adjust and accommodate to make them comfortable where you can.
The Final Results: An Empowered and Knowledgable Team
While there are a lot of soft skills you can enhance to help make your implementation run smoother, these three give you a solid foundation to build upon. Here are some key takeaways:
Improved collaboration ensures that the entire team stays on track and holds each other accountable. This leads to increased productivity and innovation.
Sound decision-making skills, coming from thoughtful critical thinking, adaptability, and resilience can lead to more strategic choices that benefit the project and business' overall success.
Clear and effective communication can result in motivated team members who understand the current and future state and the benefits to come from the future state.
At the end of the day, large and small implementation projects – or any change within your organization – will require a large amount of technical skill and support. It’s important to remember though, that these soft skills are equally important and can make or break the success of your project.
Want to Learn More About Boosting Efficiency and Collaboration within Your Organization?
We value technical excellence and have a team of dedicated experts for various Microsoft solutions whose expertise can help you implement and optimize your solutions by taking advantage of every unique feature and functionality. We also practice soft skills and can teach you how to harness them to get the all-important second portion of an implementation, the buy-in from you and your team.
Get in touch with our team to learn more.
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