We engineers are great at coding, but things get shaky when it comes to collaboration. Here are three simple rules I followed that helped me build trust with other engineers and teams. When I was leading horizontal teams - SRE and Data Engineering - at Unacademy, me and my team were known for Ownership, Execution, and Collaboration. This happened because of the three rules we followed b

1. Always close the loop

The core of this is never to leave any discussion or thread open-ended. For example, if there was some bug to fix from our side, we made sure to follow up with the individual and confirm the resolution after the fix was pushed.

Even when some task was done on other platforms (say Github) and that auto notifies the user, we still ensured to close the Slack thread by putting the final message on it. This way, even if some leader was going through the Slack messages or threads, he/she needs to wonder about the current state.

2. Be humble, no matter what.

In a collaborative environment, it’s essential to listen to others to understand their perspective. It is possible that we do not have all the answers or could extrapolate our understanding. So instead of being aggressive in defending our approach, we listened to what others had to say, discussed with them to understand their pain points, and then came up with an approach that worked for both of us.

We always patiently listened to them, and this led to us having a higher chance that they would take the approach we suggested, or at least be a relatively easier and minimal change on our end.

3. Do not make others follow up, ever

If someone is waiting for your input or action, it can make them anxious. So we ensured to be proactive in communicating the progress, the completion, the delays, and the blockers.

This kept everybody in the loop, made us operate with high ownership, and made the entire collaboration transparent and pleasant. The best thing, after seeing us operate this way, other teams reciprocated whenever they were working with us :)