7 rules to score with Tech People, what’s yours?

If your Technical Person is good , encourage them to be better . Use them as your trusted friend , philosopher and guide .

Get out of their way and make them run and toil because they will revel in their sphere of excellence and will be more than happy to work harder if given the responsibility. They will be your workhorse and will remove the technical blockers in your project .

Be firm on your expectations from them - deadlines , scope, budget, quality but let them be flexible on the delivery and methodology within established tolerances.

Make sure that they understand that you are the enabler and offer to remove roadblocks from their way and shield them from project management politics.

Be humble and try to learn as much as possible from them regarding the high level technical stuff. As you keep insisting that they summarize the technical details in a non-technical way , They will also learn the art of tailoring their technical speak with non technical people , which is another valuable skill for them to develop.

Great points to avoid burning the bridges between Tech & Non tech groups.Instead foster a powerful peer relationship that clearly brings the positive impact of ‘Unity is Strength’.It’s easy to say this but very difficult to put in practice.Not impossible though !!!

i would like to add short breaks and training .

Do not talk with them, They always talk with the computer only.....jejeje

Best advice ever. :P

Now realistically as a PM you have to talk with the "technical" people but if you don't come from the same line of work as they do it is better to keep at minimum the discussions as you may annoy some of them very quickly.

Before talking to a tech guy think it very well and try to avoid the discussion if it is not really needed.

I have met such grumpy technical people especially in IT Infrastructure as we were afraid to talk to them. Software developers are better but still some of them, usually among the best, are very grumpy too.

Great talking point! I relate on many point, but specifically appreciate - "Don’t be dismissive and underestimate the effort." In relation to this, I'd say make an effort to understand their process by analyzing their tasks and/or IT specific area. For example, building virtual servers may involve the collaboration of other teams that your primary tech contact doesn't have control over. Other teams can include InfoSec for security reviews. That department may have their own extensive process that directly impacts your tech contacts timeline and tasks. Understanding what the process involves (not how to build or all the steps to build, but rather a high-level understanding of what is involved) will help in aspects like trust, appreciation, understanding and team work.