I’m a business analyst, and a big part of my job involves working with engineers and product managers to gather detailed, in-depth information. For reasons I don’t fully understand (though I have my theories), I often find that engineers, in particular, seem oddly reluctant to share the information I need. This makes the process more challenging than I’d like. Does anyone have tips or tricks for building trust with engineers to encourage them to share information more willingly and quickly?
EDIT: Here's a summary with more details for those who requested more info: I’m working on optimizing processes related to our in-house file ingestion system, which we’ve been piecing together over time to handle tasks it wasn’t originally designed for. The system works well enough now, but it’s still very much a MacGyver setup—duct tape and dental floss holding things together. We got through crunch time with it, but now the goal is to refine and smooth everything out into a process that’s efficient, clear, and easy for everyone to follow.
Part of this involves getting all the disparate systems and communication silos talking to each other in a unified way—JIRA is going to be the hub for that. My job is to make sure that the entire pipeline—from ticket creation, to file ingestion, to processing and output—is documented thoroughly (but not pedantically) and that all teams involved understand what’s required of them and why.
Where I’m running into challenges is in gathering the nitty-gritty technical details from engineers. I need to understand how their processes work today, how they’ve solved past issues, and what they think would make things better in an ideal world. But I think there’s some hesitation because they’re worried about “incriminating” themselves or having mistakes come back to haunt them.
I’ve tried to make it clear that I’m not interested in punishing anyone for past decisions or mistakes—on the contrary, I want to learn from them to create a better process moving forward. My goal is to collaborate and make their jobs easier, not harder, but I think building trust and comfort will take more time.
If anyone has strategies for improving communication with engineers—especially around getting them to open up about technical details without fear—I am all ears.
After reading your replies, I am on edge.
Please consider the following questions.
What is the power dynamic?
Are there good reasons to stonewall you?
What happened to the first few teams you worked with? Did the engineers involved advance in their careers? Do they talk with you still? What about their prior interactions with your team and department? Do those engineers still work at the company?
If you are confident you are there to help then just speaking to them like people. Don't bullshit them. Push them up in their careers when you can. Get them what resources you can. Support them in their goals. Do a good job and you won't get them to shut up.
This is a very long story, from my previous role, but both of those engineers have been promoted, and we are good friends.
You’ve probably tried this, but did those engineers have any insight as to how you can communicate with other engineers? Were things easy with them from the start or did you need to “prove yourself”?
This had not even occurred to me. Now On my to do list for Monday.
I was going to say, if you're good friends how do they not have advice for you?
Yeah, I hadn’t even mentioned it to them. Also they are in Bosnia, and almost all of us work remote, so it’s not like I get to see them around the office. They are not in any of the engineering teams I oversee, and I’m relatively new to this role. I’m very excited to get their take on this though; it’s a great idea.