An ex-manager of mine once pointed out that we need to stop talking about “the business.” Doing so gives leverage to those claiming to represent “the business” and limits the influence of the engineering team. His was more a political observation than a call to change our mind state, but ever since then I have noticed how commonplace it is for colleagues to make vague assurances that “the business requested it,” or “the business want it like that.”

When someone uses the term “the business” they invoke shadowy high priests with absolute knowledge — but they could be referring to a clueless HIPPO, an opinionated sales or marketing exec or equally to any end user of a piece of software. The engineer should have every right to question those requirements and to request exactly whom “the business” refers to in this scenario.

At Westfield Labs we are very fortunate to work in a ‘digital’ department which combines product, design, end-users and engineering resources as equal collaborators. Most recently we have moved to truly cross-functional teams where the only direction given to us by sponsors and stakeholders is high-level: e.g. bring us more customers and more conversions through focusing on streams x and y. Sure, the product team provide the ultimate direction from a product perspective but only after close consultation and collaboration with all other relevant parties.

In this scenario it is not hard for an engineer to think of oneself as part of the business and I positively encourage my team to stop using the term ‘the business’ to refer to others as it implies that we are not an equal partner. To take it further, I actively encourage my engineers to question and understand business requirements and to shout out if they don’t make sense.

Talking recently to an engineer from a UK online retailer, he noted that his company “think of themselves as a marketing company, not a software company” and see the engineering department as a necessary expense to realising their feature requests. In a business that is so dependent on the quality of the implementation and the iterative improvements upon that implementation, it is naive to think that engineers are not equal partners.

Obviously it’s not so easy when you are working in an agency (and let’s face it, sometimes you are working from a spec and clearly not ‘equal partners’) but any enterprise that wishes to succeed in the digital age will ultimately depend on the quality of its implementation – and the feedback from those that are doing the implementing. Otherwise it will be made irrelevant by a competitor that does.

So, I entreat software developers everywhere: let’s stop talking about “the business” and start talking about: customers, stakeholders, sponsors, sales team, marketers, product team, whatever. Make it clear that we consider ourselves part of ‘the business’.