See communications and delivery as separate but a part of the same customer-centric whole

It's all part of the same thing,
we just don't know the difference sometimes
but we have to create and define it.

Most projects are tough because there are two main and competing parts to them: doing the work (adding value) and communicating about the work (selling).  I wrote about these two things yesterday.  When we're in roles like project manager or business analyst, we have to do both and can't focus on just one or we'll fail. 

One time at Microsoft I focused exclusively on delivering the value and failed because I didn't spend enough time on communications and change aspects with the customer (I had no time or willingness to, either, so serves her right...). 

On the flip side, dealing exclusively on with the selling aspects is the same as analysis paralysis and we shouldn't just want to sit there and talk about it all day: that's not the goal either.  So there must be some kind of balance between these two things.

I think we're lucky: Scrum makes communications a daily occurrence through standups and has a standard process and roles for communications.  Scrum fixes the time of communications and gives most of  the time to the development team to do their work.  In the meanwhile, management and planning activities happen in parallel. 

In Scrum there's a clear and defined way of communicating and this is necessary.  Many new projects don't have this structure and need to get it as soon as they can.  So, in summary, we need to have the role of delivery, the role of sales, and then a defined and clear relationship between them.  Get it!!