The softer side of custom software development: working with the other players

Many university programs in software engineering educate students about various technical topics, programming, methodology, software, applications as well as other topics that are considered 'hard' subjects. However, in the practical industrial world of developing custom software applications, there are various other matters confronting the software engineer that involve the other stakeholders in the development setting. These other stakeholders might be from the 'softer' subjects: sales, marketing, graphical arts, management, etc. This article presents an overview of the other stakeholders and suggests, to the software engineer, how to interact with them effectively.