Andrew L. Van Slaars

Like most technology professionals, I have spent a great deal of time in meetings, speaking with stakeholders about development projects. One of the biggest obstacles throughout any development project is language, more specifically vocabulary.

Communication seems to slow, or completely break down without a common vocabulary. I have seen meetings turn into chaos and discussions turn into arguments over something as simple as a difference in vocabulary. I have watched in disbelief as two professional adults argue over something they agree with. They aren’t aware that they agree because they are speaking through different vocabularies.

I think teams should start off with some level of shared vocabulary. Technical team members should understand that the business users probably don’t speak geek, while business people should realize that the geeks don’t always have the same level of industry knowledge.

I was privileged enough in the recent past to work with a person who very simply and subtly overcame this problem on his own. This man was on the business side of the project and probably had the most financial interest in moving the project along as quickly as possible, so he facilitated communication by becoming a verbal chameleon. Rather than try to keep everybody else informed about what he meant, he would quickly adopt the language of the technical team and that would become the vocabulary for the project. It was very seamless and I think I was the only person on the team that picked up on it… it was so natural that I don’t even know if he realized he was doing it. Even if it was unintentional, it was impressive to watch him do a quick find and replace in his head and move on with the conversation.

Since most of us probably aren’t willing to do this, or just can’t change gears that fast, a common vocabulary should be adopted by teams at the onset of a project. This may sound like common sense, but I have yet to see it happen. Is this a common practice for anybody already? How do you approach the subject? I would love to hear your thoughts.

Andrew Human Behavior, Productivity, Teaching communication, Productivity