Do you speak developer?

If you’re a non-tech you shouldn’t have to be able to speak developer. It’s not your job to learn how to talk to your software developers and explain to them in terms that they understand.

Your job is to articulate to your team what you want to achieve and how it should work. Your team should be able to provide you with a framework or a structure and be able to expand. From that point, they can turn that into the requirements and details that they need.

We frequently get told by non-tech people who have tried to develop things in their past. When dealing with a team as soon as they start talking that everything starts going over their head. They feel lost and just think that’s the way it has to be.

Well, that’s not how it has to be at all.

You need to be able to have a team that communicates with you well and you can communicate with them. You should be able to articulate effectively as much detail and explanation as possible. The goal is to get everyone on the same page.

The worst thing you can have is two teams i.e. a team and the client who acts as a team and doesn’t communicate properly at all.

You shouldn’t have to speak “developer language”, but learn how to communicate with them in the way they can understand. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, just tell them to explain it to you in the easiest form.

If your team is unable to explain things to you in the simplest terms then I would suggest starting to look for another team. You need a team that can work with you, that your comfortable with, and that understands you and explain things back to you.

The most important thing, after all, is that you are comfortable with a team that you’re working with. You’re in a relationship with these people and if you’re not comfortable and communication is failing, what’s the point of sticking around?

There is no need to work in a situation where you’re feeling overwhelmed, everything’s too technical and it’s all going over your head. You feel like you’re drowning in what they’re saying. You shouldn’t have to work with that kind of team. This collaboration isn’t what’s going to get you success.

At the end of the day you must work together to build things that you need not the things that they think you need.