Words Mean Things: Effectively Communicating in Technical Environments
A great of advice I received from an excellent former manager who was preparing for a very serious, senior-level executive review:
1 - know what you mean with every word you use
Basic stuff. This will help anyone communicate better.
2 - know the other, relevant interpetations of that word
This will save you a lot of time & avoid confusion and is a good rathole avoidance technique. One must account for reviewers that come from diverse backgrounds and with different, deep experiences. Word list "performance", "reliable", "real-time", "peer-to-peer" can have some very specific meanings. When in doubt, be specific what you mean and do it early. Sometimes you'll just have to tell your audience when I say "FOO" just replace it with "BAR".
3 - know all the ways the audience can misinterpret or react to the word
Some reviewers hear certain words and it is like a grenade got tossed into the conversation. This is going to be very specific to the indivudals in the room. One technique to mitigate is to get feedback from other people who have sucessful review with that person and give provide feedback what that person responds to positively and negatively.
The grenade I accidentally lobbed with one VP was "workflow". I showed him a large click-by-click diagram of a UI screenshots and said "here is the workflow..." and he gave such a pained and hurt . He later explained why, and in truth what he said made a lot of sense. Thereafter, whenever I helped someone prepare to review with him I always told the presenter to be aware of his reaction.
