I encourage people to communicate in a way that fits their essential being. I am naturally cynical and irreverent, so I communicate leaning on that.
I once worked as a development liaison on an important project that the c-suite actually bet the company on. I worked with a QA director that was in the habit of using the word "fail" when referring to a failed test. As a developer I detest that word. So whenever I talked to her, I never corrected her, but I would never use the word fail. I would go around it. The test was "suboptimal", "not correct", "less than successful", "not what we want", "messed up", "not at the mark", you name it I was starting to run out.
She was highly intelligent and she was not sub absorbed at all. Eventually, she asked me what was up. I explained to her that a developer worked in a black and white world. The IDE, the GUI everything was wired to disappoint and tell you how many errors and warnings you had. It was like being in elementary school and having a very exacting teacher. I told her that given those factors I usually chose my words about tests carefully.
I really appreciate this story, David. It's an interesting balance -- trying to communicate in a way that feels "like you" while also being aware of the impact your language has on others. Did the QA director change how she talked after that?
I imagine if she did that it meant your story helped shaped how she felt about things, so she could use different terms in an authentic way (as opposed to doing it to appease you).
She did change in fits and starts. As you can imagine the use of a single word is hard to break. I never made a big deal about it, I was mostly wanting the concept to be understood. She took the concept to heart and that was the importance of the whole thing.
Most of the mentoring work that I do is geared to getting people to understand technical developers. Demystifying development and making the practitioners appear more rounded against the stereotypes. I call it Developers are from Mars, BA's are from Venus, PM's, SM's, and I suppose Agilists are from Saturn, and C-Level Execs are a manifestation on the Enterprise's Holo-Deck.
I encourage people to communicate in a way that fits their essential being. I am naturally cynical and irreverent, so I communicate leaning on that.
I once worked as a development liaison on an important project that the c-suite actually bet the company on. I worked with a QA director that was in the habit of using the word "fail" when referring to a failed test. As a developer I detest that word. So whenever I talked to her, I never corrected her, but I would never use the word fail. I would go around it. The test was "suboptimal", "not correct", "less than successful", "not what we want", "messed up", "not at the mark", you name it I was starting to run out.
She was highly intelligent and she was not sub absorbed at all. Eventually, she asked me what was up. I explained to her that a developer worked in a black and white world. The IDE, the GUI everything was wired to disappoint and tell you how many errors and warnings you had. It was like being in elementary school and having a very exacting teacher. I told her that given those factors I usually chose my words about tests carefully.
I really appreciate this story, David. It's an interesting balance -- trying to communicate in a way that feels "like you" while also being aware of the impact your language has on others. Did the QA director change how she talked after that?
I imagine if she did that it meant your story helped shaped how she felt about things, so she could use different terms in an authentic way (as opposed to doing it to appease you).
She did change in fits and starts. As you can imagine the use of a single word is hard to break. I never made a big deal about it, I was mostly wanting the concept to be understood. She took the concept to heart and that was the importance of the whole thing.
Most of the mentoring work that I do is geared to getting people to understand technical developers. Demystifying development and making the practitioners appear more rounded against the stereotypes. I call it Developers are from Mars, BA's are from Venus, PM's, SM's, and I suppose Agilists are from Saturn, and C-Level Execs are a manifestation on the Enterprise's Holo-Deck.