Clarify terms to improve communication

One of the reason projects fail is because people talk past one another.

Medieval Rune Stone tells its story to all who can read it in Southern Sweden

It’s easy for people to talk past one another in organizations.   One way to make sure this doesn’t happen – and thus allow more work to get done even faster and with better outcomes – is to make sure people are talking about the same things when they use certain terms. This can be especially difficult when individuals come from different technical traditions or if they have had  very different life experiences or business backgrounds.

To address these challenges, It is sometimes necessary to provide additional training or facilitation to make sure that everyone has the requisite technical, organizational, or other domain knowledge so that everyone can fully understand one another.

Sometimes, just taking the time to listen, and this means really, really listening, does the trick.