2 minute read
How could a marketing specialist who's been in their field for 10 years possibly translate their needs to the IT team without losing tens of hours in back-and-forth discussions?
It might sound normal because we're all used to it within large companies. And that's exactly what makes it a hundred times worse—the fact that we're used to it.
I've seen it firsthand: five people sitting around a table, trying to explain their workflow to the IT team for three hours straight, only to realize that 70% of the details were lost in translation.
The IT folks jot down some notes, thinking they'll remember the task. But when they come back to it months later, they find the notes too shallow to implement the idea properly.
At this point, there are two types of IT people: (1) those who ask for more meetings, which means wasting even more hours trying to get the idea straight, or (2) those who fill in the gaps from their heads, which leads to even more delays as they go back and forth with modifications after the solution is released.
The problem isn't with the IT team or the business person transferring the information. The problem is with us humans—we're just not built to communicate deep practical knowledge (aka know-how) in minutes or even a few hours.
We need practice, more conversations, and more hands-on work until we truly grasp ideas that form know-how.
The good news? These hours can be better spent making rather than just moving information around. And that's what I'm going to show you in the next parts of this book.