Lost in Translation? A Founder's Guide to Communicating with Your Development Team

You have a game-changing vision for a new feature. You walk over to your lead developer and say, “We need to add a social sharing option. It’s a simple button, should be quick, right?” The developer gives you a long, silent stare before saying, “I’ll have to look into it.” Weeks later, you’re behind schedule, over budget, and the “simple button” has unearthed a dozen other complexities.

This communication gap is one of the most common—and costly—challenges in business. In fact, industry reports like the Standish Group’s CHAOS study have consistently cited “incomplete requirements” and “poor communication” as top reasons for project failure for decades. It’s a classic translation problem between the language of business objectives and the language of technical implementation.

This isn’t just a founder-developer issue; it’s a universal challenge in creating great products. In our recent article on collaborating effectively with designers, we explored how to bridge the gap between business vision and user experience. Today, we’re tackling the other side of that coin: translating those needs and designs into robust, functional code.

Here’s how to foster a communication culture that transforms your development team from code-producers into true product partners.

1. Speak in Problems, Not Prescriptions (The ‘Why,’ Not the ‘How’)

The most common mistake is prescribing a solution. We say “build a dropdown menu” or “add a new database table.” This approach limits your developers’ creativity and can lead to a suboptimal solution. Your developers are expert problem-solvers; your role is to give them the right problem to solve.

This reframing invites collaboration. You provide the “what” (the user problem) and the “why” (the business impact), empowering your team to architect the best “how.” You might find they come back with a solution—like an embedded video or a checklist—that’s far more effective than the pop-up you originally envisioned.

2. Respect the “Flow State”: Asynchronous Is Your Friend

Software development requires deep, uninterrupted concentration, often called the “flow state.” A “quick five-minute question” can derail an entire morning. This isn’t an exaggeration; it’s backed by research.

A landmark study by Gloria Mark at the University of California, Irvine, found that after an interruption, it takes an office worker an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds to get back to their original task. This phenomenon, known as context switching, is a massive productivity killer.

3. The “Simple” Request is Never Simple: Uncover the Iceberg

To a non-developer, adding a button to a screen looks easy. To a developer, that “simple” request might involve:

• Modifying the database schema.
• Writing new API endpoints.
• Creating automated tests to ensure it doesn’t break anything else.
• Updating the user interface for both web and mobile.
• Considering security implications and data privacy.

Think of features like an iceberg: you only see the 10% on the surface. Trust your team’s estimates. If they tell you a “simple” button will take three days, ask them, “Can you walk me through what’s under the surface here?” This question shows respect for their expertise and gives you valuable insight into the complexity of your own product.

4. Provide the Feedback Loop: Demo, Demo, Demo

Don’t wait until the end of a multi-week sprint to see the results. By then, it’s often too late or too expensive to make significant changes. A short, informal demo at the end of each week (or even more frequently) is a game-changer.

This isn’t a formal presentation. It’s a 15-minute screen-share where the developer shows what they’ve built so far. This allows you to:

• Course-correct early: “Ah, that’s not quite what I meant by ‘user profile.’ Let’s adjust.”
• Provide encouragement: Seeing progress, even small, is a huge morale booster for everyone.
• Uncover misunderstandings: It ensures that what’s being built is what you actually need.

The Executive’s Quick-Start Guide to Developer Communication

Conclusion: It’s About Psychological Safety

Clear communication is not a “soft skill”—it is the foundational tool for building great technology. The common thread in all these points is creating an environment of psychological safety.

This isn’t just a feel-good concept; it’s a performance driver. A famous internal study at Google, Project Aristotle, found that the number one predictor of a high-performing team was not individual talent, but a high degree of psychological safety—a shared belief that team members feel safe to take risks, ask questions, and admit mistakes without fear of blame.

By shifting your approach from giving orders to defining problems, from interrupting to enabling focus, and from assuming to clarifying, you build that exact environment. You build a culture of trust and shared purpose, empowering your developers to be the true partners you need to win.

At Wawandco, we integrate these communication principles into every project. We believe that building incredible software is a result of a strong partnership, and that starts with speaking the same language. If you’re looking for a technical team that gets it, let’s talk.

References and Further Reading

References Cited in This Post

• The CHAOS Report (The Standish Group): An influential, long-running report on IT project success and failure rates. While the full reports are proprietary, summaries confirming that requirement and communication issues are top causes of failure are widely discussed online.
• “Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity” by Gloria Mark: This book details Dr. Mark’s decades of research on interruption science and the real cost of context switching in the modern workplace.
• Project Aristotle (Google): Google’s in-depth study on the characteristics of their most effective teams. You can read about their key findings, including the importance of psychological safety, on their re:Work website.

For a Deeper Dive

• “The Mythical Man-Month” by Frederick Brooks Jr.: A foundational text in software project management. Its essays on why adding developers to a late project makes it later and the difference between “program” and “programming systems product” are as relevant today as they were in 1975.
• “The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win” by Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, and George Spafford: This highly readable novel is a must-read for any executive who works with technical teams. It brilliantly illustrates the common dysfunctions between business and IT and provides a roadmap for a more collaborative, effective way of working.
• “Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love” by Marty Cagan: A masterclass in modern product management. It provides essential insights into how high-performing teams discover and deliver technology that works for both the user and the business, emphasizing the vital partnership between product, design, and engineering.