I think part of the issue is that developers and engineers tend to think in concrete terms because to make things work, they must be concrete. People in sales, marketing, and management often speak in jargon and metaphors that cover for a lack of substance... though, to be fair, many of them don't know they're doing it because they don't really implement things themselves.
Years ago, I worked at a company where the head of marketing gave a 40-minute presentation to management about the new marketing strategy to drive growth. Her presentation was such a success they told her to present it to engineering, thinking it would whip up enthusiasm about what great vision the company had and how fast we were poised to grow.
The woman presentated to a sea of bewildered faces. None of the software devs could figure out what she was saying, and that's a problem, since marketing's job is to convey a clear message.
Finally, we started peppering her with questions. Not in a rude way. We were genuinely trying to pin down some concrete meaning behind the flood of jargon. After ten minutes of questions, one dev finally summed it up: "So we're going to run more ads and let people know we offer a broad selection and good prices?"
"Yes," the woman said. She seemed frustrated and defeated, though all the devs were happy to finally understand a message that made sense.
Then she blurted out, "God, I hate talking to developers!"
That seems like a waste of headcount if you have middle men just to "do the translation" between different people. It sounds like the marketing person needs to understand their audience better and make a better-crafted presentation for the audience.
Usually there are a lot of things to translate so sometimes it's valuable to have a dedicated middle man. The middle man should also work on writing up technical wikis and shield engineers from constant requirement changes. Translation is just part of his job. He can perform other tasks too if he has the capacity, e.g. working on some early analysis for the engineers.
Years ago, I worked at a company where the head of marketing gave a 40-minute presentation to management about the new marketing strategy to drive growth. Her presentation was such a success they told her to present it to engineering, thinking it would whip up enthusiasm about what great vision the company had and how fast we were poised to grow.
The woman presentated to a sea of bewildered faces. None of the software devs could figure out what she was saying, and that's a problem, since marketing's job is to convey a clear message.
Finally, we started peppering her with questions. Not in a rude way. We were genuinely trying to pin down some concrete meaning behind the flood of jargon. After ten minutes of questions, one dev finally summed it up: "So we're going to run more ads and let people know we offer a broad selection and good prices?"
"Yes," the woman said. She seemed frustrated and defeated, though all the devs were happy to finally understand a message that made sense.
Then she blurted out, "God, I hate talking to developers!"