How to Create Cohesion - Speaking the Same Language
Engagement. Onboarding. Module. In each of the 40+ products I’ve had the privilege of working on nearly each and every one had a different definition for these three terms. And that’s only the beginning of it! A User to one person, a Client to others, and a Persona to yet others. Without a common language every project is doomed to an elongated development cycle in the best case and a perpetually unfinished product in the worst.
The first step to creating a shared library is the one that I see people struggle the most with. It’s all agreeing to be stupid. What you’re agreeing to be stupid about is what each and every word means. Assumptions will absolutely kill this process. After all, what you’re doing is creating a shared glossary of terms. And that includes each and every term that’s used to describe each and every aspect of your product.
Every Persona. Every Feature. Everything.
And this is truly the place where I’ve seen this process fall apart the most. Failing to act like you don’t know what it means to select an object on the screen at this point will have ripple effects. In a month when your engineer shows you a finished screen where clicking on an option only highlights the option when what you wanted was for it to act like a button click you’ll have only yourself to blame for not defining everything earlier.
So what does this look like?
For different organizations it can take different forms. For some a simple shared Google Doc can serve as the source of truth. As things become more complicated, and the definition of a term relies on the context in which it’s experienced, a Sheet or Airtable can be helpful.
Whatever form it takes, the important thing is that the document exists and that it’s maintained. A glossary isn’t a one-and-done artifact. It’s a living document that evolves alongside your product. The goal isn’t just to avoid confusion (though you will), it’s to give every team, from engineering to design to customer success, a shared lens to view the work through. You can’t build cohesion without coherence, and you can’t get coherence without clear language.
So slow down.
Ask the obvious questions.
Define the words you think everyone already knows.
It might feel silly at the moment, but it’s the best investment you can make in order to move faster, together.