If Over Explaining is Slowing You Down, Then it’s Time for a Limited Vocabulary

Takeaways

• When you’re explaining, you’re losing. Spend less time explaining what you actually meant. Just say what you mean.
• Misunderstandings erode trust among team members.
• A limited vocabulary prioritizes coherence over nuance.

This article describes how we came up with simple, and useful solution to a huge problem at my startup Cola. As a team, we valued debate and arguments, especially if it led to better decisions. But there were times we’d find ourselves arguing about the argument because someone misunderstood or misinterpreted what the other said.

A classic example was bickering over the meaning of simple words like “done, customer, and required.” 

To fix this, we created our own limited vocabulary. That is, we identified words and phrases we used frequently as a team to describe different stages and aspects of our work. Then, we all agreed which definition we’d abide by whenever we used these terms and wrote up a glossary.

The main reason we did this, was to make meetings run smoother. The secondary effect was how much more people trusted each other as a result of using it. The beauty of this limited vocabulary comes from both knowing what people are saying as well as ruling out what they are not. It proved to be a very powerful tool for onboarding our first employees.

Most execs I talk to get why this method could work. Their challenge is figuring out how to implement it in their own organizations. While every organization is different, the pain of miscommunication is universal. However, the two biggest challenges I have encountered when applying this method are:

1. Getting buy-in
2. Coming up with the words and phrases.

Getting Buy-In

Whether it’s top-down or bottom up, you need buy-in from everyone for this to work. This method is an easy sell for anyone who has lost their mind in a meeting. The hard sell is convincing people coherence is more important than nuance. For them, they have to believe that better communication isn’t more communication, it’s less. There’s a time and a place for subtly. But when you need to move fast on a common goal, coherence is job number one.

Coming Up With the Words

This used to be a lot harder when I tried building the list from scratch with clients. I used to spend a lot of explaining things and trying to coax words out of people’s memories. Now, I just use the actual Cola vocabulary as a starting point. While some of these are domain-specific to product development, most are relatable to any time-sensitive work.

The Cola Limited Vocabulary

Here are some useful terms we used to describe various aspects and stage of the work.

Status

Done some, or all of the tactical work has reached a state where it can be evaluated. More work may be necessary and will continue until it no longer needs to be evaluated. 

Pencils down the tactical work has reached a final state. It’s time to hand in the work for better or worse, because it needs to be in-market. 

Finished comes after pencils down and before in-market. When it’s finished, it means everyone on the team has completed all their work whether it’s tactical or administrative. There isn’t anything left to be done, a non-negotiable deadline has been reached, or you’ve run out of money. 

In-Market customers are literally paying to use it. This is a point of no return for things that cannot be undone without serious consequences. For example, a poorly implemented feature that has to be supported because the risk of removing it are uncertain.

Feedback

I don’t hate it this is a way of saying you like something while acknowledging it doesn’t have to be perfect.

Not the hill I want to die on I have my priorities, but this is not one of them. 

Ambivalent this lets people know you do not want your opinion factored into the equation for whatever reason. 

Devil’s advocate Lets people know you’re uncomfortable with a decision and why, but you’re still going along with it.

Level of Effort

Just implementation is a way of describing work that can be easily delegated. The instructions and outcomes are easy to figure out. 

Just work is a way of describing tactical work that can be easily scoped and time boxed by the person who will actually be doing the work. It’s still an estimate, but only for the actual time spent working on the task. Other factors such as meetings and scope change do not count. The sooner you start, the sooner it’ll be done.

It depends I do not have enough information to give you a yes or no answer. Please give me more time. If there isn’t more time, this is a “no.” 

Takes research is letting people know you have no idea how long something is going to take, because you haven’t done it before. It means you’re willing to find out more, but you’re not going to tell them what they want to hear.

Execution describes the state of someone in the middle of doing the work that was previously scoped and agreed upon. Stopping or interrupting it is irreversible and has consequences. 

Refactor necessary clean up work even if others do not see the value in doing it. Refactoring is applying what we learned by doing things over but better. Failing to do this will feel like Groundhog Day.

Prioritization and Purpose

Aesthetics It means something is unnecessary and extra. It can be important, but it’s never a solution. While it can make a huge difference, it can’t come at the expense of all the other stuff we already said was important. 

Falsifiable the conditions exist to prove it’s wrong. If something isn’t falsifiable, it’s an opinion. This is a nice way of reminding someone they’ve conflated conjecture with facts.

Must-have this is pulling your weight and making an executive decision on something because you can. It’s the equivalent of holding your breath, only more childish. At this point, facts do not matter because it’s not falsifiable. 

Data is a bullshit way of saying something enough times that it just becomes accepted as valid. If you’re being honest, what you really have are statistics and are willing to explain them.

Insight it’s something of value we learned or discovered, but didn’t know before. It’s important to point out when it influences a decision. An insight could be a game changer, or just learning something others already knew.

Cliché everyone already knows this, only you think it’s an insight.

Impetus the driving force behind a decision, not its reason. A reason gets things started, but the impetus keeps it going even if the reason changes and is no longer valid. 

Customer & Market

Vested someone’s job depends on this issue or decision, and therefore, their opinion has more weight even if their influence is weak. 

Stakeholder someone who matters because of influence, but their opinion should have lesser or equal weight.

In-funnel in reference to a an actual human being instead of a hypothetical straw man. Someone in-funnel is a real human who has displayed some signal they could be an actual customer.

Cohorts a literal collection of customers or users. These are not made up proxies for actual people like personas or demographics. These are actual people clustered into some meaningful or tangible grouping.

Archetype this is a proxy for a customer who is defined by the product and not the other way around. It’s an idealistic version of persona you’re hoping will exist as a result of your product.

Non-persona this is a proxy of someone who sees your product’s virtues as vices. They can lead you astray because you feel obligated to “fix” things to make them happy while devaluing the end product for your actual personas.

Miscellany

Diverging we are literally exploring possibilities and not making a commitment to anything. Don’t freak out if you’re in the middle of execution. 

Thought exercise I’m making a mental prototype and exploring what-if scenarios. It’s like taking a single topic and diverging on it.

Shits and giggles I’m only saying this because it’s funny. I don’t actually think it’s something we should do, I just felt like saying it.

Takeaways

• When you’re explaining, you’re losing. Spend less time explaining what you actually meant. Just say what you mean.
• Misunderstandings erode trust among team members.
• A limited vocabulary prioritizes coherence over nuance.

This article describes how we came up with simple, and useful solution to a huge problem at my startup Cola. As a team, we valued debate and arguments, especially if it led to better decisions. But there were times we’d find ourselves arguing about the argument because someone misunderstood or misinterpreted what the other said.

A classic example was bickering over the meaning of simple words like “done, customer, and required.” 

To fix this, we created our own limited vocabulary. That is, we identified words and phrases we used frequently as a team to describe different stages and aspects of our work. Then, we all agreed which definition we’d abide by whenever we used these terms and wrote up a glossary.

The main reason we did this, was to make meetings run smoother. The secondary effect was how much more people trusted each other as a result of using it. The beauty of this limited vocabulary comes from both knowing what people are saying as well as ruling out what they are not. It proved to be a very powerful tool for onboarding our first employees.

Most execs I talk to get why this method could work. Their challenge is figuring out how to implement it in their own organizations. While every organization is different, the pain of miscommunication is universal. However, the two biggest challenges I have encountered when applying this method are:

1. Getting buy-in
2. Coming up with the words and phrases.

Getting Buy-In

Whether it’s top-down or bottom up, you need buy-in from everyone for this to work. This method is an easy sell for anyone who has lost their mind in a meeting. The hard sell is convincing people coherence is more important than nuance. For them, they have to believe that better communication isn’t more communication, it’s less. There’s a time and a place for subtly. But when you need to move fast on a common goal, coherence is job number one.

Coming Up With the Words

This used to be a lot harder when I tried building the list from scratch with clients. I used to spend a lot of explaining things and trying to coax words out of people’s memories. Now, I just use the actual Cola vocabulary as a starting point. While some of these are domain-specific to product development, most are relatable to any time-sensitive work.

The Cola Limited Vocabulary

Here are some useful terms we used to describe various aspects and stage of the work.

Status

Done some, or all of the tactical work has reached a state where it can be evaluated. More work may be necessary and will continue until it no longer needs to be evaluated. 

Pencils down the tactical work has reached a final state. It’s time to hand in the work for better or worse, because it needs to be in-market. 

Finished comes after pencils down and before in-market. When it’s finished, it means everyone on the team has completed all their work whether it’s tactical or administrative. There isn’t anything left to be done, a non-negotiable deadline has been reached, or you’ve run out of money. 

In-Market customers are literally paying to use it. This is a point of no return for things that cannot be undone without serious consequences. For example, a poorly implemented feature that has to be supported because the risk of removing it are uncertain.

Feedback

I don’t hate it this is a way of saying you like something while acknowledging it doesn’t have to be perfect.

Not the hill I want to die on I have my priorities, but this is not one of them. 

Ambivalent this lets people know you do not want your opinion factored into the equation for whatever reason. 

Devil’s advocate Lets people know you’re uncomfortable with a decision and why, but you’re still going along with it.

Level of Effort

Just implementation is a way of describing work that can be easily delegated. The instructions and outcomes are easy to figure out. 

Just work is a way of describing tactical work that can be easily scoped and time boxed by the person who will actually be doing the work. It’s still an estimate, but only for the actual time spent working on the task. Other factors such as meetings and scope change do not count. The sooner you start, the sooner it’ll be done.

It depends I do not have enough information to give you a yes or no answer. Please give me more time. If there isn’t more time, this is a “no.” 

Takes research is letting people know you have no idea how long something is going to take, because you haven’t done it before. It means you’re willing to find out more, but you’re not going to tell them what they want to hear.

Execution describes the state of someone in the middle of doing the work that was previously scoped and agreed upon. Stopping or interrupting it is irreversible and has consequences. 

Refactor necessary clean up work even if others do not see the value in doing it. Refactoring is applying what we learned by doing things over but better. Failing to do this will feel like Groundhog Day.

Prioritization and Purpose

Aesthetics It means something is unnecessary and extra. It can be important, but it’s never a solution. While it can make a huge difference, it can’t come at the expense of all the other stuff we already said was important. 

Falsifiable the conditions exist to prove it’s wrong. If something isn’t falsifiable, it’s an opinion. This is a nice way of reminding someone they’ve conflated conjecture with facts.

Must-have this is pulling your weight and making an executive decision on something because you can. It’s the equivalent of holding your breath, only more childish. At this point, facts do not matter because it’s not falsifiable. 

Data is a bullshit way of saying something enough times that it just becomes accepted as valid. If you’re being honest, what you really have are statistics and are willing to explain them.

Insight it’s something of value we learned or discovered, but didn’t know before. It’s important to point out when it influences a decision. An insight could be a game changer, or just learning something others already knew.

Cliché everyone already knows this, only you think it’s an insight.

Impetus the driving force behind a decision, not its reason. A reason gets things started, but the impetus keeps it going even if the reason changes and is no longer valid. 

Customer & Market

Vested someone’s job depends on this issue or decision, and therefore, their opinion has more weight even if their influence is weak. 

Stakeholder someone who matters because of influence, but their opinion should have lesser or equal weight.

In-funnel in reference to a an actual human being instead of a hypothetical straw man. Someone in-funnel is a real human who has displayed some signal they could be an actual customer.

Cohorts a literal collection of customers or users. These are not made up proxies for actual people like personas or demographics. These are actual people clustered into some meaningful or tangible grouping.

Archetype this is a proxy for a customer who is defined by the product and not the other way around. It’s an idealistic version of persona you’re hoping will exist as a result of your product.

Non-persona this is a proxy of someone who sees your product’s virtues as vices. They can lead you astray because you feel obligated to “fix” things to make them happy while devaluing the end product for your actual personas.

Miscellany

Diverging we are literally exploring possibilities and not making a commitment to anything. Don’t freak out if you’re in the middle of execution. 

Thought exercise I’m making a mental prototype and exploring what-if scenarios. It’s like taking a single topic and diverging on it.

Shits and giggles I’m only saying this because it’s funny. I don’t actually think it’s something we should do, I just felt like saying it.

Takeaways

• When you’re explaining, you’re losing. Spend less time explaining what you actually meant. Just say what you mean.
• Misunderstandings erode trust among team members.
• A limited vocabulary prioritizes coherence over nuance.

This article describes how we came up with simple, and useful solution to a huge problem at my startup Cola. As a team, we valued debate and arguments, especially if it led to better decisions. But there were times we’d find ourselves arguing about the argument because someone misunderstood or misinterpreted what the other said.

A classic example was bickering over the meaning of simple words like “done, customer, and required.” 

To fix this, we created our own limited vocabulary. That is, we identified words and phrases we used frequently as a team to describe different stages and aspects of our work. Then, we all agreed which definition we’d abide by whenever we used these terms and wrote up a glossary.

The main reason we did this, was to make meetings run smoother. The secondary effect was how much more people trusted each other as a result of using it. The beauty of this limited vocabulary comes from both knowing what people are saying as well as ruling out what they are not. It proved to be a very powerful tool for onboarding our first employees.

Most execs I talk to get why this method could work. Their challenge is figuring out how to implement it in their own organizations. While every organization is different, the pain of miscommunication is universal. However, the two biggest challenges I have encountered when applying this method are:

1. Getting buy-in
2. Coming up with the words and phrases.

Getting Buy-In

Whether it’s top-down or bottom up, you need buy-in from everyone for this to work. This method is an easy sell for anyone who has lost their mind in a meeting. The hard sell is convincing people coherence is more important than nuance. For them, they have to believe that better communication isn’t more communication, it’s less. There’s a time and a place for subtly. But when you need to move fast on a common goal, coherence is job number one.

Coming Up With the Words

This used to be a lot harder when I tried building the list from scratch with clients. I used to spend a lot of explaining things and trying to coax words out of people’s memories. Now, I just use the actual Cola vocabulary as a starting point. While some of these are domain-specific to product development, most are relatable to any time-sensitive work.

The Cola Limited Vocabulary

Here are some useful terms we used to describe various aspects and stage of the work.

Status

Done some, or all of the tactical work has reached a state where it can be evaluated. More work may be necessary and will continue until it no longer needs to be evaluated. 

Pencils down the tactical work has reached a final state. It’s time to hand in the work for better or worse, because it needs to be in-market. 

Finished comes after pencils down and before in-market. When it’s finished, it means everyone on the team has completed all their work whether it’s tactical or administrative. There isn’t anything left to be done, a non-negotiable deadline has been reached, or you’ve run out of money. 

In-Market customers are literally paying to use it. This is a point of no return for things that cannot be undone without serious consequences. For example, a poorly implemented feature that has to be supported because the risk of removing it are uncertain.

Feedback

I don’t hate it this is a way of saying you like something while acknowledging it doesn’t have to be perfect.

Not the hill I want to die on I have my priorities, but this is not one of them. 

Ambivalent this lets people know you do not want your opinion factored into the equation for whatever reason. 

Devil’s advocate Lets people know you’re uncomfortable with a decision and why, but you’re still going along with it.

Level of Effort

Just implementation is a way of describing work that can be easily delegated. The instructions and outcomes are easy to figure out. 

Just work is a way of describing tactical work that can be easily scoped and time boxed by the person who will actually be doing the work. It’s still an estimate, but only for the actual time spent working on the task. Other factors such as meetings and scope change do not count. The sooner you start, the sooner it’ll be done.

It depends I do not have enough information to give you a yes or no answer. Please give me more time. If there isn’t more time, this is a “no.” 

Takes research is letting people know you have no idea how long something is going to take, because you haven’t done it before. It means you’re willing to find out more, but you’re not going to tell them what they want to hear.

Execution describes the state of someone in the middle of doing the work that was previously scoped and agreed upon. Stopping or interrupting it is irreversible and has consequences. 

Refactor necessary clean up work even if others do not see the value in doing it. Refactoring is applying what we learned by doing things over but better. Failing to do this will feel like Groundhog Day.

Prioritization and Purpose

Aesthetics It means something is unnecessary and extra. It can be important, but it’s never a solution. While it can make a huge difference, it can’t come at the expense of all the other stuff we already said was important. 

Falsifiable the conditions exist to prove it’s wrong. If something isn’t falsifiable, it’s an opinion. This is a nice way of reminding someone they’ve conflated conjecture with facts.

Must-have this is pulling your weight and making an executive decision on something because you can. It’s the equivalent of holding your breath, only more childish. At this point, facts do not matter because it’s not falsifiable. 

Data is a bullshit way of saying something enough times that it just becomes accepted as valid. If you’re being honest, what you really have are statistics and are willing to explain them.

Insight it’s something of value we learned or discovered, but didn’t know before. It’s important to point out when it influences a decision. An insight could be a game changer, or just learning something others already knew.

Cliché everyone already knows this, only you think it’s an insight.

Impetus the driving force behind a decision, not its reason. A reason gets things started, but the impetus keeps it going even if the reason changes and is no longer valid. 

Customer & Market

Vested someone’s job depends on this issue or decision, and therefore, their opinion has more weight even if their influence is weak. 

Stakeholder someone who matters because of influence, but their opinion should have lesser or equal weight.

In-funnel in reference to a an actual human being instead of a hypothetical straw man. Someone in-funnel is a real human who has displayed some signal they could be an actual customer.

Cohorts a literal collection of customers or users. These are not made up proxies for actual people like personas or demographics. These are actual people clustered into some meaningful or tangible grouping.

Archetype this is a proxy for a customer who is defined by the product and not the other way around. It’s an idealistic version of persona you’re hoping will exist as a result of your product.

Non-persona this is a proxy of someone who sees your product’s virtues as vices. They can lead you astray because you feel obligated to “fix” things to make them happy while devaluing the end product for your actual personas.

Miscellany

Diverging we are literally exploring possibilities and not making a commitment to anything. Don’t freak out if you’re in the middle of execution. 

Thought exercise I’m making a mental prototype and exploring what-if scenarios. It’s like taking a single topic and diverging on it.

Shits and giggles I’m only saying this because it’s funny. I don’t actually think it’s something we should do, I just felt like saying it.

Takeaways

• When you’re explaining, you’re losing. Spend less time explaining what you actually meant. Just say what you mean.
• Misunderstandings erode trust among team members.
• A limited vocabulary prioritizes coherence over nuance.

This article describes how we came up with simple, and useful solution to a huge problem at my startup Cola. As a team, we valued debate and arguments, especially if it led to better decisions. But there were times we’d find ourselves arguing about the argument because someone misunderstood or misinterpreted what the other said.

A classic example was bickering over the meaning of simple words like “done, customer, and required.” 

To fix this, we created our own limited vocabulary. That is, we identified words and phrases we used frequently as a team to describe different stages and aspects of our work. Then, we all agreed which definition we’d abide by whenever we used these terms and wrote up a glossary.

The main reason we did this, was to make meetings run smoother. The secondary effect was how much more people trusted each other as a result of using it. The beauty of this limited vocabulary comes from both knowing what people are saying as well as ruling out what they are not. It proved to be a very powerful tool for onboarding our first employees.

Most execs I talk to get why this method could work. Their challenge is figuring out how to implement it in their own organizations. While every organization is different, the pain of miscommunication is universal. However, the two biggest challenges I have encountered when applying this method are:

1. Getting buy-in
2. Coming up with the words and phrases.

Getting Buy-In

Whether it’s top-down or bottom up, you need buy-in from everyone for this to work. This method is an easy sell for anyone who has lost their mind in a meeting. The hard sell is convincing people coherence is more important than nuance. For them, they have to believe that better communication isn’t more communication, it’s less. There’s a time and a place for subtly. But when you need to move fast on a common goal, coherence is job number one.

Coming Up With the Words

This used to be a lot harder when I tried building the list from scratch with clients. I used to spend a lot of explaining things and trying to coax words out of people’s memories. Now, I just use the actual Cola vocabulary as a starting point. While some of these are domain-specific to product development, most are relatable to any time-sensitive work.

The Cola Limited Vocabulary

Here are some useful terms we used to describe various aspects and stage of the work.

Status

Done some, or all of the tactical work has reached a state where it can be evaluated. More work may be necessary and will continue until it no longer needs to be evaluated. 

Pencils down the tactical work has reached a final state. It’s time to hand in the work for better or worse, because it needs to be in-market. 

Finished comes after pencils down and before in-market. When it’s finished, it means everyone on the team has completed all their work whether it’s tactical or administrative. There isn’t anything left to be done, a non-negotiable deadline has been reached, or you’ve run out of money. 

In-Market customers are literally paying to use it. This is a point of no return for things that cannot be undone without serious consequences. For example, a poorly implemented feature that has to be supported because the risk of removing it are uncertain.

Feedback

I don’t hate it this is a way of saying you like something while acknowledging it doesn’t have to be perfect.

Not the hill I want to die on I have my priorities, but this is not one of them. 

Ambivalent this lets people know you do not want your opinion factored into the equation for whatever reason. 

Devil’s advocate Lets people know you’re uncomfortable with a decision and why, but you’re still going along with it.

Level of Effort

Just implementation is a way of describing work that can be easily delegated. The instructions and outcomes are easy to figure out. 

Just work is a way of describing tactical work that can be easily scoped and time boxed by the person who will actually be doing the work. It’s still an estimate, but only for the actual time spent working on the task. Other factors such as meetings and scope change do not count. The sooner you start, the sooner it’ll be done.

It depends I do not have enough information to give you a yes or no answer. Please give me more time. If there isn’t more time, this is a “no.” 

Takes research is letting people know you have no idea how long something is going to take, because you haven’t done it before. It means you’re willing to find out more, but you’re not going to tell them what they want to hear.

Execution describes the state of someone in the middle of doing the work that was previously scoped and agreed upon. Stopping or interrupting it is irreversible and has consequences. 

Refactor necessary clean up work even if others do not see the value in doing it. Refactoring is applying what we learned by doing things over but better. Failing to do this will feel like Groundhog Day.

Prioritization and Purpose

Aesthetics It means something is unnecessary and extra. It can be important, but it’s never a solution. While it can make a huge difference, it can’t come at the expense of all the other stuff we already said was important. 

Falsifiable the conditions exist to prove it’s wrong. If something isn’t falsifiable, it’s an opinion. This is a nice way of reminding someone they’ve conflated conjecture with facts.

Must-have this is pulling your weight and making an executive decision on something because you can. It’s the equivalent of holding your breath, only more childish. At this point, facts do not matter because it’s not falsifiable. 

Data is a bullshit way of saying something enough times that it just becomes accepted as valid. If you’re being honest, what you really have are statistics and are willing to explain them.

Insight it’s something of value we learned or discovered, but didn’t know before. It’s important to point out when it influences a decision. An insight could be a game changer, or just learning something others already knew.

Cliché everyone already knows this, only you think it’s an insight.

Impetus the driving force behind a decision, not its reason. A reason gets things started, but the impetus keeps it going even if the reason changes and is no longer valid. 

Customer & Market

Vested someone’s job depends on this issue or decision, and therefore, their opinion has more weight even if their influence is weak. 

Stakeholder someone who matters because of influence, but their opinion should have lesser or equal weight.

In-funnel in reference to a an actual human being instead of a hypothetical straw man. Someone in-funnel is a real human who has displayed some signal they could be an actual customer.

Cohorts a literal collection of customers or users. These are not made up proxies for actual people like personas or demographics. These are actual people clustered into some meaningful or tangible grouping.

Archetype this is a proxy for a customer who is defined by the product and not the other way around. It’s an idealistic version of persona you’re hoping will exist as a result of your product.

Non-persona this is a proxy of someone who sees your product’s virtues as vices. They can lead you astray because you feel obligated to “fix” things to make them happy while devaluing the end product for your actual personas.

Miscellany

Diverging we are literally exploring possibilities and not making a commitment to anything. Don’t freak out if you’re in the middle of execution. 

Thought exercise I’m making a mental prototype and exploring what-if scenarios. It’s like taking a single topic and diverging on it.

Shits and giggles I’m only saying this because it’s funny. I don’t actually think it’s something we should do, I just felt like saying it.

Takeaways

• When you’re explaining, you’re losing. Spend less time explaining what you actually meant. Just say what you mean.
• Misunderstandings erode trust among team members.
• A limited vocabulary prioritizes coherence over nuance.

This article describes how we came up with simple, and useful solution to a huge problem at my startup Cola. As a team, we valued debate and arguments, especially if it led to better decisions. But there were times we’d find ourselves arguing about the argument because someone misunderstood or misinterpreted what the other said.

A classic example was bickering over the meaning of simple words like “done, customer, and required.” 

To fix this, we created our own limited vocabulary. That is, we identified words and phrases we used frequently as a team to describe different stages and aspects of our work. Then, we all agreed which definition we’d abide by whenever we used these terms and wrote up a glossary.

The main reason we did this, was to make meetings run smoother. The secondary effect was how much more people trusted each other as a result of using it. The beauty of this limited vocabulary comes from both knowing what people are saying as well as ruling out what they are not. It proved to be a very powerful tool for onboarding our first employees.

Most execs I talk to get why this method could work. Their challenge is figuring out how to implement it in their own organizations. While every organization is different, the pain of miscommunication is universal. However, the two biggest challenges I have encountered when applying this method are:

1. Getting buy-in
2. Coming up with the words and phrases.

Getting Buy-In

Whether it’s top-down or bottom up, you need buy-in from everyone for this to work. This method is an easy sell for anyone who has lost their mind in a meeting. The hard sell is convincing people coherence is more important than nuance. For them, they have to believe that better communication isn’t more communication, it’s less. There’s a time and a place for subtly. But when you need to move fast on a common goal, coherence is job number one.

Coming Up With the Words

This used to be a lot harder when I tried building the list from scratch with clients. I used to spend a lot of explaining things and trying to coax words out of people’s memories. Now, I just use the actual Cola vocabulary as a starting point. While some of these are domain-specific to product development, most are relatable to any time-sensitive work.

The Cola Limited Vocabulary

Here are some useful terms we used to describe various aspects and stage of the work.

Status

Done some, or all of the tactical work has reached a state where it can be evaluated. More work may be necessary and will continue until it no longer needs to be evaluated. 

Pencils down the tactical work has reached a final state. It’s time to hand in the work for better or worse, because it needs to be in-market. 

Finished comes after pencils down and before in-market. When it’s finished, it means everyone on the team has completed all their work whether it’s tactical or administrative. There isn’t anything left to be done, a non-negotiable deadline has been reached, or you’ve run out of money. 

In-Market customers are literally paying to use it. This is a point of no return for things that cannot be undone without serious consequences. For example, a poorly implemented feature that has to be supported because the risk of removing it are uncertain.

Feedback

I don’t hate it this is a way of saying you like something while acknowledging it doesn’t have to be perfect.

Not the hill I want to die on I have my priorities, but this is not one of them. 

Ambivalent this lets people know you do not want your opinion factored into the equation for whatever reason. 

Devil’s advocate Lets people know you’re uncomfortable with a decision and why, but you’re still going along with it.

Level of Effort

Just implementation is a way of describing work that can be easily delegated. The instructions and outcomes are easy to figure out. 

Just work is a way of describing tactical work that can be easily scoped and time boxed by the person who will actually be doing the work. It’s still an estimate, but only for the actual time spent working on the task. Other factors such as meetings and scope change do not count. The sooner you start, the sooner it’ll be done.

It depends I do not have enough information to give you a yes or no answer. Please give me more time. If there isn’t more time, this is a “no.” 

Takes research is letting people know you have no idea how long something is going to take, because you haven’t done it before. It means you’re willing to find out more, but you’re not going to tell them what they want to hear.

Execution describes the state of someone in the middle of doing the work that was previously scoped and agreed upon. Stopping or interrupting it is irreversible and has consequences. 

Refactor necessary clean up work even if others do not see the value in doing it. Refactoring is applying what we learned by doing things over but better. Failing to do this will feel like Groundhog Day.

Prioritization and Purpose

Aesthetics It means something is unnecessary and extra. It can be important, but it’s never a solution. While it can make a huge difference, it can’t come at the expense of all the other stuff we already said was important. 

Falsifiable the conditions exist to prove it’s wrong. If something isn’t falsifiable, it’s an opinion. This is a nice way of reminding someone they’ve conflated conjecture with facts.

Must-have this is pulling your weight and making an executive decision on something because you can. It’s the equivalent of holding your breath, only more childish. At this point, facts do not matter because it’s not falsifiable. 

Data is a bullshit way of saying something enough times that it just becomes accepted as valid. If you’re being honest, what you really have are statistics and are willing to explain them.

Insight it’s something of value we learned or discovered, but didn’t know before. It’s important to point out when it influences a decision. An insight could be a game changer, or just learning something others already knew.

Cliché everyone already knows this, only you think it’s an insight.

Impetus the driving force behind a decision, not its reason. A reason gets things started, but the impetus keeps it going even if the reason changes and is no longer valid. 

Customer & Market

Vested someone’s job depends on this issue or decision, and therefore, their opinion has more weight even if their influence is weak. 

Stakeholder someone who matters because of influence, but their opinion should have lesser or equal weight.

In-funnel in reference to a an actual human being instead of a hypothetical straw man. Someone in-funnel is a real human who has displayed some signal they could be an actual customer.

Cohorts a literal collection of customers or users. These are not made up proxies for actual people like personas or demographics. These are actual people clustered into some meaningful or tangible grouping.

Archetype this is a proxy for a customer who is defined by the product and not the other way around. It’s an idealistic version of persona you’re hoping will exist as a result of your product.

Non-persona this is a proxy of someone who sees your product’s virtues as vices. They can lead you astray because you feel obligated to “fix” things to make them happy while devaluing the end product for your actual personas.

Miscellany

Diverging we are literally exploring possibilities and not making a commitment to anything. Don’t freak out if you’re in the middle of execution. 

Thought exercise I’m making a mental prototype and exploring what-if scenarios. It’s like taking a single topic and diverging on it.

Shits and giggles I’m only saying this because it’s funny. I don’t actually think it’s something we should do, I just felt like saying it.

Takeaways

• When you’re explaining, you’re losing. Spend less time explaining what you actually meant. Just say what you mean.
• Misunderstandings erode trust among team members.
• A limited vocabulary prioritizes coherence over nuance.

This article describes how we came up with simple, and useful solution to a huge problem at my startup Cola. As a team, we valued debate and arguments, especially if it led to better decisions. But there were times we’d find ourselves arguing about the argument because someone misunderstood or misinterpreted what the other said.

A classic example was bickering over the meaning of simple words like “done, customer, and required.” 

To fix this, we created our own limited vocabulary. That is, we identified words and phrases we used frequently as a team to describe different stages and aspects of our work. Then, we all agreed which definition we’d abide by whenever we used these terms and wrote up a glossary.

The main reason we did this, was to make meetings run smoother. The secondary effect was how much more people trusted each other as a result of using it. The beauty of this limited vocabulary comes from both knowing what people are saying as well as ruling out what they are not. It proved to be a very powerful tool for onboarding our first employees.

Most execs I talk to get why this method could work. Their challenge is figuring out how to implement it in their own organizations. While every organization is different, the pain of miscommunication is universal. However, the two biggest challenges I have encountered when applying this method are:

1. Getting buy-in
2. Coming up with the words and phrases.

Getting Buy-In

Whether it’s top-down or bottom up, you need buy-in from everyone for this to work. This method is an easy sell for anyone who has lost their mind in a meeting. The hard sell is convincing people coherence is more important than nuance. For them, they have to believe that better communication isn’t more communication, it’s less. There’s a time and a place for subtly. But when you need to move fast on a common goal, coherence is job number one.

Coming Up With the Words

This used to be a lot harder when I tried building the list from scratch with clients. I used to spend a lot of explaining things and trying to coax words out of people’s memories. Now, I just use the actual Cola vocabulary as a starting point. While some of these are domain-specific to product development, most are relatable to any time-sensitive work.

The Cola Limited Vocabulary

Here are some useful terms we used to describe various aspects and stage of the work.

Status

Done some, or all of the tactical work has reached a state where it can be evaluated. More work may be necessary and will continue until it no longer needs to be evaluated. 

Pencils down the tactical work has reached a final state. It’s time to hand in the work for better or worse, because it needs to be in-market. 

Finished comes after pencils down and before in-market. When it’s finished, it means everyone on the team has completed all their work whether it’s tactical or administrative. There isn’t anything left to be done, a non-negotiable deadline has been reached, or you’ve run out of money. 

In-Market customers are literally paying to use it. This is a point of no return for things that cannot be undone without serious consequences. For example, a poorly implemented feature that has to be supported because the risk of removing it are uncertain.

Feedback

I don’t hate it this is a way of saying you like something while acknowledging it doesn’t have to be perfect.

Not the hill I want to die on I have my priorities, but this is not one of them. 

Ambivalent this lets people know you do not want your opinion factored into the equation for whatever reason. 

Devil’s advocate Lets people know you’re uncomfortable with a decision and why, but you’re still going along with it.

Level of Effort

Just implementation is a way of describing work that can be easily delegated. The instructions and outcomes are easy to figure out. 

Just work is a way of describing tactical work that can be easily scoped and time boxed by the person who will actually be doing the work. It’s still an estimate, but only for the actual time spent working on the task. Other factors such as meetings and scope change do not count. The sooner you start, the sooner it’ll be done.

It depends I do not have enough information to give you a yes or no answer. Please give me more time. If there isn’t more time, this is a “no.” 

Takes research is letting people know you have no idea how long something is going to take, because you haven’t done it before. It means you’re willing to find out more, but you’re not going to tell them what they want to hear.

Execution describes the state of someone in the middle of doing the work that was previously scoped and agreed upon. Stopping or interrupting it is irreversible and has consequences. 

Refactor necessary clean up work even if others do not see the value in doing it. Refactoring is applying what we learned by doing things over but better. Failing to do this will feel like Groundhog Day.

Prioritization and Purpose

Aesthetics It means something is unnecessary and extra. It can be important, but it’s never a solution. While it can make a huge difference, it can’t come at the expense of all the other stuff we already said was important. 

Falsifiable the conditions exist to prove it’s wrong. If something isn’t falsifiable, it’s an opinion. This is a nice way of reminding someone they’ve conflated conjecture with facts.

Must-have this is pulling your weight and making an executive decision on something because you can. It’s the equivalent of holding your breath, only more childish. At this point, facts do not matter because it’s not falsifiable. 

Data is a bullshit way of saying something enough times that it just becomes accepted as valid. If you’re being honest, what you really have are statistics and are willing to explain them.

Insight it’s something of value we learned or discovered, but didn’t know before. It’s important to point out when it influences a decision. An insight could be a game changer, or just learning something others already knew.

Cliché everyone already knows this, only you think it’s an insight.

Impetus the driving force behind a decision, not its reason. A reason gets things started, but the impetus keeps it going even if the reason changes and is no longer valid. 

Customer & Market

Vested someone’s job depends on this issue or decision, and therefore, their opinion has more weight even if their influence is weak. 

Stakeholder someone who matters because of influence, but their opinion should have lesser or equal weight.

In-funnel in reference to a an actual human being instead of a hypothetical straw man. Someone in-funnel is a real human who has displayed some signal they could be an actual customer.

Cohorts a literal collection of customers or users. These are not made up proxies for actual people like personas or demographics. These are actual people clustered into some meaningful or tangible grouping.

Archetype this is a proxy for a customer who is defined by the product and not the other way around. It’s an idealistic version of persona you’re hoping will exist as a result of your product.

Non-persona this is a proxy of someone who sees your product’s virtues as vices. They can lead you astray because you feel obligated to “fix” things to make them happy while devaluing the end product for your actual personas.

Miscellany

Diverging we are literally exploring possibilities and not making a commitment to anything. Don’t freak out if you’re in the middle of execution. 

Thought exercise I’m making a mental prototype and exploring what-if scenarios. It’s like taking a single topic and diverging on it.

Shits and giggles I’m only saying this because it’s funny. I don’t actually think it’s something we should do, I just felt like saying it.

Takeaways

• When you’re explaining, you’re losing. Spend less time explaining what you actually meant. Just say what you mean.
• Misunderstandings erode trust among team members.
• A limited vocabulary prioritizes coherence over nuance.

This article describes how we came up with simple, and useful solution to a huge problem at my startup Cola. As a team, we valued debate and arguments, especially if it led to better decisions. But there were times we’d find ourselves arguing about the argument because someone misunderstood or misinterpreted what the other said.

A classic example was bickering over the meaning of simple words like “done, customer, and required.” 

To fix this, we created our own limited vocabulary. That is, we identified words and phrases we used frequently as a team to describe different stages and aspects of our work. Then, we all agreed which definition we’d abide by whenever we used these terms and wrote up a glossary.

The main reason we did this, was to make meetings run smoother. The secondary effect was how much more people trusted each other as a result of using it. The beauty of this limited vocabulary comes from both knowing what people are saying as well as ruling out what they are not. It proved to be a very powerful tool for onboarding our first employees.

Most execs I talk to get why this method could work. Their challenge is figuring out how to implement it in their own organizations. While every organization is different, the pain of miscommunication is universal. However, the two biggest challenges I have encountered when applying this method are:

1. Getting buy-in
2. Coming up with the words and phrases.

Getting Buy-In

Whether it’s top-down or bottom up, you need buy-in from everyone for this to work. This method is an easy sell for anyone who has lost their mind in a meeting. The hard sell is convincing people coherence is more important than nuance. For them, they have to believe that better communication isn’t more communication, it’s less. There’s a time and a place for subtly. But when you need to move fast on a common goal, coherence is job number one.

Coming Up With the Words

This used to be a lot harder when I tried building the list from scratch with clients. I used to spend a lot of explaining things and trying to coax words out of people’s memories. Now, I just use the actual Cola vocabulary as a starting point. While some of these are domain-specific to product development, most are relatable to any time-sensitive work.

The Cola Limited Vocabulary

Here are some useful terms we used to describe various aspects and stage of the work.

Status

Done some, or all of the tactical work has reached a state where it can be evaluated. More work may be necessary and will continue until it no longer needs to be evaluated. 

Pencils down the tactical work has reached a final state. It’s time to hand in the work for better or worse, because it needs to be in-market. 

Finished comes after pencils down and before in-market. When it’s finished, it means everyone on the team has completed all their work whether it’s tactical or administrative. There isn’t anything left to be done, a non-negotiable deadline has been reached, or you’ve run out of money. 

In-Market customers are literally paying to use it. This is a point of no return for things that cannot be undone without serious consequences. For example, a poorly implemented feature that has to be supported because the risk of removing it are uncertain.

Feedback

I don’t hate it this is a way of saying you like something while acknowledging it doesn’t have to be perfect.

Not the hill I want to die on I have my priorities, but this is not one of them. 

Ambivalent this lets people know you do not want your opinion factored into the equation for whatever reason. 

Devil’s advocate Lets people know you’re uncomfortable with a decision and why, but you’re still going along with it.

Level of Effort

Just implementation is a way of describing work that can be easily delegated. The instructions and outcomes are easy to figure out. 

Just work is a way of describing tactical work that can be easily scoped and time boxed by the person who will actually be doing the work. It’s still an estimate, but only for the actual time spent working on the task. Other factors such as meetings and scope change do not count. The sooner you start, the sooner it’ll be done.

It depends I do not have enough information to give you a yes or no answer. Please give me more time. If there isn’t more time, this is a “no.” 

Takes research is letting people know you have no idea how long something is going to take, because you haven’t done it before. It means you’re willing to find out more, but you’re not going to tell them what they want to hear.

Execution describes the state of someone in the middle of doing the work that was previously scoped and agreed upon. Stopping or interrupting it is irreversible and has consequences. 

Refactor necessary clean up work even if others do not see the value in doing it. Refactoring is applying what we learned by doing things over but better. Failing to do this will feel like Groundhog Day.

Prioritization and Purpose

Aesthetics It means something is unnecessary and extra. It can be important, but it’s never a solution. While it can make a huge difference, it can’t come at the expense of all the other stuff we already said was important. 

Falsifiable the conditions exist to prove it’s wrong. If something isn’t falsifiable, it’s an opinion. This is a nice way of reminding someone they’ve conflated conjecture with facts.

Must-have this is pulling your weight and making an executive decision on something because you can. It’s the equivalent of holding your breath, only more childish. At this point, facts do not matter because it’s not falsifiable. 

Data is a bullshit way of saying something enough times that it just becomes accepted as valid. If you’re being honest, what you really have are statistics and are willing to explain them.

Insight it’s something of value we learned or discovered, but didn’t know before. It’s important to point out when it influences a decision. An insight could be a game changer, or just learning something others already knew.

Cliché everyone already knows this, only you think it’s an insight.

Impetus the driving force behind a decision, not its reason. A reason gets things started, but the impetus keeps it going even if the reason changes and is no longer valid. 

Customer & Market

Vested someone’s job depends on this issue or decision, and therefore, their opinion has more weight even if their influence is weak. 

Stakeholder someone who matters because of influence, but their opinion should have lesser or equal weight.

In-funnel in reference to a an actual human being instead of a hypothetical straw man. Someone in-funnel is a real human who has displayed some signal they could be an actual customer.

Cohorts a literal collection of customers or users. These are not made up proxies for actual people like personas or demographics. These are actual people clustered into some meaningful or tangible grouping.

Archetype this is a proxy for a customer who is defined by the product and not the other way around. It’s an idealistic version of persona you’re hoping will exist as a result of your product.

Non-persona this is a proxy of someone who sees your product’s virtues as vices. They can lead you astray because you feel obligated to “fix” things to make them happy while devaluing the end product for your actual personas.

Miscellany

Diverging we are literally exploring possibilities and not making a commitment to anything. Don’t freak out if you’re in the middle of execution. 

Thought exercise I’m making a mental prototype and exploring what-if scenarios. It’s like taking a single topic and diverging on it.

Shits and giggles I’m only saying this because it’s funny. I don’t actually think it’s something we should do, I just felt like saying it.