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A Simple Communication Framework

By In Technology

The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.

George Bernard Shaw

Why a Framework?

The single most important thing that we do at work is communicating with other people. It’s generally how we are able to come up with ideas and execute them in ways that a single person could not.

It does seem that this whole “talking to each other” thing can get complicated. “Miscommunication” seems to be the number one excuse for something getting messed up in a knowledge worker environment. There are a whole host of reasons why this is the case. But one of the easiest ways to combat the lack of retention, the lack of comprehension, or simple miscommunications is to start with the way that we express ourselves.

At Sourcetoad, we use an adapted communications framework that has made life a lot easier for everyone involved. We have set up some basic rules for communication that are easy to remember, and we use keywords so that people receiving the information can context switch into the receiving framework mode. In other words, when people incite the framework, everyone changes their mental stance and prepares to communicate.

An Adapted Simple Model

This framework has been adapted from an amalgamation of numerous other frameworks. It takes a lot from military communication tactics (where being understood can be the difference between life and death) and a number of other popular communication frameworks. This is just the simplest way that we’ve been able to express it. It has been hacked together from too many sources to cite, but it is still simple enough to work well for us.

The Framework

Our framework has only four key pieces:

  • Intent
  • Context
  • A sketch of the desired outcome
  • A sketch of a strategy to get to that outcome

These four items can be placed in various orders, but typically they start with intent and end with a strategy.

Intent

Stating your intent, or at least clearly knowing what your intent is, is the most powerful part of this framework. Understanding your own intent in everything is extremely powerful, but that’s another blog post. Conversations that do not have a well-understood intent are just “chats.” They’re not the type of communication that will solve any problem.

Stating your intent at the beginning of a conversation does two very important things:

  1. It switches the receiver’s brain into “communications framework mode.” It allows the other person to understand that you are about to use the framework.
  2. Stating your intent allows the person to whom you are speaking with to know why you are talking. If I don’t know what you want right at the beginning, we’re probably not going to have a fruitful conversation.

Context

Context is the backstory or history that your receiver may need to fully understand the conversation. Telling the person you’re talking to about the players involved, what previous conversations touched on, or what the stakes are can be extremely useful.

The three main questions you should ask yourself when giving context are:

  • What are we talking about?
  • What do you need to know about this?
  • Have I told you everything you need to know?

When saying this bit out loud, you can use the following trigger phrases to make sure your receiver knows you are using the framework:

  • “For a little background…”
  • “For context…”

Sketch Desired Outcome (End State)

After you’ve laid out your intentions and the context the receiver needs, it’s time to actually tell them what you want. This involves explaining your vision of the outcomes, or the “end state.”

An outcome or end state might be as complicated as: “I think what I want is for the company to open a new line of business, complete with staff and warehousing. I also think we’re going to need to custom build an entire logistics software system over the next few years.”

Or it could be as simple as: “What I would like is that at the end of this conversation, we set up a time to have a formal meeting about it with the team.”

You need to be flexible here because even though you might know what type of outcome you are looking for, you need to leave room for the solution to include new ideas from your audience. That’s why we call it a “sketch.”

When saying this bit out loud, you can use the following trigger phrases to make sure the receiver can envision what you want to happen:

  • “What I see happening…”
  • “My desired outcome is…”

Sketch a Strategy

You know what you want (intent), the receiver knows what you want (end state), and they have the backstory (context) to understand what you’re talking about — we can now move on to action.

In this phase, we outline a possible method of getting to that end state I mentioned earlier. This is up for discussion, of course. The person you’re speaking with is not required to follow your sketch. Rather, this phase invites them to build a strategy with you to accomplish the desired outcome.

The person you’re speaking with might have a much better idea of how to get there than you do, especially since they now understand your intentions and what the end goal is. So keep an open mind, and enjoy the brainstorming.

When describing the strategy you envision, Use triggers like:

  • “A rough strategy we could take is…”
  • “A path I see is…”
  • “I’d suggest x as the next steps. What do you think?”

Example 1

Intention: I want a dashboard to show the ten most important KPIs for our internal product. I want the team to manage the build-out and timing to balance client needs. I’m prepared to invest about 100 hours for the MVP.

Context: Hi Joe, some quick context: I would like for the team to build a dashboard that provides a brief overview of the system – I want this to show the variety of features for sales calls and to be useful for current clients.

Outcome: My desired end state is I get a demo-able dashboard on our test instance within the next four months. It should have 70% of the functionality shown in the mockups.

Strategy: I think the rough path to getting there is for you and Jane to meet and work out which features are doable in the next four months while balancing client requests. Then you can create tickets for the segments and decide how flexible the dashboard could be. Let’s get together for a review and approval meeting when that’s done. After that, we can start handing out the tickets to the team.

Example 2

Intention: I want to get James to switch the DNS servers for a client.

Context: Hey James, for some context, Martin asked me to help him with their new mail server. They’re going to be setting this up on their side with Office365. I’m not sure what is required 100%, though.

Outcome: I would like to send Martin an email with the steps he needs to take to prepare for the switchover and the dates when we plan on doing it. If we have any questions for him, I’d like to include those in the email by the end of the day tomorrow.

Strategy: My strategy here is that I will follow your advice and guidance to the letter because I’m not the expert.

Recap

If you are talking to someone at work, they might not actually be paying attention. Having a communications framework with key phrases and trigger words can make a huge impact on changing the mindset of the sender and the receiver. When both parties know that information is going to be transmitted in a certain way, retention and accuracy rates are way higher.

At Sourcetoad, we use the trigger words and key phrases below to help change our thinking, speaking, and listening modes:

  • Intent
    • “My intention is…”
    • “What I’m looking to do is…”
    • “What I want is…”
  • Context
    • “For some context…”
    • “A little background…”
  • Sketch of my desired outcome
    • “The outcome I’m looking for is…”
    • “When this is all done, I’d like to see…”
  • Sketch of a strategy to get there
    • “I think a rough path to get here is…”
    • “The strategy I imagine is…”

That’s it! It’s a very simple yet powerful tool to help improve communication. You can alter this plan or invent your own, but the key is that both parties know the rules. The idea that people can switch between a conversation and “communication” is life-changing – but it requires training on both sides.

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I help companies turn their technical ideas into reality. CEO @Sourcetoad and @OnDeck. Author of Herding Cats and Coders. Fan of squash, whiskey, aggressive inline, and temperamental British sports cars.

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Don’t Fall Into the Trap: Why Startup Software Development Isn’t Like Corporate Development

In Startups, Technology

So, you’ve left the corporate world, and now it’s time to build your own startup. You’ve probably managed dev teams before, overseen product launches, maybe even helmed some fancy project management tools that made everything run like a well-oiled machine. You’ve done this before, right? Not exactly. When it’s your startup, everything changes—and, as I’ll explain, if you assume it’ll work the same way, you’re heading for a few surprises.

Startup founders often fall into a dangerous trap when starting a software project from scratch: thinking it’ll be just like building software inside an established company. Here’s why it’s not—and some advice on how to navigate the differences.

1. Switching from Product Manager to Teacher

In an established company, a software team already has two things that give them a serious edge: an existing market and a deep understanding of the business. They’re working within a proven model. Developers in that environment know what questions to ask, can fill in gaps intuitively, and likely understand why they’re building what they’re building.

At a startup, however, your devs are going to need a whole lot more context. They’re not working with familiar requirements—they’re working with your vision, which may be abstract at this stage. If your development team doesn’t understand why something matters, it’s a recipe for ambiguity and frustration on both sides.

Advice: Think of yourself less as a product manager and more as a teacher. Your job is to make sure they understand the core problems, not just the features. Teach them why each requirement matters, help them visualize the end-user, and create that shared language for decision-making. It might feel tedious, but it’s essential to avoid future misalignment and expensive rewrites.

2. Beware of Perfectionism — It’s the Budget Killer

In a large company, products with an existing user base often have to be polished. Features need to be rock-solid, invoices have to be perfect, and everything needs an audit trail. Startups, however, have a different goal: get an MVP in the hands of users fast. It’s a classic trap for first-time founders—focusing on “perfection” and “polish” before knowing if the business model even works.

Startup perfectionism is budget poison. It’s shocking how quickly adding “nice-to-have” features can chew through funding, especially if you’re paying a dev team to build things like automated invoicing or churn management before you’ve even proven people want what you’re selling.

Advice: Ruthlessly strip down your MVP. If a feature doesn’t help you validate your market, it goes on the “later” list. Keep the scope laser-focused on what helps you test your business assumptions. Let the non-essential features wait until you know you have customers who’ll use them.

3. Zen and the Art of the Startup Pivot

Building software for a startup means embracing one cold, hard truth: the business model will change. According to research, 93% of successful startups pivot at least once (and often more). Imagine being asked to go out and passionately sell something that you know might not look the same next year—or next month. It takes a level of zen acceptance that your original idea will likely morph, but that’s what keeps you flexible and ready to capture new opportunities.

For founders, that requires a mindset shift. You have to believe in your product, while also knowing you might be building the “wrong thing” in some way. The focus should be on preserving capital and brainpower for what’s next. The game is less about proving you’re right and more about staying adaptable.

Advice: Budget with pivots in mind. Set your burn rate assuming you’ll need to make big changes. Don’t let ego get in the way of listening to the market, and keep enough gas in the tank for at least one big strategic turn.

4. The Hard Work of Being Your Own “Internal Customer”

Here’s another big one. In a corporate environment, you have internal customers—departments or stakeholders with specific goals that align with the overall company mission. For a startup, the only customer you have is you. You don’t have a preexisting feedback loop from various departments, and you don’t have established success metrics. You have to create that from scratch.

Advice: Start by building an internal customer profile based on your target market, then use that to set clear goals and success criteria for your dev team. If you’re focused on, say, usability for early adopters, set KPIs around usability testing and build from there. By acting as your own “internal customer,” you’re setting a clear direction and saving your team from working in a vacuum.

5. Get Ready to Build AND Sell

Corporate software development often has the luxury of a separate, dedicated sales team to deliver the product to the right audience. As a startup founder, you’re both the builder and the seller. That means you’re not just iterating on software—you’re iterating on messaging, product-market fit, pricing, and maybe even distribution models.

Advice: Factor in time for sales-ready iteration in your dev cycle. As you build, keep track of how each release or update affects the user experience. Ask yourself if the changes make your pitch clearer or simpler and how they align with the current market’s needs. Ultimately, this approach will help you bridge the gap between building the product and ensuring it’s market-ready.

Conclusion

Building software as a startup founder requires a whole different toolkit than you may be used to. You’re part-teacher, part-salesperson, part-zen master, and always the chief budget officer. By recognizing the unique mindset shifts and traps of startup software development, you’re positioning yourself—and your team—for the best chance of success. Focus on creating clarity for your team, set ruthless priorities, embrace change, and never lose sight of the fact that the first version is just the beginning. In the startup world, adaptability isn’t just a skill—it’s the entire game.