Build the vocabulary for bridging technical and business worlds — the specific phrases engineers use when translating technical concepts into business language and vice versa.
0 / 10 completed
1 / 10
Which phrase best introduces a technical-to-business translation?
'In business terms, what this means is...' is respectful and positions the translation as a natural bridge. 'In layman's terms' can sound condescending. The goal is to reframe the concept in the listener's language, not simplify it.
2 / 10
You need to explain a technical debt to a CFO. Which framing is most effective?
The CFO understands 'cost of change', 'deferred maintenance', and 'risk' — these are business concepts. Framing technical debt as 'accumulated deferred maintenance that increases cost of change' directly connects to business concerns like development velocity and delivery risk.
3 / 10
What does 'the business impact' mean when used by a product manager in a technical discussion?
'Business impact' refers to consequences for the organisation's commercial outcomes: revenue gain or loss, cost reduction, customer retention, competitive position. When PMs ask 'what's the business impact?', they are asking you to connect your technical work to these commercial outcomes.
4 / 10
Which phrase correctly translates 'we have a p99 latency of 800ms' for a non-technical stakeholder?
Good translation gives the meaning, not just the metric. '99% of our slowest requests take under 800ms' explains what p99 means without jargon, and 'virtually all users get a response in under a second' connects it to the user experience.
5 / 10
What does 'ROI' stand for and how do engineers use it?
ROI (Return on Investment) is a business concept used by engineers to justify work to stakeholders: 'The investment in automated testing has an ROI of 3:1 — we spend X engineering hours but save 3X in bug investigation and customer support costs.'
6 / 10
Which phrase is the most appropriate way to explain 'uptime' to a non-technical executive?
The most effective translation pairs the metric with its real-world meaning. '99.9% uptime = no more than 8.7 hours of outage per year' makes the abstraction concrete and connects to business risk (service unavailability = lost revenue).
7 / 10
What does it mean when an engineer says 'let me translate that into engineering requirements'?
Translating business goals into engineering requirements means converting abstract goals ('users should be able to find products quickly') into specific, measurable technical specs ('search results should load in under 200ms for 95% of queries'). This is a core product engineering skill.
8 / 10
Which phrase is most effective for reframing a technical risk in business terms?
Business stakeholders respond to quantified risk. 'Single point of failure' becomes meaningful when connected to 'entire payment service offline' and '$50k per hour' impact. Quantifying the risk in business terms creates urgency and justifies investment in remediation.
9 / 10
What does 'opportunity cost' mean when used in a technical planning discussion?
Opportunity cost is the value of the best alternative you didn't choose. In technical planning: 'The opportunity cost of spending Q3 on the migration is not launching the enterprise tier, which our sales team estimates is worth $200k ARR.' This framing helps stakeholders make informed prioritisation decisions.
10 / 10
What does the phrase 'non-functional requirements' mean when translating to business stakeholders?
Non-functional requirements (NFRs) define quality attributes: how fast, how secure, how reliable. For business stakeholders: 'These are the requirements that determine whether the product meets user expectations for speed and reliability — not just whether it has the right features.'