zemptime

I've run into this one over and over. There will be some part of some application where the world will be represented with a tree as the data structure. Think hierarchies of various kinds - org structures, product catalogs, workspace groupings, etc.

The fact it's a tree is really important to the functionality the user wants, even if they don't know how to think in terms of trees in an abstract way ("you can roll up information from child orgs into their parent's reporting").

The language around trees just doesn't resonate and gets lost on people. This includes potential customers, sometimes project management, etc.

Have you ever come across a _really_ good way of describing trees? Or, in-context of requirements/work material, a means of talking about this idea that didn't cause people to lose focus?

Recently my team invested a lot of time into a large refactor. This took a while and 'refactor' was a dirty word at upper levels in the org for some time. However, now it's done, been out in prod, and it's producing some seriously amazing results.

(The amount of time it used to take for engineering to do a couple kinds of things has been totally wiped away)

My manager (and his) requested I get together a screencast walking through what the refactor was, and what it's doing for us. They hold the sentiment that if other stakeholders basically left engineering alone for a while, more amazing things like this would happen, and want to use this as a major supporting fact in that narrative.

Usually like to have resources to fall back on for tasks that refresh me on the fundamentals. Don't have this for "remember to do these things when communicating up many levels in the org" as well as "remember to do this when breaking down technical subjects for non-technical folks."

What's important to remember and focus on, here? Any good resources around this?