How can you explain software development concepts to non-technical audiences?

Group poetry writing.

Analogy that I mostly used to explain the difference between empty string and null value is an empty box(empty string) vs no box(null).

Speak about the purpose of the software rather than the software. What does your software achieve. What does the end user get. Those are examples that people will understand easily. Always start from the high level statement and then slowly peel the layers and get to bottom of what you are working. Never boast or try to over sell. Keep the understanding of the listener in the mind and make a genuine attempt to help them. Be patient and compassionate.

Software development is like cooking food. The software development life cycle (SDLC) has four phases: 1.Requirements gathering and analysis : This is like getting an idea of what you will cook. 2.Design : similar to putting all the spices together. 3.Implementation or coding : is the cooking itself 4.Testing is like tasting the food, which is used to check the flavor, texture, and seasoning of the food. In software development, testing is used to check the functionality, performance, and security of the software 5. Deployment is like serving your food to your guests.

When talking to non technical audience, I tend to use simple language. I avoid using technical jargons and stress on the customer impact which the software will bring. Breaking a large software design into smaller functional flows also helps the audience to understand and relate to the technical changes better.

When I write software, I like to pseudocode the steps before writing any actual code. Just lay out the steps in plain, everyday language. Then, all that's left is to translate that plain language into the syntax of whatever programming language you're using. This pseudocode makes sense to non-technical audiences and is helpful in explaining software development concepts. The technical audience can then "translate it" into whatever language is needed.

Details and jargon are very different aspects. You should avoid jargon because it's meaningless to an audience outside the field. But you should not "dumb things down", meaning you should convey meaningful detail, but do so in plain language. My recurring advice is: "Explain complex aspects in plain language. Don't state trivialities in grandiose language". Oddly, the former is a lot harder

There is no such thing as a non-technical audience. Every discipline or knowledge domain includes technique from accountants to musicians, from learning to make your very first sandwich to building a skyscraper. There is nothing that inherently prohibits a class of humans from learning and developing skills in any field. The idea that we use language that assumes some types of people are non-technical is offensive to me and seems would propagate inequalities in race, gender, age etc. Having said that people have various interests but that is a different thing.

When considering how to develop software the first thing needed is a process. Typical processes are agile or waterfall. The choice of process is dependent on the final use of the software. For example, software for a banking application can be developed using an agile method where a minimum viable product (MVP) of the software is implemented. This would be sufficient for it to work with other features road-mapped as extensions. For example, when launching a space rocket, waterfall development is a better choice with all features available and fully tested to complete that launch. I hope this gives some insight into the difference between agile and waterfall software development processes.

I like to use visualization for better explanation and simplification of software complexity. A well-designed diagram or image can purify complex software architecture or processes into understandable fragments. This simplification is key in bridging the gap between technical and non-technical stakeholders. Good visual content and simple non-tech wording are the key factors for a successful presentation.

Software has became an important part of our lives: software decide the best way home for us, they schedule when we receive our packages, they handle our money, they transmit our messages to our loved ones. Software development is a well-structured activity that often explores the unknowns: unknown possibilities, unknown outcomes, unknown effects, and unknown business values. It is crucial for a business to prioritise solid processes in place, if it aims to profit off a software product. Having no process endangers both the business and the users of the software.

Software development is all about telling a computer how to transform data, for example, how to take data from the disk and convert it to speaker vibrations, thus making a music player, how to take inputs from users and change colors for pixels on the screen to make it look like text and then to data on disk, making a text editor. How to retrieve data from disk, send it over the internet, and show you a website. So basically, writing software is a process of creating a set of strictly defined rules that a computer must perform on the data we give it so we will get the result we want. It goes a bit more technical than this and in several layers, but that's the basic idea.

There are levels of software and so there are levels of software development. Lowest level of software is firmware and operating software. In this case the level of software development is extremly high. Specifications are not always fixed and a lot of things has to be find out. This level of programming can be only be done by very skilled and determined programmers. The highest level of software is reporting and output creation. Everybody can learn this and specifications are in general very clear and a lot of examples can be found. And then you have programming using platforms, libraries and frameworks. Programmers life maked easy. On the other hand programming old-school from scratch. Die hard programmers. My perspectives!

On one hand, programming is just giving instructions to the machine. It's exciting when you just tell it to do something and it does it as you expected. But it's also a plaything - you can go wild and create something that never existed before and see the outcome. And it can be even more exciting than just giving commands to a machine. It can be something new, something useful, or something entertaining. And it's beautiful.

Es importante también dejar claro que un buen diseño de la aplicación pasa por la simplificación de la aplicación refiriéndonos al interfaz y experiencia del usuario. Evitar numerosos pasos para realizar una tarea, que se pueda realizar todo el proceso sin varias pantallas de captura de datos, ni demasiadas opciones. Resultados rápidos, no hay nada peor para un usuario que una lentitud entre una carga de la aplicación a otra parte de la misma con una espera de carga de datos. Procedimientos de pago sencillos y claros con desglose detallado en la misma pantalla antes de confirmar una compra.

I can highly recommend the book "The Mom Test" by Rob Fitzpatrick. Never trust your audience or a client. It's important that you gather feedback while people use what has been built or is being build at the moment. People should refer to their problems and pains. It's the software's job to solve those issues. You can always start with: "How do you solve that problem at the moment?" And go from there. Never assume and never suggest - stay curious and you'll be amazed that often less is more and that the engineers sometimes want to build amazing things, although no one ever asked for it.

Never, and I mean never ask, "does that make sense?" I'm still learning to take my own advice, so bear with me. Pay attention to your audience member's affect, did they look shocked at a particular feature? Did they nod in agreement? Do they seem uninterested? Tap into that! Say, "I noticed that when I said X, you Y.. what were you thinking?" Make the process interactive by opening the door for communication and play, "I have some thoughts here, but now that you've seen X, I'm really curious to hear your thoughts first!"

When asked to describe their business process/workflow most non-tech users always describe how they have been doing it for years! Most of the pain points they describe are also caused by some of the wrong practices in the system - which again were created because of old/wrong software or manual processes or workarounds. So I prefer to understand their fundamental business requirements and see if they can do the same tasks more simply without going through loops and hoops as they are used to doing. Here we need help from the domain experts to find a new methodology/solution that works for the users and system. But just trying to solve the users' current problems mostly doesn't get them that 'new shiny' tool that they are expecting.

Software should solve problems, streamline processes, and generally unincomber users, therefore, feedback from clients is critical! The thing is the client doesn't often know how things work. This can result in the client ascribing the wrong process to an issue. Our job as developers is to understand the what and the why for any client request. To do this we have to hear what the business process should be and then build that. We do this by asking open ended questions and listening to what they saw and why they wanted to see something different. We may offer improvements to processes, but untimely the processes the business wants should be what our code does, and we must talk with (not to) the business to know what that means.

It is like building a machine but in imaginary world with other rules. You just have to choose the world and describe the machine. Better the world and your description - better the result. Plan, deliver, monitor, support, improve. Plus business. One of the main results is workforce productivity. "Robots work hard, not people." - The Adventures of the Elektronic

Software is often rooted in real life experiences. The core principles behind software engineering relate ton concepts and tools we have worked with when we were even children: organizing fruits by colors was not so different from sorting, following a recipe with your mum was akin to pair programming, creating games with friends was similar to being part of a team. Bringing software engineering concepts back to relatable concepts allows the discussion to be more fruitful.

Reimagining how to communicate development activities is difficult. A massive technical achievement that took weeks could have little bearing on non-technical stakeholders or end users' ideology around the product. So, how do you get them to understand the amazing work the team is doing? You reframe it with Storytelling! Yes, like storytelling to a kid at bedtime. You can use emotional intelligence to understand what each specific audience wants to hear and adapt your language, examples, and tone to story-tell. It is the same concept. Figure out what will get the audience's attention, captivate them, and fill the story with all of the key aspects in development by simply sprinkling it into the points that they want to hear.

Each conversation and the audience is different and that's why I prefer the approach to adapt. The complexity and the technical verbiage is driven by your audience - sometimes you are speaking to a marketing team, other times it's an executive team, and sometimes it's a technical team. So, it's good to understand a bit about the audience and adapt your conversation based on them and the problem they are seeking out your expertise to solve. The better you can relate, the more transparent and collaborative the conversation can be.

This is the hardest thing to do. You cannot adjust yourself to all of your audience. And virtual trainings? You don't even know your audience. Although, there are general guidances on public speaking such as your voice tone, speed, etc.

Communicate to the person. Your practiced speech may not resonate. Be prepared to wander in the details that this interaction requires, not the ones your presentation hopes we want to focus on.

Diagrams tend to work in all languages and can help an audience better understand the structure of a system. But be careful: diagrams also use a language that you need to define. A dotted line vs solid line is also jargon if the audience can't relate that to the intended meaning. I don't think translation tools help so much in these situations. You're not looking to translate from English to French but from jargon-riddled English to comprehensible English

Using diagrams and flowcharts, along with interactivity, can be powerful tools for explaining software development concepts to non-technical audiences

We all have the same goal - build a successful business. However, each function in the company sees its perspective and speaks its language. Engineers often don't understand the product people, and the Product people don't understand Sales, and nobody understands Engineers :) Product people translate user needs into product requirements, engineering leaders translate them into technical solutions, and engineers translate solutions into code. The challenge starts when these technical solutions must be translated back to the business people or the users. This is when we need to remember who our audience is and what they care about and omit 90% of the details they don't care about to help them understand the message we are trying to convey.

Software development should start by really understanding the need. Understanding the need means going beyond hearing what the target user says. It means taking their complaint, considering the context, and translating that into what the real pain is. It is like a doctor. The doctor hears the patient's symptoms, and can simply prescribe something to reduce the symptoms. But ideally the doctor will identify the cause of the symptoms and devise a way to eliminate the cause. The best software solutions often involve changes in business/human processes PLUS better software tools.

After all the hard work of building that house you are going to ship your neighbours one from Wish? Technical translations should not be translated using Google Translate and the likes. It does not make sense to even give it as an option, it's like saying that your audience that speaks another language are not worth the same investment as your source language audience. If you invested so much money in creating that amazing software why throw it away when localising it to another audience? #FoodForThought

Remember that the people you're talking to are smart people who happened to have learned different things. Don't condescend to them -- treat them like people who have spent their careers doing something different. I tend to talk to everyone outside my field the way I talk to scientist friends -- they know their fields really well, they just don't know mine, so I have to make sure to avoid jargon and assumptions. They do the same thing when trying to explain their work to me.

Learn to listen to the question, and classify the question/s into why's, how's, what's, etc. More often than not, I found myself (in my past roles as technical evangelist, cloud solution architect, etc.) first dissecting the question first into multiple parts - and then answering the question in parts. You see skilled public figures do that frequently: "There is two parts to your question. Let me address the first..." Try to start with "Great question!" or "I am glad you asked about that..." no matter how obvious the answer seem to you. Your goal is not to shut them up or prevent more questions from being asked. Your goal is to clarify and frequently adapting your response to the questions.

Never use any technical jargon and if you do validate it with real life experiences. Keep it super simple and break it down to pieces.

To effectively explain software development concepts to non-technical audiences, focus on visualization and analogies. Use simple, relatable analogies to bridge complex ideas to everyday experiences, making abstract concepts more tangible. Incorporate visuals like comics, diagrams and flowcharts to illustrate processes and relationships within software development. These methods help demystify technical details, making the information accessible and engaging for everyone, regardless of their technical background.

What is software? Even it’s name is mostly describing what it is not, in that it’s not hardware. But it is something and often multiple things. It’s human readable words and symbols, written out ideas in a language that can logically be interpreted by others or even machines. It’s the binary encoded information that is derived from those written ideas stored or packaged for distribution. It’s the active process on a machine that is operating based on that binary encoded information. We use the term software to describe all these scenarios.