It Needs to Be Said: Empowering Communications Across Product Development Teams

Megan Fales at UXDX Community: AI, Low-Code & Designing Quality. Video: https://youtu.be/GmOErKrxG6o

Readable transcript: edited from the recording's captions for readability (fillers and false starts removed, punctuation and section headings added). Wording is the speaker's own. Timestamps are positions in the video. Names marked [?] could not be verified against the audio.

Communication as a business skill

[00:00:07] Thank you for having me today. I'm really excited to be here, and I'm looking forward to sharing some insights around how to empower communication across product development teams. It's a topic that I'm super passionate about, and I'm going to share a bit about why I think it's important and how you can execute on it. Let's get started.

[00:00:28] To give a brief introduction to myself, I'm Megan Fales, CEO and co-founder of Transcenda. I founded the organization in August of 2019, and we've grown to over 200 team members at this point. We're a global design and engineering services organization, and what we do is help our clients deliver product to market. I have over 15 years of experience working with globally distributed teams all across the world, and communication is truly the key to success.

[00:01:00] I believe that communication in general is one of the greatest skills for success in global business. Here's a really interesting story. Back in the day, when one of my friends decided to major in communications at university, she was incredibly smart, incredibly talented, and yet she took some heat from friends and family for not selecting a challenging enough major. Her decision actually proved to work out really well for her. Communication is a critical business skill, and her communication skills have helped make her wildly successful.

The problem is over-communication

[00:01:37] Moving forward, in today's product development environment, communication isn't the problem. It's actually over-communication. If you think about it, depending on what platforms or tools you use, people have Slack or Jira, Notion, Teams, Confluence, Google Docs and 10-plus more tools just like them. I know I do. Everything pings throughout the day. Everything looks important. And somehow, nothing really feels clear.

[00:02:09] Every team adopts tools with the best intentions. We want to move faster. We need to stay aligned. We want to be more collaborative. But instead of clarity, we end up with scattered conversations, duplicate threads, and decisions that are just buried in random comment threads or Slack direct messages. Personally, I have experienced searching Slack, email, Figma comments, Google Doc comments, just trying to find a thread I know I saw, and I just can't remember where it is. I just want to close the loop, and I cannot find the thread.

[00:02:48] That's actually the core issue. More channels equals more mess. More tools, more mess. That's why empowering communication today is not about having more tools. It's about having better habits. You need to be more clear with your norms. You need to have more aligned expectations. Teams need to know what goes where, what they actually need to respond to, and what's a decision versus noise. Without that, communication becomes a blocker, not a driver for good product development.

How misalignment hides

[00:03:26] A common trap that high-functioning teams fall into all the time is they don't notice things until it's too late. We've all been there. On the surface, everything looks great. We're using the shared tools. We're doing the stand-ups. We're sending the updates. But underneath it all, misalignment is quietly growing, and we don't even know it. Let's walk through a few of the scenarios that we commonly face.

[00:03:53] The first: we use shared tools and we do stand-ups. Sure. But if product says MVP and engineering hears "ship it next week", that shared language is an illusion. Same words, totally different meaning. How about "we aligned in the last meeting"? This is one of my favorites. It happens all the time. But did we actually align in the meeting? If no one captured the decision and everyone walked away with a slightly different takeaway, then we're not aligned. We just felt like we were.

[00:04:29] Everyone seems agreeable in meetings. Of course. A lot of people would prioritize harmony over honesty. No one wants to be the blocker. Tough feedback often gets swallowed, and that builds friction under the surface. Also, "we send regular updates." Let's be honest. Updates in today's digital world, with all of the tools we mentioned, are just background noise. People stop reading, or they read it and they don't know what's expected of them, and they don't know where to find it again. Communication is not the same as comprehension.

[00:05:07] The point is, misalignment doesn't show up in loud, obvious ways. It builds quietly, very quietly, and oftentimes by the time we realize it, we're already in rework mode. Or worse, we're launching something that doesn't actually solve the right problem.

Misalignment is a business risk

[00:05:30] Miscommunication or misalignment isn't just a productivity issue, it's an actual business risk. Let's start with the first issue, wasted investment. When we're not aligned, teams build features no one asked for. Anyone in product development has seen it at some point. It's not because they're careless, and it's not due to lack of user research. It's often because the signal got lost somewhere between user research, ideation, planning, and delivery.

[00:06:01] Then there's also innovation lost. Some of the best ideas never make it out of someone's head because they don't feel like the environment's open, or maybe their voice gets drowned out in a crowded Slack thread. Quieter ideas often equal missed opportunities. Next is burnout. Teams often waste time chasing bugs or redoing work that could have been avoided with a five-minute clarification earlier in the process. It's super frustrating, it's super exhausting, and frankly, it's demotivating.

[00:06:38] The last, and the most dangerous in my opinion, is disengagement. This is the worst. When talented people start to check out, it's not because they don't care, but because they start to feel like their input just doesn't change anything. When that happens, it's only a matter of time before they leave. Or even worse, they stay, but they stop contributing at their full potential. This isn't just about communication, it's about protecting the team, the product, and your business.

[00:07:13] I have a brief story to share from my past. Once we worked with a large Fortune 500 organization, and we were in talks with their innovation R&D lab, or team, whatever you call it. The pain point they shared was that the new ideas brought to the table that they most frequently wanted to move forward with were the ideas presented by those with the best communication skills. These were the ideas where someone could most articulately convey the business case. Meanwhile, super brilliant, innovative ideas shared by less strong communicators, lesser storytellers, were being left behind in the dust. And they were brilliant.

[00:08:01] What we did was help create a framework for the communication of all of the ideas within the R&D group, and we allocated designers to help with the storytelling framework. There was this huge uptick in the number of new ideas, and ideas that came from new participants, that the innovation lab moved forward with. More ideas, more unique ideas. This means more wins for the business and more innovation overall. As you can see, it's not always about what you say or what you think, but rather how you communicate it.

What happens when we get communication right

[00:08:37] What if we actually fixed how we communicate? Not by adding more meetings or tools, but by raising the quality standards of what we communicate and when we share. What happens when we do get communication right? First off, alignment gets faster, a lot faster. We shorten feedback loops. We move through product development cycles with more confidence, and we get cleaner hand-offs between teams. This means fewer last-minute surprises and much, much smoother product launches.

[00:09:17] Second, our ability to forecast improves. When everyone is on the same page, really on the same page, we can better anticipate blockers, we can scope accurately, and we can deliver with speed and precision.

[00:09:35] And maybe, just maybe, most importantly, we avoid performative alignment. You know the kind, where you're in a meeting and everyone nods, usually with their manager. Sometimes not, sometimes with their colleagues. And then everyone walks away with different assumptions. No meeting notes recap, no action items recap, no alignment. Actual real communication empowers teams to speak up early, challenge ideas productively, and move forward with ownership.

[00:10:07] Then there's one more outcome that really matters, especially at scale: decisions that stick. When teams know who made a decision, when they made it, and why, it helps build trust across both individual contributors and the leadership team. It also prevents constant rehashing, it makes onboarding easier, and new people that are joining can follow the reasoning behind past choices. You don't want to keep revisiting old ground. You want forward momentum. You need to build on clarity and confidence in how decisions were made. It's not just a soft skill anymore. This is a performance driver. Good communication unlocks clarity, velocity, and ultimately better business outcomes.

Netflix and Qwikster

[00:10:58] Let's talk about Netflix for a moment. Some of you may have heard the Netflix story in the past; I assume everyone knows who Netflix is. This chart shows Netflix's market performance over time. If you look over on the left, in the early 2000s, it was pretty stable. There was some nice momentum. And then in 2011, boom, the spike, and then a dramatic drop.

[00:11:25] This chart is not about product. It's a chart about a communication breakdown. What happened here wasn't a tech failure or a competitive threat. It was a moment where internal dissent was present but silent. Let's talk about what happened, and how it could have been avoided.

[00:11:46] Here's the context behind that sharp drop on the chart. In 2011, Netflix's CEO, Reed Hastings, made a high-stakes decision. He was going to split the business in two. One side would handle streaming, and the other, which would be named Qwikster, was going to manage DVD rentals. On paper, it seemed pretty logical: two different services, let's make two brands. But to the customers, the brand-loyal customers, it just felt like a total mess. Suddenly, you need two accounts, two payments. Which content is on which platform? Super frustrating, not a great move.

[00:12:25] And this is the actual twist. There were employees internally who saw this coming. They thought it was confusing. They didn't think the customers would love it. But they did not say anything. Or maybe they did, but they said it quietly, and it never reached the top. This moment is a real-world case of what happens when feedback gets trapped, when smart people stay silent. The fallout? Users left, stock collapsed, and trust, internally and externally, took a hit.

[00:13:02] Instead of giving up, though, they made changes. After the Qwikster incident, Netflix didn't just walk it back. They realized that something much, much deeper had to change. They understood the problem wasn't in the decision itself. It was in how the decision was made. There hadn't been a real debate. There had not been dissent. And it wasn't because people didn't have opinions. It's because they didn't feel safe sharing them.

[00:13:33] What Netflix did was make a cultural shift. They began encouraging what became known as radical candor, an idea that's now widely adopted across modern tech teams. A lot of us might have read this book by Kim Scott, Radical Candor. I have it out here on my desk. It's a great book. This philosophy, or principle, is simple, yet it's powerful: you need to care personally, but you need to challenge directly. It meant that leaders had to start getting better at listening to uncomfortable truths. Teams were encouraged to speak up before things went off course.

[00:14:13] Feedback was not just an afterthought. It was part of how decisions got made. And this shift didn't just rebuild internal trust. It set the stage for Netflix's next wave of innovation. The lesson here: culture is your infrastructure, and if people don't feel safe to speak, you're building on shaky ground.

Three things any leader can start doing

[00:14:37] Here's the good news. It's not just a Netflix story. This is a leadership story, and it's one that we can all rewrite in our organizations. When we talk about a communication culture, it's really easy to assume something soft, abstract, fuzzy. But it's actually practical. There are three things that any leader can start doing today that create a more empowered and aligned team.

[00:15:06] One, audit your current state. Are your teams aligned before they build? Are the decisions visible? Are people able to question the direction without fear? If not, misalignment is not a matter of if, but a matter of when. Second, you need to build the infrastructure. Alignment doesn't happen by accident. You need standardized artifacts, docs, rituals, and processes that create consistency and visibility across departments. It's not about adding red tape, it's about reducing ambiguity.

[00:15:42] And third, you need to model the culture that you want. If you're not asking, "What are we not saying?", your team is probably staying quiet. If decisions are only clarified in back-channel direct messages, trust will really start to erode. You need to ask publicly. You need to close loops visibly. You need to lead with curiosity instead of certainty. In the end, the biggest lever we have for speed and quality is not just process. It's people feeling heard.

[00:16:15] Here's the catch. When we talk about improving communication or building infrastructure, we think of it as something that scales across the whole company at once. That would be super nice: we audit process, we roll out templates, we try to align across teams. But let's be real. Teams do not always move as one unit. What we have seen time and time again is that you give the teams the same tools, the same documentation, the same onboarding, but adoption looks completely different across different functions and squads.

[00:16:49] Some teams are eager: "I'm all in. Let's jump in." Others cautiously test the water and adopt bits and pieces. And then some teams are just too busy, unconvinced, or quietly resistant, and they never pick it up. Oftentimes, too busy means that they don't actually see the business value, or that the trade-off is not worth it given their understanding of the business value.

[00:17:14] Here's the real insight. No process, tool or initiative will move faster than the level of trust and clarity and buy-in in a team. This is where communication can become a multiplier and not a blocker. It's not based on how much we say, but how well we connect it to the day-to-day context that the teams actually live in.

Design system adoption at Transcenda

[00:17:35] With that said, I'd love to walk you through a real-world example from Transcenda, where we didn't just address process, but we addressed people, their concerns, and the pace they were ready to move at. At Transcenda, one of the things that we often help our clients with is building and scaling design systems. Let's talk about the happy path. Everyone loves a happy path. Step one, we kick off design system discovery, and we start core development: foundations, components, tokens. Happy, happy, happy.

[00:18:05] Step two, once we have something meaningful, we pitch it to product teams, showing real value and usage examples. Now we're on to step three. The teams are adopting it, they're aligning it to their roadmaps, and they embed it into the design and dev workflows. This is just great. That's the happy path.

[00:18:23] Let's talk about the reality that we see more often. Adoption varies across teams. Some teams jump in and start using it. Others only apply parts of it, and some are too busy or unconvinced, so it doesn't make it into their plans at all. What's missing? Strong communication early on, and a clear, team-specific value proposition from the start.

[00:18:51] I can share what we usually do. We learned the hard way, but we found some tactics that work. First, we kick off the process by aligning with teams. We run early discovery with product teams to understand their needs and context. You have to understand them. We also secure executive buy-in upfront. This is key to move forward confidently. If there is no buy-in, there is no point investing in the initiative.

[00:19:20] Then we pitch it to the product teams. We roll out training programs to both engineering and design teams. We create hybrid triages: small cross-functional groups to keep communication flowing. And then we set up support channels to answer questions and reduce friction. Finally, we move to execution and we measure the progress. We define a step-by-step adoption plan. We align design system work with OKRs and product roadmaps, so you have this organizational alignment. And then we set up tracking to monitor adoption product by product. This helps us move from strategy to execution while keeping teams supported and aligned.

The most empowering communication is braver

[00:20:05] As we close, here's the most important point that I want to leave you with. It is not about more meetings, more tools, or more noise. The most empowering communication isn't more. It's braver. It's the moment someone raises their hand and says, "I think we're building the wrong thing," or, "I don't understand why we're doing this." Those moments shape your culture and your team. They're watching. They'll follow what you normalize. If you welcome questions, they'll ask them. If you invite disagreement, they'll speak up. But if you rush, silence, or sidestep, that will become the default.

[00:20:50] That's why it has to start at the top. Build a system where the truth flows freely, where hard conversations aren't rare, but rather routine. And you will unlock something powerful: trust, speed, and alignment. Because in the end, what slows teams down is not disagreement. It is everything that is left unsaid.

[00:21:17] As we conclude, I just want to say thank you for your time today. I'd love to keep the conversation going. If you have questions or ideas, or would like to explore what a collaboration with Transcenda could look like, you can reach out to myself or our VP of product and design directly. I put our information here. And I think we have a little bit of time for Q&A. Thank you.