It depends on the audience. As a young developer, talking to the “old guys” could be somewhat intimidating. You haven’t proven yourself and worry about ruining what little credibility you may have. As your career progresses, and you become one of the new “old guys”, it’s talking to management that can derail you. I’ve seen two patterns here. The first is to talk to them as if they were your technical peer (usually they aren’t). If they fail to understand, it’s on them. The other approach is to tailor your explanation to the individual by watching for non-verbal cues, like the deer in the headlights look. You will necessarily stumble a bit in the process. Over time, you’ll learn the approach for each individual and how to infer the approach for new individuals. And then? Well, many of us become managers ourselves and slowly, though too fast, we are no longer peers but rather one of those people for whom the technical folks have to tailor the response. It can be challenging at times. But generally, I’ve not found it to be a “brain problem”, rather an experience problem.
