Working in Babel: My Experiences in a Multilingual Workplace

We often hear that different roles speak “different languages” meaning that they have diverse understandings of a situation. But, what happens when they literally speak different languages? In this session I want to share my 10 years of experience working in my non-native language, first as a tester and now as a product owner; the impact it has on my day-to-day work as well as to the work of my colleagues. Some of it is good, some of it has led to misunderstandings. We will talk about the benefits and difficulties of working in a multilingual environment. Try to identify the good parts and overcome some of the barriers created by mis-communications. By the end of the session, we will have looked at ways to speak a common language even if we don’t speak the same one.