That is a good point. In a perfect world, managers managing technology would make an effort learning it. But it is always better to assume that they did not (assume they focus on potentially harder skills needed to manage humans and teams). Instead of lamenting this imperfection, it is better for an engineer to learn how to talk effectively to non-specialists who are friendly, smart, but clueless in the topic you want to explain. This effort will pay off in spades.
I know it pays off but you can’t put all responsibility on engineers. Management should also accept that they have a responsibility to learn what they are dealing with. Even worse, it’s perfectly acceptable to brush off technical information as “nerdy”.
In my company a lot of big projects are set up for failure from the start because the big guys often listen to slick salesmen (preferably from the outside because they don’t trust their own people) and not to the people who raise concerns that are valid but hard to understand. Some things can’t be dumbed down but they are just complex.
In my view a lot of dysfunction in tech projects comes from the fact the higher ups don’t want to understand what’s going on and also don’t want to listen.
