I want to try my hand at a listicle.
So here’s me attempting to explain the fun glossary of corporate jargon.
We’ll start with the easy ones.
Huddle. What was wrong with calling it a meeting.
Pods. What was wrong with calling it a team.
Alignment. A very fancy way to say are we in agreement.
Deep Dive. Because investigate wasn’t dramatic enough.
Here’s where it gets fun.
Ping. Send someone an Instant Message. Please never send an unaccompanied “hi”, “hey”, or “hello”. I will haunt you.
Collaborate. This one means the same thing as it does in normal English. With the catch that some folks will weigh the optics more than the output.
Low Hanging Fruit. Some task that should be simple. Not an accurate phrase. Please try spending a day bending over to pick blueberries.
Circle Back. Pretty straightforward, let’s continue this conversation later. May or may not use this in my normal vernacular.
Parking Lot. This one’s harder without context clues. Similar to Circle Back but an ad-hoc meeting. An Agenda and Meeting Minutes help a lot here.
Stakeholders. These are usually the people who are responsible for keeping the lights on. We tend to weigh their opinions more heavily. Users don’t always agree.
Optimize. To make something better. Unfortunately tech bros over leverage this word.
Leverage. Taking a thing, and using it to do something. Tech bros love to optimize how much they use this. Total Optimize-Leverage Usage per Sentence is a key dashboardable metric, or TOLUPS as those who study Human Factors Engineering call it.
Bandwidth. How much can you do? Also guilty of using this in my non-work vocabulary.
Mindfulness. Practices from the culture I cherish without the context. That being said, folks find value in it. Complicated feelings.
Synergy. Fancy word for at least two things working together in a manner where the impact is additive. I weep for the abuse this one word has suffered.
Boil The Ocean. A very hard task. Surprisingly accurate. Significantly easier to churn it, but you kinda need a mountain and Kurma Avatar.