to be utterly sick of this maddeningly nonsensical bit of corporate wankspeak?

[MossyOilTank]

What is with the phrase "the piece" ... for example, "it's the piece around engagement with stakeholders" ... "the piece on communicating key messages" ... "the piece about maximizing outputs". IT DOESN'T MEAN ANYTHING.

It’s the meeting you have after the meeting. 🤦🏻‍♀️

@MichaelFabricantWig but that's the point. Every job has its own specialist language. Some phrases are pretentious and overused. Specialist vocab is different.

@ErrolTheDragon I host a daily operations call, and refer to it as the xx00 call (the time it starts- I don't 'give it a couple of minutes for others to join'), not the scrum. One person on the call is taller than Peter Crouch, another is only just taller than Warwick Davis.

Thanks- someone used it at work and I didn’t have a clue what they were on about 🤷‍♀️

I feel your pain. Some of my favourites:

Let's look at the bigger picture
Touch base
In the pipeline
Quick win
Let's circle back

oh good, found my tribe

lean and agile make me itch.
just put it on the kan-ban.
what they think a backlog is and what I think one is differs greatly.

Backlog of tasks? Pretty straightforward

what is iwhisking the sardines with the spinach"
and
’”kanban”
??

Golden Thread is acceptable to describe entirely contiguous, sequential items that share a common element, otherwise no, just no.

Kanban - Japanese term adopted across a number of project methodologies which basically means putting things in "buckets".

The problem is with this bullshit that after a while it becomes second nature because you're so used to hearing it so it seeps into your system it becomes genuinely quite hard to avoid. I loathe the corporatisation of our language and what it does to our relationships etc. But to be honest a lot of this stuff has become part of my lexicon.

I have found myself in the past week using these phrases:

Reach out (instead of contact, call)
Leverage (instead of use)
Rate limiting step (oh yes)
Cover off (instead of finish or get done)

I hate myself for it and I now consciously try to step back and dejargonise everything. But I do understand how people fall into these traps. We need a George Orwell for our era: someone who will decontaminate language from this creep of corporate awfulness.

In software development/IT it should be important to add. Not all projects can be managed using agile despite what its proponents claim. Agile requires the ability to change quickly and at low cost - try doing that with a chemical plant design.

The problem is that agile lingo has seeped out of specific project usage via senior management into general usage where it is just unclear and confusing. How many people attending the CEOs "stand-up" have ever been part of an agile project in most organisations outside the tech sector? Not many I'll wager.

Rate limiting step (oh yes)

That's a very useful and real thing, but obviously only if used correctly.
Our team does use it but we're mostly chemists or similar so understand what it means in the context of kinetics so can apply it (or more often 'rate determining step') accurately and usefully in other contexts.
Scientific software development probably isn't entirely typical as to what is or isn't wankspeak.

@Eleganz I agree but there are plenty of agile techniques which can be used elsewhere to good effect. Stand up being one of them.

Have we had ‘up skill’ yet? “In order for the info to cascade down, we need to up-skill our stakeholders”

What is wrong with train?

And please could someone explain the ‘open the kimono’?? I’ve read the full thread and still don’t understand the meaning!

A CEO I know uses ‘at the coalface’ a lot. 🤢

@DrJackDaniels it's not even training here any more, our "training" team are now called "Talent Management" 😂

And please could someone explain the ‘open the kimono’?? I’ve read the full thread and still don’t understand the meaning!

As far as I know it just means complete sharing of data. But in a sexist way which is always a bonus for wankspeak blackbelts.

I was on an office project, before I was self employed. We had a Monday morning project meeting, and one guy came out and spoke in Business Bullshit for several minutes. He did say, this, that, and and few real words, in between. He asked if there were any questions.

I said, "Yes, could you use English to tell us what you actually mean? I didn't understand anything."

The CO and Senior Project Manager were almost choking with laughter.

That's a standard metaphor though surely?

I hate "in terms of"

It’s naff and a little insulting to actual miners I would think.

Huddle, granularity, thrive

Oh and first it was Personnel, then HR, now it's the 'People team' ... 🙄

HR: Human Remains.

I can't find my comment, but the phrase I referred to was "Bubbling this back to the top of your inbox."
Queue massive eye roll

Personnel looked after the staff.

HR (the human waste department) protected the company from the staff.

The People Team will doubtless be keener to drive the cost of 'People' down without the excessive empathy and compassion of HR.