Pick the one you like: Management Buzzwords

write-in for "open the kimono"

nice. only one of these I fuck with is "value added".

I say "win-win" ironically constantly

It's good to shift paradigms.

haven't heard a lot of these used. here's some good stuff not on the list: "on board" (used as a verb), the old classic "deliverables", "download" (which means something like informing somebody of something). my job is trying to get me into management, so i'm becoming uncomfortably familiar with these.

Write-in vote for 'hit the ground running'

and more. pain points, stakeholders, huddles (aka, meetings)

http://enviableworkplace.com/wp-content/uploads/HuddleVenn.jpg

scrum room

One of my favorite memories is seeing It's On My Radar, No Brainer, and Best of Breed on a Wednesday night at CBGB.

v few of these are 'management buzzwords' tbh? but the big one you've missed is yearonyear

the big word round these parts in recent time : journey

everyone is on a sodding journey

no, they are not, they are just using a website.

write in for Thought Leadership

let's play a game: create a sentence using as many buzzwords as you can.

management speak: today we're having a team huddle in the scrum room to on board the stakeholders about overcoming the pain points in several key deliverables.

normal speak: let's meet in room 2 to talk about the system fucking up so we can finish this project.

What? No "I'm just throwing it out there"?

That reads p well as a full entry tbh

people here have been saying "onpass" for "pass on" as in "I'll onpass the files to you later"

drives me so nuts, serves no purpose

i say "deliverables" and "on my radar" at least once a day

that's a win-win, hoos, deliverables on the radar is totally in your wheelhouse

in lieu of 'it's a learning curve' i'll go forward with going forward.

that's what you gotta do if you wanna win the vertical

is that like gleaming the cube?

I heard 'bootstrap' used in a sentence by a businessy douchebag yesterday

i've heard 'onboarding', not 'onboard' (v.)

at staff luncheon today they showed off the new "micro-site" which features various videos, radio spots, print ads, etc., aka "deliverables" that our city leaders may use to promote themselves. i could barely keep my pizza down.

that's when you open your kimono

i got yr deliverables rightcheer

ramping up right now, sir

voted for move the needle cause it comes in handy to kill dumb time-wasting projects

well sure we could do that but I don't think it will move the needle on our key Q2 deliverables

has anyone ever written a good history of how this sort of talk developed? can't imagine 19th century business ppl spoke like this.

low hanging fruit is clearly the best kind of fruit, mmm-mmm, so juicy and just in reach

my manager likes to say "call the ball" a lot, his version of "make a decision"

I went for

Back to the drawing board

which I only slightly prefer to

Bang for your buck

and

All hands on deck

Why?

Well, these are old colloquial phrases, 'folksy', which may not have come directly from WW2 but are certainly informed by it (habit of applying technical, military and naval phraseology to everyday challenges and processes: cf many older people).

Despite being older - centuries older in the case of 'All hands' - they are still far fresher than the awful pseudo-professional neologisms about touching bases 'with' someone or 'reaching out' or value-added, because they actually function as metaphors for the processes they are used to describe.

They are bright, brave beacons dotted at long intervals along a blackened shoreline of senselessness.

i'd defend 'on the radar' as a general catch-all short-hand for things that aren't you know.. on the radar.

The poll missing an option for "let's take it offline."

I like "all hands on deck" because it makes me think of pirates

^^^

Not McPartlin/ Donnelly?

The poll missing an option for "let's take it offline."

ugh, yes

'signing off on' something that's the other one i hate. not enough anymore simply to have to sign something, seems one must 'sign off on' it.

i love "let's take that offline" because it almost always means "stfu in front of all these other ppl"

yes, "sign off on" is particularly loathsome

May I add one? "Make it pop!" I work in newspaper advertising, where this vague, highly subjective, and frankly often unattainable directive is flung about often enough to put it near the top of my list.

List being ones I hate, obv.

"going forward" is so uggggggggh and I hear it all the fucking time now. It seems to ahve replaced "from now on." The worst is when students imitate the neologistic horrors of administrators and faculty.

"Make it pop" could spin off into a whole other discussion of designer-speak, seriously.

I voted for "when the rubber hits the road" because it sounds like a bad '80s blooze-rock song and I love bad '80s blooze-rock

A Good Day In Hell - The Official ILM Track-By-Track EAGLES Listening Thread

'signing off on' something that's the other one i hate. not enough anymore simply to have to sign something, seems one must 'sign off on' it.

― piscesx, Wednesday, August 28, 2013 12:35 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i find "sign off on" is used more metaphorically to indicate the act of approving, not as a synonym for literally signing something.

I grew up in farm country, a silo is an actual thing.

Favourite on the list: end of play (though I usually use close of business)
Favourite not on the list: we are where we are/ it is what it is

The latter because it means "shut up and deal with our current problem and stop imagining a world where it didn't occur"

darraghmac otm

http://i.imgur.com/E7G4FUN.jpg

Like do you guys know the definition of the word "buzzword"? "Back to the drawing board" is not a buzzword, it's just an everyday expression.

just sat through a conference call where it was repeatedly intoned by high level people that "we have to get off the D. i don't think you appreciate how it important it is that we get off the D."

when ppl do this to me i respond with new and interesting phrases like 'coagulated wisdom' and watch them flounder

haha what does that even mean? were you thinking to yourself "get off the dilznick" (xpost)

yes that is what i had in mind

D being a character in a 12 character string we use and it was a long debate about the ramifications of removing the D, which was repeatedly referred to as getting "off the D"

another one that I'm not sure falls under management-speak or just perversion of the English language: "effort" as a verb. this one friend of mine started using it all the time "ironically" "as a joke" and it still pisses me off. "I am efforting to finish the report early so I can hit Happy Hour."

oh god

I've heard my manager use the term "flipping the bit" several times in the last few days. I have no idea what it means.

swingin' on the flippity flop

Open the kimono, cobnobbler

In computer programming, flipping a bit changes it from a zero to a one, or vice versa. As a piece of business jargon, I am as clueless as you. Next time someone says it, ask them and see what they say.

swingin' on the flippity flop

― dmr, Thursday, August 29, 2013 5:29 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Open the kimono, cobnobbler

― Same old bland-as-sand mood mouthings (Dan Peterson)

oh cool we're writing an 1983-era David Byrne song

Favourite not on the list: we are where we are/ it is what it is

I use this.

regretting fp'ing u for yr misplaced poll now

ah well, we are where we are

you're as well to don a shawl and say "arah musha" and be done with it

Favourite not on the list: we are where we are/ it is what it is

I use this.

― Henry Charles Hovell-Thurlow-Cumming-Bruce Hovell-Thurlow-Cumming-Br (seandalai),

My boss this used this one at me this afternoon. Translation: "I know you think this is a huge mistake, but I'm the boss, so do it anyway."

"At the end of the day, what it comes down to is that..."

no brass tacks, no credibility

"takeaway"

dying @ "get off the D"

Had another meeting with my manager today where he mentioned flipping bits. Definitely means "start doing something".

I need to take better care to document his various sayings and elaborate analogies because he's a treasure trove for this kind of stuff.

This thread has inspired me to revisit Roman Jakobson's famous essay on Metaphors and Metonyms, Two Aspects of Language and Two Types of Aphasic Disturbances.

Should be required reading for any MBAs in training.

"learnings"

A Good Day In Hell - The Official ILM Track-By-Track EAGLES Listening Thread

All of these do seem like Eagles song titles.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

The Eagles - Management Buzzwords

Side 1
1.Low hanging fruit
2.Going forward
3.Value added
4.When the rubber hits the road

Side 2
1.Get the ball rolling
2.Shift paradigm
3.Move the needle
4.It's on my radar
5.Touch base

Basically, ET OTM

"it's a big ask" christ THAT one drives me insane.

no, no, no we've done that and it's fine

LHF FTW!

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/10/09/steve_ballmer_final_letter_to_shareholders_microsoft_ceo_sets_buzzword_record.html

The astonishing thing in that Ballmer letter (besides how awfully it's written) is how proud he is about initiatives that were mostly years behind their competitors and trying to claw their way into established markets they utterly missed as they were happening. That seems to be the defining hallmark of the Ballmer era; be it Zune or Bing or Windows Phone.

"Value-Added" IME means cost-added, usually without a corresponding increase in real value.

'Value-added', in my experience, means absolutely nothing of value. Nearly none of these management buzzwords 'add value' to a conversation.

Well, "Adding Value" means, for example, painting your object a nice blue costs you £1 but means that you can now add £2 to the price.

So, "Value-Added" should mean that the process has happened. But, if there is no acknowledgement of what has been added, um, ... yes!

a new was dropped into a corp email this morning that was a new one on me : elevator pitch

that's been around awhile - a sales pitch so short, succinct, and memorable it can be delivered to a client in the time it takes for the lift to reach your floor.

I want to double click on that point for a bit

btw, I'm on an all day planning call and will hopefully be coming up with more nuggets to add to this thread

I know this has been discussed at length already, but I have a co-worker who keeps peppering his various monologues with "at the end of the day".

It's making me want to ask if any of this can be done at a different point in the day.

Had a couple new ones come up in a leadership training session today:

"Hit F11" - I think this was meant to be similar to "passing the buck" but I'm not really sure, the reference was a bit over my head. Any thoughts?

"Getting to know You Inc." as in knowing your own personal brand.

"carpetbombing the sector" made an appearance in a meeting today

jesus i've hears all but maybe five of these in the last week.

also write-in for "level set" used in the context of discussion to bring one up to speed. never heard it before my current gig

How about "pre-wire" to describe what you do to prepare someone for an important talk.