Management Speak

[CanAm]

sideways sid said:

"Morning hotshots. Are we cooking with napalm? You bet."
"We've got to downsize our sloppiness overload."
"Morning talent base. Are the afterburners on full thrust? You bet."
"Yes, well, publicity-wise this is a rather regrettable gonads-in-the-guillotine situation."

Gus Hedges, Drop the Dead Donkey c.1990

Much as I enjoyed Only Fools and Horses, The Vicar of Dibley et al, they've all been done to bloody death.
Bring back Drop the Dead Donkey!!

[Scabutz]

jimmytheone said:

the next person to tell me to "reach out" to a supplier, grrrr

My boss keeps telling me to do this. I have now refused to speak to anyone until he asks me to contact the, rather than reach out.

In a meeting the other day I was asked to reach out and touch base. I said isn't that a line from a Depeche Mode song? They didn't get it. Morons

He also has the habit in meetings of saying we should or shouldn't be solutonising

[Countdown]

SAS Tom said:

We recently had an email to round asking us not to park in front of a gate because they wanted to test the “operational functionality” of it. Basically see if it opens.

"Operational functionality" also covers testing to see if the gate closes, part opens, part closes, and all positions within the open and closed status. There are two sub-teams tasked with looking at locking mechanisms and hinges. They'll attend the DPB (Daily Project Brief) on an ad-hoc basis.

[SAS Tom]

Countdown said:

SAS Tom said:

We recently had an email to round asking us not to park in front of a gate because they wanted to test the “operational functionality” of it. Basically see if it opens.

"Operational functionality" also covers testing to see if the gate closes, part opens, part closes, and all positions within the open and closed status. There are two sub-teams tasked with looking at locking mechanisms and hinges. They'll attend the DPB (Daily Project Brief) on an ad-hoc basis.

“Gate-Gate” appears to have progressed.

The operational functionality test appears to have begun as it was open/functioning operationally. You may think that would be the end of the test but there are cones around the opening to stop people driving through. It’s clearly a multi faceted test. Signs have been erected stating the gate will be opened on a daily basis.

I believe it goes live on Monday if the operation requires the function.

[Gecko1978]

S a business analyst I am subject to much of this BS on a daily basis. To be clear I became a BA when I realised I would get paid more to talk crap about my day job than actually do my day job (Risk Analyst in the city).

Agile is the current flavour of the month.

list of tasks = backlog
when a task is done = sprint 1, 2, 3 etc
daily meeting = scrum
person who hosts the meeting = scrum master
more senior project manager = product owner
(note the last 2 are unlikely to actually have a clue what's going on).

Requirments for any activity = user story
collection of requirments = epic

to discover something is wrong = fast fail

its all bullst and I have yet to see it work well

[Scabutz]

Gecko1978 said:

its all bullst and I have yet to see it work well

Yes the terminology is bull st.

When scrum / agile is done well/properly it's very good. When its done badly or half heartedly is a fking disaster.

[deggles]

Scabutz said:

Yes the terminology is bull st.

When scrum / agile is done well/properly it's very good. When its done badly or half heartedly is a fking disaster.

100% this. It's rarely done well. One of my favourite descriptions of Agile methodology went something like:

"Agile tells you how you're going to do something, then asks what you want to do, then tells you what you want to do is wrong."

[StanleyT]

xjay1337 said:

HappySilver said:

Back in the 90s I was in a meeting in Chicago with a senior executive of the business I was working at then, he started referring to his plan for a restructuring which would result in redundancies. The only problem was that he didn’t call it that or anything normal. His description:

Decruitment exercise!

I saw someone's linkedIN job title as something like "Business streamliner" .

Similar role - just to sack people off.

We had a period of "negative staff recruitment". That was fun.

[jet_noise]

Gecko1978 said:

S a business analyst I am subject to much of this BS on a daily basis. To be clear I became a BA when I realised I would get paid more to talk crap about my day job than actually do my day job (Risk Analyst in the city).

Agile is the current flavour of the month.

list of tasks = backlog
when a task is done = sprint 1, 2, 3 etc
daily meeting = scrum
person who hosts the meeting = scrum master
more senior project manager = product owner
(note the last 2 are unlikely to actually have a clue what's going on).

Requirments for any activity = user story
collection of requirments = epic

to discover something is wrong = fast fail

its all bullst and I have yet to see it work well

The thread-resurrecting course I described is about Agile.
Some further introduction said it was a "Copernican shift in working methods".

Still not buying!

[Dr Jekyll]

Gecko1978 said:

S a business analyst I am subject to much of this BS on a daily basis. To be clear I became a BA when I realised I would get paid more to talk crap about my day job than actually do my day job (Risk Analyst in the city).

Agile is the current flavour of the month.

list of tasks = backlog
when a task is done = sprint 1, 2, 3 etc
daily meeting = scrum
person who hosts the meeting = scrum master
more senior project manager = product owner
(note the last 2 are unlikely to actually have a clue what's going on).

Requirments for any activity = user story
collection of requirments = epic

to discover something is wrong = fast fail

its all bullst and I have yet to see it work well

it can be done well, but one of the things that causes it to be done badly is trying to translate everything into traditional waterfall management terms so you end up with neither one nor the other.

For example treating a sprint as a task rather than a fixed amount of time, or letting a product owner decide who does what when, means you aren't doing agile, so you end up with an undisciplined and chaotic waterfall project.

Equally Scrums can be beneficial providing they are used as intended and don't degenerate into a daily 'let's all sit down and have a general chat while eating biscuits' session.

[Alex_225]

SAS Tom said:

We recently had an email to round asking us not to park in front of a gate because they wanted to test the “operational functionality” of it. Basically see if it opens.

Sounds like the type of cobblers our Facilities team would send out to the business.

In a hopeless attempt to make the task sound more significant than it is, use some bigger words than you would normally say and it sounds more important!

[mart73]

Lots of Americanisms creeping in here (US company based in the UK) - current vogue is asking someone to "talk to" when analysing data in a presentation/meeting.

Slide comes on the screen - "can you talk to that" as the host spins round to look at you.

Drives me absolutely mad.
You can talk about it, talk through it, but talking to it is doing nothing for my blood pressure!

[Roger Irrelevant]

I heard a new one just this morning, possibly the worst ever. Somebody said "We need to T-shirt this problem". It turns out this means to determine whether a problem is small, medium, large or extra large. I honestly don't think I'll ever be able to look at the colleague that uttered that in the same way again.

[BrabusMog]

Roger Irrelevant said:

I heard a new one just this morning, possibly the worst ever. Somebody said "We need to T-shirt this problem". It turns out this means to determine whether a problem is small, medium, large or extra large. I honestly don't think I'll ever be able to look at the colleague that uttered that in the same way again.

time to start looking for a new job if you work with someone that is that big a

[menguin]

Roger Irrelevant said:

I heard a new one just this morning, possibly the worst ever. Somebody said "We need to T-shirt this problem". It turns out this means to determine whether a problem is small, medium, large or extra large. I honestly don't think I'll ever be able to look at the colleague that uttered that in the same way again.

WTAF.

[Shakermaker]

Roger Irrelevant said:

I heard a new one just this morning, possibly the worst ever. Somebody said "We need to T-shirt this problem". It turns out this means to determine whether a problem is small, medium, large or extra large. I honestly don't think I'll ever be able to look at the colleague that uttered that in the same way again.

What kind of job do you have where this is thrown around with such casual abandon?

[menguin]

Shakermaker said:

Roger Irrelevant said:

I heard a new one just this morning, possibly the worst ever. Somebody said "We need to T-shirt this problem". It turns out this means to determine whether a problem is small, medium, large or extra large. I honestly don't think I'll ever be able to look at the colleague that uttered that in the same way again.

What kind of job do you have where this is thrown around with such casual abandon?

I mean - you could use anything with a size. "We need to Starbucks Frappuccchino this problem" - is it Grande or Venti?

[jonamv8]

Roger Irrelevant said:

I heard a new one just this morning, possibly the worst ever. Somebody said "We need to T-shirt this problem". It turns out this means to determine whether a problem is small, medium, large or extra large. I honestly don't think I'll ever be able to look at the colleague that uttered that in the same way again.

LOL. Is the colleague complete t1t in general?

[Dr Jekyll]

Roger Irrelevant said:

I heard a new one just this morning, possibly the worst ever. Somebody said "We need to T-shirt this problem". It turns out this means to determine whether a problem is small, medium, large or extra large. I honestly don't think I'll ever be able to look at the colleague that uttered that in the same way again.

I worked somewhere which used a very similar phrase and it wasn't that ridiculous. It wasn't sizing A problem, but sizing the various jobs that had to be do done/would be nice to get done to determine which were quick fixes and which looked like major projects.. There had previously been some debate about whether to use a points score to express a rough estimate of the work involved, or just small/medium/large. So if someone said 'T shirt it' they would be understood to mean. 'Lets each make some rough estimates as to how big these tasks are and compare our results, and express them as small/medium/large as opposed to using the points system'.

[zb]

Going to have to take a holistic view of this thread's optics.