more insane management speak phrases

[Mr Larrington]

Cockup and bugarup?

[Cudzoziemiec]

It's not just management, it's infecting the junior ranks as well - I found this in a report I'm reviewing

"To facilitate the fulfilment of documentation requirements from CU to BU level efficiently"

B++ for effort, or at least desire to impress.

[L CC]

I used 'circle back' yesterday.
I was only slightly taking the piss. 

[ElyDave]

It's not just management, it's infecting the junior ranks as well - I found this in a report I'm reviewing

"To facilitate the fulfilment of documentation requirements from CU to BU level efficiently"

B++ for effort, or at least desire to impress.

I asked what they meant, they explained, I thought why the fuck didn't you just say that in the first place?

[Si S]

Word of the week at my virtual work Huddle = get back in the brick & mortar office and meet people fact to face.

Sounds a bit worryingly like cuddle and I've never met most of my colleagues in real life before 

Oh Gawd... at my former employer the social committee got renamed 'The Huddle' and thus was born an entire lexicon of bollocks involving Huddlers, Hudlees, Hudovating

[John Stonebridge]

Announcement yesterday that Our Department [TM] would be merging with Another Department [TM] and that the boss of Another Department [TM] would be the new head honcho of The New Combined Department [TM]. 

Diligently, I went online to find out more about my new colleagues.   

OMG its all "horizontal workstreams" "investment engine rooms" and (my favourite) "value driven roadmap planning". 

FFS.   
   

Update.  Our merged teams now sit together in the office when we are there that is.  I happened to be in the office earlier this week.  Wandering idly towards my desk I passed a woman that I didnt recognise working furiously on a slide presentation titled "A cost and value mindset"'

I read it as "there will be redundancies and much misery for those that remain". 

[Cudzoziemiec]

Referring to the suggestion that someone's return from maternity leave should be phased rather than straight in: "The manager has socialised it it with her."

[hatler]

'Socialised' has to be right up there as one of my most despised management speak examples.

I worked for a Big Corp and they thought it appropriate to 'socialise' the new T&E policy.

Nope, not 'mandate' or 'enforce' or even 'publish' or broadcast', nope, 'socialise'. Slippy-shouldered, accountability averse bastards.

[mrcharly-YHT]

I was introduced to 'socialise' as a term meaning "Managers can now tell the rank and file."

As in "Bob, are the promotions and grade changes approved, so I can tell the team?"
"Yes, socialise it."

It was also used to indicate that a rumour should be started (maybe by mentioning it to known team gossip at the water cooler).
"There is a department rumour that XX huge changes are going to happen. We want to put a stop to that, but don't make it official (in case XX happens after all).  Maybe socialise that XX isn't being planned."

Worse than Yes Minister.

[ian]

I just wrote we should discuss operationalizing this data. I feel my return to the upper decks of a corporate mothership is now complete.

[pcolbeck]

I'm attending a remote "AGILE" course as type this. Its only 12:15 on the first morning of a two day course and I've already lost the will to live.
It's not even really relevant as I'm neither a programmer nor a program manger and usually work in a team of one.

[mllePB]

A virtual meeting included talk of Offboarding staff. As in thrown overboard surplus to requirement .

[orienteer]

A virtual meeting included talk of Offboarding staff. As in thrown overboard surplus to requirement .

It's more polite than "planking" 

[citoyen]

Not a phrase as such, but an utterly stupid management idea:
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-05-16/what-is-the-best-question-to-ask-a-job-applicant?sref=htOHjx5Y

I never cease to be amazed at the absolute bullshit that gets passed off as wisdom in the business world.

[citoyen]

But back to phrases - one I've encountered a fair bit lately is "C-suite", meaning senior management.

Also:
MQL (marketing qualified lead) - ie someone who has been identified as a potential customer based on their interests
KOL (key opinion leader) - a fancy way of saying "influencer"

 

[TheLurker]

Not a phrase as such, but an utterly stupid management idea:

There's a good management idea?  Asking for a friend.

[citoyen]

There's a good management idea?  Asking for a friend.

Giving me a pay rise would count as a good management idea.

Can't remember the last time it happened though. 

The piece I linked to was a spectacularly idiotic piece of drivel even by management standards.

[Kim]

Not a phrase as such, but an utterly stupid management idea:
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-05-16/what-is-the-best-question-to-ask-a-job-applicant?sref=htOHjx5Y

I never cease to be amazed at the absolute bullshit that gets passed off as wisdom in the business world.

Could be an interesting forum thread, I suppose.

I'm betting it's like how people who use email: The old-fashioned organised ones with folders and filters are probably the same sort of people who have the same few tabs open in a specific order for genuine quick access.  The search-for-everything people probably have squillions of tabs.

Neither is actually good or bad.  Unless you have to share a browser / mail account with them.

[citoyen]

The reason I think it's a particularly stupid idea is that if I'm in a job interview, I'll have no browser windows open at all. I especially won't have social media sites open. (I had an interview over Teams recently and made sure to close down all other apps and put my phone in airplane mode before it started. Like duh.)

Outside of that kind of situation, I'll generally have whatever tabs open that I need for whatever I'm doing right now. I mean, maybe I've been doing the internet wrong all these years, but I've always found one of the great things about the www to be that I don't need to keep a tab open when I've finished looking a website - I can always re-open it if I need it again.

Anyway, aside from being basically a stupid idea, that piece is full of all sorts of false assumptions that irritated me.

[Feanor]

Total Pish.
The tabs I have open are the ones relevant to what I'm doing right now.

[ian]

I have no idea what tabs I have open at any particular time though the odds are they’re not all family friendly. Mostly it’s a case of too many.

Our mothership c-suite refer to me as the d-suite. I still have plenty of alphabet to go.

[Jaded]

Even if I had tabs open in an interview, there's no way I would tell them that one was YACF.

[quixoticgeek]

I've been trying to reduce the number of tabs I have open. It's down to about 150 now.

The first 30 or so are always the same, the rest depend a lot...

J

[drossall]

Even if I had tabs open in an interview, there's no way I would tell them that one was YACF.

Even if I did tell them that, there's no way I would tell them that one of the YACF tabs was discussing how to answer an interview question about what tabs I had open.

[citoyen]

I've been trying to reduce the number of tabs I have open. It's down to about 150 now.