12 Workplace Phrases You Probably Don’t Know…But Should

April 8, 2209 – Getting along with people sometimes requires speaking their language, especially in the workplace. One of the ways employees try to emphasize their smartness is with specialized vocabulary. Due to the nature of a lot of people’s work, technical language and terminology is often necessary, but buzzwords tend to make you sound pretentious. On the other hand, if you are working on a team full of buzzword-addicted co-workers, you’ll need to fit in.

Christine Lambden and Casey Conner know office lingo. Authors of Everyday Practices of Extraordinary Consultants, they are one of the top consultant teams in the industry and have worked on hundreds of projects in their thirty combined years of consulting and have heard every weird, quirky workplace phrase in the book.

Using this knowledge, they are providing explanations for some not so common workplace lingo, so next time you are at the water cooler or in a meeting, you’ll understand what is going on.

12 Workplace Phrases You Probably Don’t Know…But Should
By Christine Lambden and Casey Conner

Boil the Ocean: This scope is too big to do in one project. Break it up into more than one. We often hear We’re not trying to boil the ocean here. We just need to when the client is trying to keep costs down and avoid an overly ambitious project scope.

Drink the Kool-Aid: To enthusiastically perform a task or follow a leader without knowing how this may affect you, or to buy the company line without question. In business, you may hear someone say He drank the Kool-Aid, when they mean, He has been thoroughly trained in the program and we have his unconditional support, or He is on board with our strategy. In political commentary, it is used to imply that people who disagree with you have been brainwashed or are under the influence of drugs.

Going Native: This is what happens when a consultant stops acting like a consultant and starts thinking they are part of the client organization. If you aren’t willing to go somewhere else, go ahead and apply for a permanent job. You aren’t providing the same value you were in the beginning.

Greenfield Instance: Clean, new installation of an application without customizations, configuration or data.

Holistic: A big picture view or a solution that includes upstream and downstream impacts. Whatever it means, it’s a great consulting word and we use it a lot.

Paradigm: The perspective or view you have of a situation. For example, When ownership of our order fulfillment project moved from Operations to Sales, it caused a paradigm shift that resulted in a whole new project strategy and approach.

Running in parallel: Processing normal operating data through two systems simultaneously to compare performance and output. When a client is feeling particularly paranoid about a new system that his consultants have developed or implemented, even after exhaustive testing and training, we will sometimes recommend running the new system in parallel with the old for a short period.

Strawman: First draft of a solution or proposal intended to provoke discussion. It is an object, document, person, or argument that temporarily stands in for and is intended to be knocked down by something more substantial.

Talking to the Dog: Thinking it through by talking it through out loud. You’ll often hear engineers and programmers say that they finally solved a problem by talking to the dog.

Use Case: A particular circumstance or situation in which the solution would be used. For example, When designing a system, the engineer will refer to all the Use Cases that have been documented to determine if his solution will be effective in each situation.

White paper: An authoritative report or guide published to share technical or business information, particularly related to solving common problems. Writing white papers is a great way for consultants to get exposure in their industry and develop a reputation for expertise.

Wireframe: Simple pictures that show a proposed user interface, often used by business analysts to communicate expectations to users and developers.

Christine Lambden and Casey Conner teach consulting and interviewing skills workshops and seminars around the world.  After a combined total of more than 30 years in the consulting industry, they now bring their accumulated wisdom to business professionals in various industries. For complete bios, please visit www.ConsultantingStance.com/about.htm

Everyday Practices of Extraordinary Consultants can be purchased at www.ConsultingStance.com, www.amazon.com and other major online outlets.