project management lingo

I lurk on this great email list of project managers called PMClinic; it’s full of smart people who share war stories of (mostly software development) projects. It’s hosted by Scott Berkun (yes, him again) and each week one of the list members posts a challenging project scenario and the non-lurkers chime in with ideas and suggestions.

This week’s starter topic was a bit different though. The subject line was “Is there Project Management Lingo?” and there are about 60 some-odd responses, with people defining the terms they’ve come across; everything from “86’d” to “Whack-a-mole.” I took a few minutes to catalog all the terms (without definitions; I’m not a masochist); here they are[1], in alphabetical order.

• 86’d
• Action required
• All up
• Analysis paralysis
• Arrivadodging
• Baseline
• Bear race
• Blocker
• Boiling the ocean
• Cleaner
• Clue bat
• Clue bus
• Clue by 4
• Coconut shuffle
• Come to Beavis meeting
• Come to Jesus meeting
• Conceptual integrity
• Consistify
• Constant time to completion mode
• Crunch mode
• Dead in the water
• Death march
• Drive
• Eat your own dog food
• Eating the elephant one bite at a time
• Eight days a week
• Engage
• Engagement model
• Enterprise phase
• Fitting ten pounds of crap into a five pound sack
• Gantt flotsam
• Gelled team
• Greenshifting
• Happy status
• Herding cats
• Heroics
• Hit with the scope bat
• I’m going to have to push back on that
• In the weeds
• Keeping you up at night
• Looped in
• Lugubrious
• Mitchy2008
• Mocks
• Nine women can’t have a baby in one month
• Open kimono
• Overcome by events
• Permalancing
• Permanent prototype
• Programmatics
• RACI
• Rat hole
• Ready fire aim
• Red hat period
• Redshirt
• Run up that hill
• Schedule chicken
• Scope
• Scope creep
• Scrub
• Second system effect
• Setup for failure
• Setup for success
• Shovel ready
• Showstopper
• Sign up
• Silver bullet
• Slip
• TEM
• TPS Report
• Then a miracle occurs
• Ticket on the clue train
• Tiger team
• To the right
• Triple D (dollars, date, deliverables)
• Upside risk
• Whack-a-mole

My personal favorites are three of the ones I’d never heard before; compound words that even if they didn’t mean a thing just sound great: consistify, arrivadodging and permalancing.

[1] Note that a few of the items in this list actually came from the comments in Scott Berkun’s similar blog post about the PMClinic thread. Of course, this is not meant to be a full list of every single bit of project management lingo ever uttered by any project manager anywhere. Have one that’s not here? Leave it in the comments.

Comments

[Edward Vielmetti]

i've heard boil the ocean in the context:

"we're not trying to boil the ocean, just boil Lake Michigan"

for a smaller impossible project

[Xris Ernest Hall]

I'd like to know what the difference is between a "Come to Jesus meeting" and a "Come to Jesus."

"Red hat period" was another one I was unfamiliar with, but I looked it up using the google search engine so now I know.

[Michael Sippey]

Oh, I like that; I hadn't heard that one before! Of course, it's regionally appropriate for you. I wonder if it changes in other geographies -- "We're not trying to boil the ocean, just boil the Great Salt Lake."

[Jonathan Peterson]

Can't believe that putting lipstick on a pig, or the much better, polishing a turd didn't make the list.

[Michael Sippey]

Yeah, those are good ones. Should be on there!

[variablizer]

"We have to be planful."

[Willy]

Data Bomb - Usually provided by consultants, it is a huge report filled with useless or redundant data meant to impress the unwitting client through sheer bulk. Also called 'paying by the pound' for consultants.

[Michael]

I always liked "Dog Years" and "Double Dog Years". These were tied to the .com era of fast project development when normal time seemed accelerated. Your normal time suddenly became sped up by a factor of 7ish... then when you were seriously under the gun... double it! *sigh* I almost miss those days...

[chadd]

"low hanging fruit"

[Doom]

"out of pocket"

"burn rate"

...thanks for this, my afternoon is now ruined with rage.

[Floatrapala]

"Confess your sins" Is what we use to call those type meetings or any meeting for that fact.

[Rob]

I didn't see "Parking Lot" for items that are out of scope or bogging down the discussion.

R

[Derek K. Miller]

"Trolley dash"

[Michael Sippey]

Oh, good one. I hadn't heard that before. High correlation, I assume, between the likelihood of an individual saying "planful" and that same individual saying "clueful."

[Richard Clark]

"What Would McGyver Do?"

[Michael Sippey]

See also thud weight. "Check out the thud weight on this deck. (Whack.) There are some serious billables baked into this puppy."

[Michael Sippey]

OK, new favorite. You win.

[Dave Selden]

Inspired by your list, I created a printable PDF version of a new game I call “Lingo Bingo.”

Downloadable here:

http://blogs.popart.com/dave-selden/archive/2008/12/16/lingo-bingo.aspx

I intend to do creative and developer versions sometime soon.

Keep up the great work.

Dave

[variablizer]

Or "impactful." That always makes me think of toothaches.

[Patrick]

"Impactfull"

(I always thought you had to go to a doctor for that)

[Michael Sippey]

Yeah, as variablizer said above, "it always makes me think of toothaches."

[Justin]

Here are some personal favorites: "In the pipeline," "Soup to Nuts," "Dollars to Donuts," and "Ramp up."

[Michael]

These are great! A lot of them are new to me. I guess I'm in a "death spiral" shop instead of a "death march" shop. Would be nice if these were defined and put on a lingo web site for reference!

[Patrick]

I'm pretty sure "lugubrious" predates PM lingo. Any idea if it's been given a new meaning?

[Karl Katzke]

I'd love to see someone work on definitions... I could only find about half of them.

[Jan]

"Executive Flashing 12" for those execs who make technology decisions with little-to-no knowledge ...

"Dash for Cash" when beget planning starts

"Under water" for those projects drowning in spurious requirements

[SR]

Try "sunny day scenario" for instances that one expects to go right.

[John]

I can't believe that "Touchbase", as in "We need to touchbase," isn't on the list.

"Level set"...'nuff said.

[Rebecca]

"Drain it" as in "this slide has a lot of detailed information and I'm not going to drain it." But, then I do.

[Larissa Gaston]

Before I got to the end I had already picked out the same three as my faves. Great minds!

[mtt]

there's been a rash of people in my office saying we should "re-look at that..."

you mean "review that?"

idiots...

[Sarah]

An extension on Jonathan's comment.

You can't polish a turd... Unless it's frozen.

[Tom Harle]

Where I used to work, a project needed "to be able to wash it's own face" and was often very "broad brush" in the early stages

[ark55]

is this a comment box? it's not identified as such; it's just a floating box;
while the list does serve as a list, it does nothing more; with no definitions, interpretations, references, links, whatever, it's just a lonely, redundant and largely useless list; somebody do something.
ark55

[Bill]

In virtually every meeting I've ever attended:

"At the end of the day"

was uttered at least twice. Also:

"The view from 10,000 feet"

[Kari]

Making chicken salad out of chicken (*#$^#!

[Jayse]

"do the needful"

[John S.]

My favorite: Every dog is somebody's pet.

Actualy Jose Marti said it better: "There's only one beautiful baby, and every mother knows exactly who it is."

[Trena]

YEAH! Another Scott fan. His post made me smile and I wanted to thank you for compiling the list here. I've worked a few of these into conversations this week, especially Bear Race and TSMH (then some magic happens).

[Rick Cogley]

This is great stuff. I should make a list for Japan projects. One term we used a lot is "it's going sideways" for when the westerners leave and go home, the whole project starts drifting off in an unpleasant direction.

Regards
Rick

[jon]

hey y'all these words all great and if you have definitions for them, please feel free to post them on http://www.corpspeakdictionary.com/ where i'm trying to keep a wiki of corp-speak words like these.

[RoX]

"circle the wagons"

[Online Project Management Tool]

didn't realize pm lingo was so extensive. great post

[WiredNut]

"temporal proximity"

[Dave Selden]

Hey, I just posted Lingo Bingo 2: Creative Edition. This version is an extension of the first version, but uses jargon common to the creative side of this industry:

http://blogs.popart.com/dave-selden/archive/2009/01/02/lingo-bingo-2-creative-edition.aspx

[jumptack]

Very nice...

But this was asking for a google PM Lingo Quize, cant wait to see the results.

http://www.jumptack.com-a.googlepages.com/pmlingo

[PM Hut]

Micheal,

I have published a very funny article explaining some of the Project Management terms (or lingo), you can find it here: Do you speak project?

[Kimiyo Imai]

nice post and very informative

see my online holdem poker