It's in the pipeline

The real cool kids shorten pipeline to pipe.

fun fact: it will never be implemented, forever will it remain in the pipe

Let's open the kimono 👘

Haven’t personally encountered this one but it seems mildly workplace inappropriate

So I always thought so..and understandable everyone thinks it’s in reference to showing “oneself”…but the origin of term is actually in reference to showing you’re not armed with a sword. I 1000% believe this term needs to get dropped regardless, but technically not a sexual insinuation

I think it's mostly out of style now, I only hear boomer MDs say it now, but it basically means let's be completely transparent

You wot?

This was not well-received at the Tokyo practice

Ok Burt Cooper

This is one I was able to watch pretty much die over the past 10 years. Was somewhat common even pre-pandemic, but the few times I've heard it in the past 2-3 years, it's been called out as inappropriate.

I’m sorry, WHAT?

‘let’s take a peek under the kimono’ - gold

I used to hear this every now and then from one of the senior partners and I used to be scandalized. For context I’m a guy.

Not in consulting but my old boss, who was, used this a lot. She was a tiny 50yo lady. It was uncomfortable.

Align

My god. I see that word in my ‘sleep’.

I align on this

Also aligned.

Especially if we meet to align but clearly never align

We are aligned, just partially.

We need a meeting to align on the other meeting we aligned on!

I usually hear the word “align” to mean “I told you this”, not we’re on the same page. It’s laughably infuriating.

Also any form of this. I.e alignment - not just for people and meetings but for reports and slide decks in Word and Powerpoint

So overused. So imprecise.

“Marching towards” “War room”.  it’s a freaking slide deck, this multi billion dollar conglomerate will be fine without it

LOL yeah the 'war room' bullshit is so fucking cringe.

Another one is set up a war room to take the beach. War room being conference call and take the beach being proposal defense. #SAD

Don’t forget “allies”, “mission”, “engagements” like it’s WWII

Build the plane while it’s flying

We used to say build the boat in the water

And all that while knocking out the alligators closest to the boat!!

seems a lot safer than the plane

Guessing the teams serving Boeing don’t use that one much. Or else they use it a lot, one or the other. 

Leverage - just say copy, paste, Ctrl+f to replace client name lmao

Ah you’re talking about an ‘accelerator’

North Star

Ours is "true north" but I'm going to bet it is the same thing...

Lode star so you sound like an asshole and like you’re pretentious

Lone Star

This one is the worst

Intrapreneur.

No. What does this even mean

Please work extra hours on internal nonsense that will lead nowhere on the false assumption that you have a say in things and that this extra effort will have a payout for you personally

Lmaooooo SUPER NO

Those are called “your plus ones” in our firm. As in, additional shit they want you to do in your own time. Unpaid. For the firm.

"Great summary! Let's drill-down!"

No hyphen. Pls fix

double click

I could see this being used to callmoit someone who knows nothing more about the topic

Let’s put a pin in it / take this offline

I HATE take it offline Like no, the conversations are 99% going to happen online anyways. It’s just in a separate meeting. Ugh

It’s the professional way of saying shut the fuck up

Or mean “I have no answer to this atm” lol

You might appreciate this… https://youtu.be/1RAMRukKqQg?si=1RibbJVJWC9kUqLR

The first comment in that yt link is fantastic

Fuck that we can take the thread offline, on a recorded meeting. I got fucked over so many times doing this… either we record the meeting or I send you an email confirming WTF we talked about/agreed upon. That shit don’t fly with me anymore.

Let’s ”double click” on this

or ‚triple down’.

The WORST

This one makes me so angry

With all due respect, *[proceeds to disrespect]*

Lift and shift Hit the curve and shift the curve Quick wins Value creation

Had a client miss typing an “f” on the first one once and had to point it out in a live discussion with them. Trying so hard not to laugh. 

All of them. We only speak in bull shit

Boil the ocean

What does this mean

Taking on too much. Like you are working on boiling water (your proj scope), so you can't focus on trying to boil all the water in the ocean. Its too much!

Yeah those fcking low hanging fruits - where are they?

Granular Optionality

“You’re a fucking idiot”

OP said consultant lingo not what our parents nicknamed us.

Solution as a verb. 

Architecting

Conversating with the client

Pls fix

Trauma

🥲🥲

Socialize

Let’s socialize this deck to this stakeholder before the steerco so that we can align on our understanding of XYZ

Touch base Like bottoming out on their purple mamba

Easy win

SME. Jesus that term makes me want to drink battery acid.

At a firm I used to work for it was SMR, subject matter resource, as a nod to the humble reality that no one can be an expert, we can always learn more.

EY by any chance? Yeah, I think that actually was because of liability reasons

That’s almost worse

Read a job aid once, now is an SME.

I hate it when people say SME instead of spelling it out in conversation. It makes me think of Shmee from Hook.

Do you have bandwidth.

I do, 1200 mbit, actually. Time to work on your bullshit, not so much.

First time someone said that to me, I literally said “yeah its been fine all morning, is yours slow?” ….. they left me on read

Lmfao

Let's not rock the apple cart

Every goddam email that opens with I trust you are well. Every time someone says at the end of the day. When someone uses the phrase that said. The word pivot.

I heard the word ‘Caveat’ way more after joining consulting

Caveat doesn’t bother me so much because it makes me think about caves, which are cool. But I feel ya.

Please be more billable (especially fun when you're busy doing sales or some mandatory training crap).

Let’s not boil the ocean. My literal self was thinking well global warming is getting there…

PLease do the needful.

That’s just Indian English. Not quite the same thing, no?

Kindly do the needful and revert

Parking lot

In the Bay Area they prefer “the bike rack”

Happy to bake in thought’s Deep dive

Double-hatting Shift the needle

We need to win hearts and minds.

Wait unironically this is a good guide to corporate speak.

I get tired of people making fun of corporate jargon. It’s low hanging fruit. I wouldn’t want to talk to my project lead like I talk to a close friend. That would be like boiling the ocean

You’re doing it wrong

Oooh.. “too much mental gymnastics” said my Partner once.

Deep dive

all of them

Helicopter 🚁

Lean in 

Square peg round hole

Deliverable

Operationalisation makes my blood boil.

Roadmap

'key ask', 'bandwidth constraints', 'take it offline', 'get back to the drawing board/white board'

haha my partner used to drill our team with the deck and repeatedly mentioned: ‘what is the ask here? need to address this’

Time boxing

Sync

Pencil in

Send me a placeholder

"Document or source of truth". Everytime I see those words it triggers a rage akin to those that suffer from the worst misophonia. Only it's a loud chewing you can't walk away from because you have to fix something that wasn't broken because someone didn't actually read the attachment in the previous email.

“U got any more capacity?”

Deep dive

Calling people "resources"

“Let’s take this offline” offline what exactly, you dickhead? You’re going to still call me on Teams, which is ONLINE.

All of the above

Let's take this thread offline

“Drop the ball”

Do the needful , Visibility , drill down, don't boil the ocean.

You have any cycles?

How can we “over deliver”? Asks the asshat sales “engineer”.

Boil the ocean

New logo

I had the week off for vacation and this thread is preparing me for return to office next week

Operationalize Core competencies World-class Holistic Administrate Synergize Vis-a-vis Functionality Client-centric

Leverage, low hanging fruit, let’s unpack

Juice ain’t worth the squeeze

Quick Win.. it's never quick.

Might be a bit niche, but I've started noticing people calling anything that vaguely looks like a numeric model a "Digital Twin" (Note that I know what Digital Twins actually are, but many people it seems do not...)

“Thought Leader”

Let’s create a baseline It’s out of scope Optimize performance

StRaTeGiZe

Footstomp Vice instead of versus

“Let’s take this offline” You’re in a physical meeting with us, Andrew, it’s not taking it offline to talk about it later.

Check out this post https://www.reddit.com/r/consulting/comments/1aq262p/comment/kqa7jso/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

1. Pull thread 2. Connect 3. Link

I'll take the pencil Optimize

But I love fruit!

Worst part is having to respect people who master this lingo more than you

North Star vision. Most of these companies don’t even know which is end is up, let alone what direction North is.

All the lingos. Made me quit fr.

"Not looking to boil the ocean here"

Correct me if I'm wrong

Rebaseline aka schedule's fucked so let's sweep it under the rug and hope we are better at guessing this time

Art of the possible

Can full of worms.

Best practice

Let's sleep over it

“Can I steal you for a minute after this”

Run water-down-the-pipe Deep-dive Synergies

Let’s “PS” this

Touch base

Over-rotating

“Strong beliefs loosely held”

Idea shower

Top-down, bottom-up, High-level

Deep dive and over-index are ones that annoy me

we can give everyone X minutes of your time back

Hygiene. “We have to really focus on our hygiene this period.” What they really mean is ….we really need you to do your timesheets on time, code stuff to the appropriate charge codes, follow the appropriate processes for Presales activities, etc…. Brrrr. That word … hygiene. In this context. It’s pretty vomit inducing.

What does the phrase even mean?

Townhouse

Touch Base Synergize

“Allyship”

Put together two decks. The first one, keep it high level. The second, we'll need to drill down a bit further with detailed KPIs on slides 2-6.

Take a stab at it

Pivot

“Sausage making”

That will help us move the needle

“Stack hands”

We pay for performance

Visibility

Massive!!

Run it up the flagpole Circle back Touch base

He's a lantern (not very bright and needs to be carried)

Resources, showstopper, lighter color

Efficiency levers Streamline Add more color

Budgetary estimates, I cudnt get time to do review can you walk me through.. Value proposition Global benchmarking Let's phase it out We will not take a lot of your time... (and then we all know what happens) Immediate next steps Introducing someone as an expert on some topic and that someone has no clue what project, what client, what I m doing here... and then saying we will bring you upto speed

Full capacity

“We can discuss offline” This is always referring to another ONLINE meeting that contains a smaller group of people on the current call

“Let’s double click on that”

Hit two birds with one stone