| March 2002 | This Month's Articles | Previous Months |
by "Buzzcutter Marty", Canada
The words on this list were compiled in a couple of hours by a group of employees at a Canadian financial institution. All of these terms cropped up in company memos, meetings, and e-mails; everyone voted for terms they found the most irritating and overused.
For a time, the list was used to play a game called “Buzzword Bingo.” At meetings, everyone brought their list, listening intently for buzzwords. The first person to circle five words used in the meeting and to yell “bingo!” was the winner. Unfortunately, there was a downside to the game – senior management began feeling they were being mocked, consultants were confused by the rapt audiences they faced, and in general, the list-users began to be suspected of corporate sedition. So while the list has been retired from our organization, perhaps it can find a home in yours, ridding offices of these and other terrible terms!
| A | N |
| Action plan | Net-net (submitted by Richard McCrohan) |
| At the end of the day | Next steps |
| B | O |
| Bandwidth | Offline (as in "I'll take that question offline") |
| Bells and whistles | Off the shelf |
| Best of breed | On the ground (submitted by Tim Milne) |
| Best practice | On the same page |
| Blamestorming | Open door policy |
| Blue sky thinking | Optics |
| Out of the loop | |
| C | Outside the box |
| Caught in the eddies (submitted by Daryl Runyan) | Outsourcing |
| Challenges | Ownership |
| Champion | |
| Change management | P |
| COB (Close of Business) | Parachute in (putting people into a place or position where they can do the job immediately. Similar to ‘on your feet running’) (submitted by Robert Walker) |
| Competencies | Paradigms (especially if "shifting") |
| Customer-centric (submitted by Michael Heikkilae) | Parking lot issues (see also "Job jar") |
| Pass the baton (submitted by Chdwick) | |
| D | Path forward (submitted by Ric Jones) |
| Deal that up (submitted by Chdwick) | Performance measurement |
| Deliverables | Ping (used by the technologically ignorant as a reference to getting in contact. For example, "I will ping you later today"), (submitted by Ric Jones) |
| Downsizing | Platform |
| Drill down (or "Drilling down") | Post mortem (submitted by Chdwick) |
| Proactive | |
| E | Processes (particularly combined with "retooling") |
| Empowering | |
| Empowerment | Pushing the envelope |
| Engaged | Pull the trigger (submitted by Daryl Runyan) |
| Environment, Environmental (unless referring to Greenpeace) | Putting out fires (submitted by Daryl Runyan) |
| Execute (submitted by Daryl Runyan) | |
| R | |
| F | Radar
screen (as in “not showing up on”) |
| Face time | Red herring (submitted by Chdwick) |
| Facilitate | Report card (unless it is from your kid’s school) |
| Focused as a suffix (i.e. client-focused, results-focused) | Repurposing |
| Resources (unless referring to minerals) | |
| G | Resourcing |
| Goal-oriented | Right-sizing |
| Going forward | Rubber hits the road |
| Golden thread of connectivity (submitted by Mark Danson) | |
| S | |
| H | Seamless |
| Heads up | Sense check (submitted by Herman Wong) |
| Helicopter view (as in "Climb to 10,000 feet and take a helicopter view") (submitted by James Childs) | Skill sets |
| High-level | Skills transfer |
| Socialize the issue (submitted by Chdwick) | |
| I | Solutions |
| Impact (as a verb) | Songsheet (i.e., singing from the same) |
| Initiatives | Strategies |
| Integrate | Synergistic |
| In the run up to (submitted by Tim Milne) | |
| Investing in (unless referring to bonds, stocks) | T |
| Investigatory | Tasking (also “tasked”) |
| Issues | Temperature gauge |
| Ten-thousand foot view | |
| J | Thought showers - instead of 'brainstorming' (submitted by Robert Walker) |
| Job jar (also see "Parking Lot Issues") | Throw it against the wall and see if it sticks (submitted by Marc Bice) |
| Tools (unless talking about hammers or screwdrivers) | |
| K | Top of mind |
| Touch base (submitted by Herman Wong) | |
| Knowledge Transfer (submitted by Robert Gullick) | Transitioning, Transition (as verb) |
| Transparent, Transparency (unless talking about glass) | |
| L | |
| Lessons Learned | V |
| Leveraging, e.g. "Clients achieve a definitive cost savings by leveraging XYZ's talent, infrastructure and applications." (submitted by Paul Bullen) | Value-added |
| Vision | |
| M | |
| Mapping (unless discussing cartography) | W |
| Metrics | Warm and fuzzies (submitted by Chdwick) |
| Mission | Win-Win-Win |
| Mission-critical | Wish list (submitted by Reed McFarland) |
| Moving forward | World-class - "Every project our city votes on is going to be world-class and make Kansas City a world-class city." (submitted by C. Michael Barsotti) |
| Moving the goal posts | |
| Multi-tasking | |
See how to use many of these buzz words by reading a
letter from a boss to her
team.
©Buzzcutter Marty
& Karen's Linguistics Issues 2002-2007. All rights reserved.