Workplace Lingo to know
-- Lamben and Conner

Consultants Christine Lamben and Casey Conner, authors of Everyday Practices of Extraordinary Consultants, passed along workplace phrases now making the rounds.

Boil the Ocean: the scope is too big to do in one project, overly ambitious

Drink the Kool-Aid: to buy into the company line without question

Going Native: what happens when a consultant stops acting like a consultant and starts thinking they are part of the client organization

Greenfield Instance: clean, new installation of an application without customizations, configurations or data

Holistic: a big picture or solution that includes upstream and downstream impacts

Paradigm: the perspective or view that you have of a situation

Running in Parallel: processing normal operating data through two systems simultaneously to compare performance and output

Straw Man: first draft of a solution or proposal intended to provoke discussion; it is intended to be ‘knocked down” by something more substantial

Talking to the Dog: thinking through a problem by talking aloud

Use Case: a particular circumstance or situation in which the solution would be used

White Paper: an authoritative report or guide published to share technical or business information, particularly related to solving common problems

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

To learn more about Lamden and Conner and their workshops, go to www.consultingstance.com.