Brentwood International

Workplace Phrases You Probably Don't Know ... But Should Due to the nature of a lot of people's work, technical language and terminology is often necessary, but buzzwords can 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.

Boil the ocean
Definition: The 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
Definition: 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  he means, "He has been thoroughly trained in the program and we have his unconditional support," or "He is on board with our strategy."

Use case
Definition: 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 would be effective in each situation.

Talking to the dog
Definition: 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.

more phrases...