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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Lifestyle
Tim Dowling

Workshop this: touch base with Tim Dowling's office buzzword quiz

Five businesspeople at boardroom table
Photograph: Alamy



Say what? Know your buzzwords

Abigail Radnor translates the lingo

Reach out To contact someone

Touch base To contact someone

Route to Talk to

Workshop this Talk about this

Bubble it up Pass on to someone more senior

Cascade Pass on to someone more junior

Take this offline Discuss outside the meeting

Circle back Discuss later

Connecting the dots Understanding something

Get your legs under yourself Know what you’re talking about

Ducks in a row Organise information

Deliverables Results

Content-rich Contains information

Bottom out To reach the lowest point

Helicopter view An overview

Quarterback To be in charge

The net net The final decision

Scalable It can be made bigger

To integrate across verticals Talk to people in other departments

Tissue session Discussing the details

Digging into the weeds Discussing the details

Drill down/deep dive To explore an idea in close detail

Dial it up/down Do more/do less

A hard stop A definitive end to a meeting

Bandwidth Your ability to work (eg “I don’t have the bandwidth for this right now”)

Ceremony/huddle/retrospective/scrum A meeting

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