Am I missing a term? Please feel feel to suggest additions here.
Feedback gathered from your peers which is supposed to be included in your focal review. Spending time providing constructive feedback increases the likelihood that you won't be working with idiots. [#]
Things you should write down. Failure to follow-up on action items results in an gentle eroding of your credibility. [#]
See also: Managementese
Your best friend as a manager. Admins are heavily tapped into corporate machinations and are often able to work miracles when it comes to getting stuff done. Usually tapped into the grapevine. [#]
The things which must occur for any given meeting to complete. If all participants in said meeting are not aware of the Agenda, time will be wasted. [#]
See also: Agenda Detection
A company-wide meeting usually MC'd by the CEO. Managers 'in the know' should not be surprised by anything announced at an All Hands. [#]
A milestone in the development process. Alpha used to describe an early testing stage of software. No one really uses this much anymore. [#]
A Cupertino-based software and hardware company. Notable accomplishments include the Apple ][, the Mac, the Powerbook, and the iPod. Steve Jobs works here. [#]
An engineer who knows what he/she is doing. If an architect says something which appears insane, it's worth firing off a couple follow-up questions as they are often smarter than you. [#]
See also: Incrementalists & Completionists
Legal definition which states both employer and employee at employed 'at will' which means they can fire/quit whenever they please... you don't even have to give a reason. [#]
QA buzzword to describe testing which can be programmatically done. Always pitched as a time saver... usually a time sink. [#]
A pre-hire check employers use to determine whether or not you are a serial murderer. [#]
A milestone in the development process. These days Beta describes a state where the software is generally usable by customers who don't mind things not working quite right. [#]
See also: Beta is Dead, We're Doomed
The CEO's boss. They can fire the CEO. They tend to set broad corporate policy and have amazing powers of invisibility. [#]
Unexpected cash. If you're not seeing these, at least, every year or so, you're doing something wrong. Your boss should be able to explain what you need to fix. [#]
Scotts Valley-based company initial famous for Turbo Pascal. Took it on the chin from Microsoft in early 90s trying to compete in the Office market. Moved back to developer tools and appears to be doing well. Borland's campus is among the best in the Silicon Valley. [#]
Coding errors by engineers often found by QA. A source of significant tension late in a product cycle. [#]
See also: Heinous, Definition of a Bad Bug, Healthy Tension
An internal version of a product used for testing. [#]
A job applicant who has made it into the building. [#]
CEO ("Chief Executive Officer")
The guy/gal in the big office. This is a tough gig. CEOs are usually busier than you can imagine. [#]
CFO ("Chief Financial Officer")
The guy/gal who tells you how many PCs or Macs you can buy. [#]
An employee who has already quit inside their head. Whether or not you want this personal to actually resign, you should be aware that someone who is checked out brings down the entire team with their incessant uselessness. [#]
CIO ("Chief Information Officer")
The guy/gal who tells you whether you can use a Mac or a PC. [#]
A word used to convince you to work with people you'd rather avoid. [#]
Individuals who absolutely must do the right thing when it comes to designing product. What they lack in practicality, they make up for with their phenomenal ideas. [#]
See also: What To Do When You're Screwed, Incrementalists & Completionists
A sixteen billion dollar company based in New York that you don't know. Seriously, name a single product by these guys. I dare you. [#]
A temporary employee who never seems to leave. [#]
The amount others will believe or trust you. A topic which fascinates Rands to no end. Credibility is as valuable as information, but it's equally hard to measure. [#]
See also: What To Do When You're Screwed, Brains in a Bucket on Alpha Centauri, Simple Credibility Networks
The act of taking an idea generated by one team and vetting it with another. Engineers are full of pride and don't like to do this, but cross-pollination often yields improvements that the original team will never discover. [#]
A time when there are no weekends. [#]
See also: Crunch Time Cleaning
CTO ("Chief Technical Officer")
The guy/gal who tells you which is better, a Mac or a PC. [#]
A handy place to stick data if you like your data organized and structured. [#]
See also: I Miss Databases, Keeping Track of Everything
An Austin-based hardware company. These guys are really good at building massive amounts of quality product that generally lacks soul. [#]
Middle management. These are usually the last managers that are in touch with what the products actually do. [#]
A share of profits paid to shareholders. [#]
A sphere of influence ('That's marketing's domain') [#]
An essential unscheduled product milestone where the product team realizes they are way behind and choose to kick it into high gear. Originated with C-3PO in the original Star Wars. [#]
See also: We're Doomed
Used to having something to do with a mouse, now heavily overused management term used as a segue to say 'let's explore that a bit'. [#]
A process used by large companies where new hires are scared into not drinking or smoking for about 30 days. [#]
The means by which you get spam. [#]
See also: N.A.D.D. Communication Hierarchy
EPS ("Earning Per Share")
The portion of a company's profit allocated to each outstanding share of stock. Doesn't happen at most Silicon Valley companies, so don't get your hopes up. [#]
Termination of employment. Usually used in extreme circumstances ('he's stealing from us!'). Not to be used lightly and never without the heavy involvement of HR. [#]
An email you should not send until you've had a chance to calm down. [#]
A yearly meeting with your manager where your performance is evaluated. The most common mistake made regarding interviews is a lack of investment of time by the manager is actually saying something constructive. Often seen as a vehicle for justifying raises/bonuses which overshadows the opportunity to convey actual information. [#]
The most important lawyer in the company. [#]
A Mountain View based service and software company. Google currently owns the search space and everyone is wondering what they're going to do next. [#]
See also: Can Google UI?, Google/Pyra: Winners and Losers
A content-rich source of false information. [#]
GUI ("Graphical User Interface")
An aging term used to describe a user interface that doesn't suck. [#]
Bad. Really bad. Horrible sky-is-falling bad. Grossly wicked. Handy term when classifying bugs late in the product cycle. [#]
See also: Heinous
HI ("Human Interface")
User interface at Apple Computer [#]
A management style where vision/influence is across the company. Traditionally middle-management. [#]
See also: Inwards, Outwards, and Holistics
A piece of technology which totally blows your mind and/or changes your life. [#]
See also: Messy Thinking, THE DARK UNDERBELLY OF HOLY SHIT, YOUR HOLY SHIT LIST
HR ("Human Resources")
Happy people who help you do very unhappy things. [#]
A extinct start-up no one has heard of. [#]
Individuals who know that better is the enemy of done. Incrementalists get stuff done at the cost of quality and completeness. [#]
See also: Incrementalists & Completionists
HR term which describes a single employee who has no direct reports. [#]
The replacement for email. [#]
See also: N.A.D.D. Communication Hierarchy
The hard part of user interface design. Interaction designers are responsible for how a user is going to interact with an application with the least amount of frustration. Interaction designers know what the word "work flow" means. [#]
A temporary hire, usually from college, who smiles too much. [#]
The day you wear a tie. Interviews are a pitch where you, the hopeful candidate, pitch yourself to a group of folks who have thirty minutes to figure out if they want to spend five years listening to your dumb jokes. [#]
A manager type whose vision is tightly focused on their team, doesn't much care for external events. [#]
See also: Inwards, Outwards, and Holistics
IT ("Information Technology")
The most generic term in the world which describes the folks responsible for that computer on your desk. [#]
A brief written description of the responsibilities required for a job. [#]
A horrible process whereby employees are terminated because the company either needs to save cash or is otherwise preoccupied with something else. [#]
See also: YOUR RESIGNATION/LAYOFF CHECKLIST
A word often used in close proximity to synergy. [#]
See also: Managementese
Unix with an L. [#]
Old version of the Macintosh operating system not based on Unix. [#]
New version of the Macintosh operating system which is based on Unix. [#]
See also: Do You Miss Your PC?, TWO WEEKS OF OS X
The guy or gal who signs your review. [#]
Orders handed down from senior management. Mandates have one of two motivations: they are either used as excuses to dodge explaining rationale (bad) or they are put forth to get people to stop arguing and start moving forward (good). [#]
Simple math. If a company has 1 million shares and those shares are selling for $10, the market cap $10 million. Often used as a rough means of comparing companies or gauging corporate health ('Company X market cap is 40x revenue!') [#]
The folks who gloss over what your product actually does. Essential as most engineers are unable to successfully communicate with actual customers. [#]
Traditionally, a group of individuals getting together to solve a common problem. Your performance in meetings will define your credibility in a company. [#]
See also: Agenda Detection
A Redmond-based software company with a knack for world software domination [#]
Poorly defined, heavily over-communicated dates within the software development cycle where the software development team reflects on how Screwed they are. [#]
See also: What To Do When You're Screwed
MRD ("Marketing Requirements Document")
A mythical document said to contain 'customer requirements' [#]
The ability to do many things at once. Has heavy interaction with N.A.D.D. [#]
N.A.D.D. ("Nerd Attention Deficiency Order")
A voracious appetite for consuming information at an impossible rate. Rands gets a quarter every time someone says this. [#]
See also: N.A.D.D., Messy Thinking, In Defense of N.A.D.D., N.A.D.D. Communication Hierarchy, Show off your N.A.D.D. / Win a Prize
A Mountain-View based software company. Notable accomplishments include the Netscape browser. Pioneered the art of giving software away for free, but still making money. One in a long line of companies that also excelled at getting the snot kicked out of it by Microsoft. Not really a going concern these days, but they still have a website. [#]
NIH ("Not Invented Here")
Term to describe behavior where an engineering team will not consider working with anyone's code except their own. It's not that the external code is good or bad, it's just foreign which means it must be reviewed, reformatted... oh, what the hell. LET'S REWRITE THE WHOLE DAMNED THING. Billions of dollars have been lost to NIH. I mean it. Billions. [#]
Off Shoring ("Out Sourcing")
Your job being shipped overseas. This is supposed to be 'good for our nation' because being unemployed is a 'huge motivator'. [#]
See also: Offshore Risk Factor
A real document handed to a potential new employee which describes the terms of their employment. It's important to realize that once a candidate has signed their offer letter, your job as a hiring manager is not done. They are not an employee until their butt is in their seat. [#]
The square box where you live. Some models come with windows. [#]
The people who surround the CEO to make sure he/she shows up at meetings on time. [#]
A visual representation of who reports to whom. Handy in larger organizations for figuring out who you're actually dealing with. [#]
A management style where vision/influence is outside of the company. Traditionally senior management like CEOs. [#]
See also: Inwards, Outwards, and Holistics
P/E ("Price Earning Ratio")
Determines how much money an investor pays for $1 of a company's earnings. If a company is reporting a profit of $2 per share, and the stock is sell for $20 per share, the P/E is 10 -- the investor would pay ten-times earnings. [#]
A surprisingly upbeat term which describes a depressing process. Performance plans are written instructions of what an employee needs to do in order to not be fired. Don't even think about doing this without serious HR involvement. [#]
A seven letter word that begins with P. Process is not all bad news especially for large companies where immense groups of people waste a lot of time doing the same thing. [#]
Ideally, the true owner of a software/hardware product. Often has to deal with pesky power hungry engineers. [#]
See also: What To Do When You're Screwed
The owner of the schedule. Pretty much useless in small companies, but essential in any large product development group. [#]
See also: What To Do When You're Screwed
QA ("Quality Assurance")
Individuals who find bugs. [#]
R&D ("Research and Development")
... or software engineering or software development... really all the same thing. Surprisingly little research is going on these days what with the incessant development. [#]
Re-Org ("Reorganization")
Process whereby employees are shuffled about to accommodate new corporate goals. [#]
See also: Reorgs for the Average Joe
A recruiter's job is to help you source candidates for your req. Recruiters often come off as slimy, but they've got a tough gig balancing good people skills with actually having meaningful conversations with engineers. When you find a good recruiter, stick with them. [#]
Process of calling candidate supplied references. References are biased as they are supplied by the candidate so they are suspect as sources of truth. If you've got any concerns about your new hire, I also recommend digging up back door references or actually grilling references with real, honest questions. [#]
Group or individual response for building/compiling the product. Release folks live in a confusing limbo where they aren't quite QA, but also aren't quite software engineering. [#]
Req ("Requisition")
A virtual document which gives you permission to hire a new employee. Rock on! Acquisition of reqs can be tricky and, once acquired, they are apt to vanish without warning. Use it or lose it. Important fact: From the moment a req is approved, the average number of days to get a butt in a seat is 90 days. Honest. [#]
Quitting your job. Resigning sounds more professional, but it's the same thing. You can do this whenever you like. [#]
See also: YOUR RESIGNATION/LAYOFF CHECKLIST
The folks who sell your product. Not a good source of product requirements as they are biased by the mighty dollar. Often a good source of discontent, though. [#]
A professional inflection point where your chosen course of action will allow you to sink or swim. [#]
See also: What To Do When You're Screwed
An employee who resigned, but still works for the company. Short timer's productivity decreases as a function of the proximity to their last day. [#]
See also: YOUR RESIGNATION/LAYOFF CHECKLIST
A kinder, gentler word for saying that the product is not on schedule. ('We've got a 3 week slip') Frequent slips are often bad career moves, but slips for the right reasons are a good thing. [#]
See also: What To Do When You're Screwed
Software Development Lifecycle
The time between someone has a clever idea and when that idea is beaten to death and/or is no longer making money. [#]
A document which tells you how it is. The process of writing a specification tends to be more useful than someone reading it. [#]
A poor man's database. [#]
A weekly meeting with all your direct reports. Failure to do run this type of meeting on a regular basis will result in breakdown in communication and much wasting of time. [#]
The weekly ritual where you justify your existence to managers. Often a sign of corporate bloatification. [#]
See also: Status Reports 2.0, Status Reports, A Retraction
A piece of paper that you'll never see which says you own part of a company. Stocks are easy, you own stock. Stock options are more confusing. [#]
A piece of paper that you'll never see that says you can buy stock at a certain price. Options often confuse folks, so I'll explain. You are granted an option of 100 shares of your companies stock at $100. Congrats. When you sell your option, you will only receive the delta between your option price and the current price. So, if you sell all your hypothetical options at $110, you are only going to receive $10 per share or $1000 (minus taxes). People are getting tense about options these days. [#]
A Cupertino-based software development company that is very good at reinventing itself every 10 years or so. [#]
A word often used in close proximity to leverage. [#]
See also: Managementese
The person you yell at on the phone when something goes wrong with your computer. You really should be yelling at the engineer that designed the thing, but they never answer the phone. [#]
A co-worker who likely will not be sitting in that chair tomorrow. [#]
The politically correct way of saying 'You're Fired'. [#]
The sum of everything you are paid by a company. This includes salary, bonus, and benefits. Total compensation is the dollar amount you should use when comparing multiple job offers. [#]
UI ("User Interface")
The sum total of every decision made regarding how a program looks to a user. [#]
An interactive time-sharing operating system invented in 1969 so that some guy could play games. [#]
A database which keeps track of multiple version of any given file. An essential tool for development in groups of engineers. [#]
See also: What To Do When You're Screwed
VP ("Vice President")
Usually a direct report of the CEO. [#]
Weblog ("Blog")
A representation of a person on the Internet. [#]
See also: Why You Should Weblog, The Holy Duh of Weblogging
The #1 desktop operating system on the Planet Earth. [#]
The manner in which a person uses an application. Designing an application with a particular user's workflow in mind can improve usability. [#]
A magical place where you hit max productivity. Very hard to achieve and even harder to maintain. [#]
If you've got a term you'd like to see in the Rands Management Glossary, submit it here. If you want credit, submit an name or email address... or don't.
