Let’s focus on the immediate deliverables first
January 22, 2025 12:02 AM Subscribe
These two spoke directly to my soul:
"This might be a phase two initiative"
"Let's add that to our discovery backlog"
posted by slimepuppy at 1:20 AM on January 22 [6 favorites]
"This might be a phase two initiative"
"Let's add that to our discovery backlog"
posted by slimepuppy at 1:20 AM on January 22 [6 favorites]
Ooo, I'll take "counterpoint" on this one: Among the pithy little observations I've gathered over the years, one of my favorites is "every temporary solution is permanent." This tactic is a big part of why.
These little harmless-seeming bits of verbal jiu-jitsu are regularly employed to justify cutting corners that will lead to ongoing organizational pain forever, and they work specifically because the PMs often do not appreciate the gravity of the problem the shortcut creates (and usually will not bear the consequences themselves) and the less-experienced engineers often do not recognize that this is a "no." If there's anything I do appreciate about this site, it's that the mask-off admission that this is a "no" is a refreshing bit of realpolitik. In practice it often amounts to avoiding necessary conflict by relying on calculated miscommunication to produce terrible outcomes. Imagine the same PM comes into a meeting and rather than a short and disingenuous kick-the-can phrase they say this:
"I hear your concern and I do not understand it; therefore, it is unimportant. We will never find time to do this correctly, so we will do it wrong and ship it. You will spend the rest of your time in this organization coming up with further workarounds to work around this workaround, and pulling L3 on-call duty to support the customer-facing consequences of this solution. New hires will check the commit log for this mess and think you were an idiot long after you and I are both gone. I will not directly bear any of the pain entailed by this decision, and so as far as I will ever be able to tell everything is working fine. While you're getting roped into conference calls on your weekends, I'll be thinking how smart I was to come up with this crucial two-day savings in upfront development time to meet the arbitrary deadline I set in the first place. A ticket to fix the consequences of this decision will be buried in the bottomless, haunted pit of un-triaged technical debt we misleadingly call THE BACKLOG, occasionally rising from its grave only as a receipt that at some point in the distant past I acknowledged the issue, and therefore we do not need to talk about it ever again. That is the whole extent of my concession to your perspective because it will never become any more important to me than it is at this moment."
Should we really be encouraging people to master the art of the Product Manager's that?
posted by gelfin at 1:49 AM on January 22 [94 favorites]
These little harmless-seeming bits of verbal jiu-jitsu are regularly employed to justify cutting corners that will lead to ongoing organizational pain forever, and they work specifically because the PMs often do not appreciate the gravity of the problem the shortcut creates (and usually will not bear the consequences themselves) and the less-experienced engineers often do not recognize that this is a "no." If there's anything I do appreciate about this site, it's that the mask-off admission that this is a "no" is a refreshing bit of realpolitik. In practice it often amounts to avoiding necessary conflict by relying on calculated miscommunication to produce terrible outcomes. Imagine the same PM comes into a meeting and rather than a short and disingenuous kick-the-can phrase they say this:
"I hear your concern and I do not understand it; therefore, it is unimportant. We will never find time to do this correctly, so we will do it wrong and ship it. You will spend the rest of your time in this organization coming up with further workarounds to work around this workaround, and pulling L3 on-call duty to support the customer-facing consequences of this solution. New hires will check the commit log for this mess and think you were an idiot long after you and I are both gone. I will not directly bear any of the pain entailed by this decision, and so as far as I will ever be able to tell everything is working fine. While you're getting roped into conference calls on your weekends, I'll be thinking how smart I was to come up with this crucial two-day savings in upfront development time to meet the arbitrary deadline I set in the first place. A ticket to fix the consequences of this decision will be buried in the bottomless, haunted pit of un-triaged technical debt we misleadingly call THE BACKLOG, occasionally rising from its grave only as a receipt that at some point in the distant past I acknowledged the issue, and therefore we do not need to talk about it ever again. That is the whole extent of my concession to your perspective because it will never become any more important to me than it is at this moment."
Should we really be encouraging people to master the art of the Product Manager's that?
posted by gelfin at 1:49 AM on January 22 [94 favorites]
I was brought up to believe that honesty is the best policy. I fucking hate that so much corporate culture is based around manipulation and lies. It's not a way to treat your fellow humans.
posted by Dysk at 2:33 AM on January 22 [12 favorites]
posted by Dysk at 2:33 AM on January 22 [12 favorites]
no
posted by HearHere at 3:00 AM on January 22 [4 favorites]
posted by HearHere at 3:00 AM on January 22 [4 favorites]
Discovery backlog...lol
posted by Czjewel at 3:16 AM on January 22 [6 favorites]
posted by Czjewel at 3:16 AM on January 22 [6 favorites]
I thought it was a cute and funny little slice of management-speak satire. Thanks for sharing it.
posted by Shepherd at 4:12 AM on January 22 [19 favorites]
posted by Shepherd at 4:12 AM on January 22 [19 favorites]
I've been a project/ program manager for over ten years now, mostly in semi-corporate nonprofits, and yeah, these phrases are familiar. My current boss is especially fond of jargon like this (more generally, not no-oriented like the linked site) and I've started keeping a list to see how many phrases she'll say during meetings with our consultants. She is especially fond of "building the plane while we're flying it" and "there's a piece to this in which..." Our company loves meetings that could've been emails. Anyway, this made me chuckle.
posted by wicked_sassy at 4:17 AM on January 22 [4 favorites]
posted by wicked_sassy at 4:17 AM on January 22 [4 favorites]
For those who have spent a career in tech, this needs a trigger warning. (Only a little /s.)
posted by SpecialK at 4:25 AM on January 22 [12 favorites]
posted by SpecialK at 4:25 AM on January 22 [12 favorites]
The first one it showed me was "What problem are we trying to solve?" and honestly, that one was reeeeeeally useful to me when execs would rush in and say "Competitor (x) is doing (y)! Quickly, we must also implement (y)!" Slow down, figure out what you hope to achieve by doing (y), and whether (y) is really going to do that for you... or is competitor (x) just wasting money? We might end up doing (y) anyway, but at least I got them to define some clear goals for it.
posted by evilmomlady at 4:35 AM on January 22 [17 favorites]
posted by evilmomlady at 4:35 AM on January 22 [17 favorites]
For those who have spent a career in tech, this needs a trigger warning. (Only a little /s.)
Cosigned.
posted by theBigRedKittyPurrs at 4:44 AM on January 22 [5 favorites]
Cosigned.
posted by theBigRedKittyPurrs at 4:44 AM on January 22 [5 favorites]
Honestly, I think "what problem are we trying to solve?" and "this is a solution looking for a problem" aren't doublespeak, but a serious admission that the initiative under discussion represents work that may lack any real purpose or point. It's a nice way of saying, "I know you've put a lot of work into this, but before the rest of us have to put a lot of work into it, could you explain why we'd need to? Because if you can't, it seems like a big waste of time."
posted by kittens for breakfast at 5:08 AM on January 22 [18 favorites]
posted by kittens for breakfast at 5:08 AM on January 22 [18 favorites]
A ticket to fix the consequences of this decision will be buried in the bottomless, haunted pit of un-triaged technical debt we misleadingly call THE BACKLOG, occasionally rising from its grave only as a receipt that at some point in the distant past I acknowledged the issue, and therefore we do not need to talk about it ever again.
Flagged as fantastic, and stolen for future use.
posted by mrgoat at 5:11 AM on January 22 [7 favorites]
Flagged as fantastic, and stolen for future use.
posted by mrgoat at 5:11 AM on January 22 [7 favorites]
Only thing missing is a BINGO card generator
posted by JoeXIII007 at 5:27 AM on January 22 [5 favorites]
posted by JoeXIII007 at 5:27 AM on January 22 [5 favorites]
I believe this is supposed to be satire, poking fun at the doublespeak managers use. But it can be useful to have a gentle way to redirect folks who want to spend an hour debating the merits of using Helvetica vs Arial for an internal facing dashboard that only 3 people will ever look at.
posted by mrgoldenbrown at 5:30 AM on January 22 [19 favorites]
posted by mrgoldenbrown at 5:30 AM on January 22 [19 favorites]
Since this meeting ran short, I'm going to let you all buy back the remaining twenty minutes.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:38 AM on January 22 [15 favorites]
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:38 AM on January 22 [15 favorites]
For those who have spent a career in tech, this needs a trigger warning. (Only a little /s.)
I hear most of these phrases on a semi-weekly basis; I have probably been guilty of using some of them.
posted by exolstice at 5:39 AM on January 22 [2 favorites]
I hear most of these phrases on a semi-weekly basis; I have probably been guilty of using some of them.
posted by exolstice at 5:39 AM on January 22 [2 favorites]
It's interesting that even as a non-product manager, I see this more in the light of a good way to deal with requests from users and stakeholders that are perhaps ill-informed and ill-thought out. Not every request for a feature makes any sense at all, and poking fun at how many ways one can say no is entertaining.
posted by vernondalhart at 5:46 AM on January 22 [13 favorites]
posted by vernondalhart at 5:46 AM on January 22 [13 favorites]
Counter-counterpoint: a lot of engineers have trouble seeing the project outside of the part they're working on, and don't like to hear "no", especially in a forum with their peers.
I'm not a manager, but I'll be saving these for the next time I have too much szechuan. "I'll be circling around to that later." "Welp, that's going on my discovery backlog."
posted by phooky at 6:44 AM on January 22 [6 favorites]
I'm not a manager, but I'll be saving these for the next time I have too much szechuan. "I'll be circling around to that later." "Welp, that's going on my discovery backlog."
posted by phooky at 6:44 AM on January 22 [6 favorites]
I get "Secure connection failed" when I try to load the site. I guess that's a pretty definite "no." Maybe I should try that as an answer next time someone asks me something.
posted by It is regrettable that at 6:55 AM on January 22 [6 favorites]
posted by It is regrettable that at 6:55 AM on January 22 [6 favorites]
Sent this to a Product Manager friend at work via Slack and the preview art was AI slop. Ugh.
posted by snwod at 6:56 AM on January 22 [1 favorite]
posted by snwod at 6:56 AM on January 22 [1 favorite]
You're not kidding, this preview image is terrible.
posted by kpmcguire at 7:08 AM on January 22 [7 favorites]
posted by kpmcguire at 7:08 AM on January 22 [7 favorites]
I've definitely used some of these without shame in volunteer groups. We have limited time, pre-agreed goals for that chunk of time, and huge dreams. Gotta actually complete (or something like it) things occasionally before chasing the next big dream!
Of course you also gotta have time to dream together. What's the point, otherwise?
posted by VelveteenBabbitt at 7:15 AM on January 22 [3 favorites]
Of course you also gotta have time to dream together. What's the point, otherwise?
posted by VelveteenBabbitt at 7:15 AM on January 22 [3 favorites]
const sampleData = [
{ "text": "Let's add that to our discovery backlog" },
{ "text": "What problem are we trying to solve?" },
{ "text": "That's an interesting perspective for our long-term roadmap" },
{ "text": "Let’s park that idea for now" },
{ "text": "That’s worth considering once we have more resources" },
{ "text": "We should validate that with users first" },
{ "text": "Can we revisit this after the next sprint?" },
{ "text": "It’s a great thought, but let’s prioritize our current goals" },
{ "text": "I’d like to hear more thoughts on this from the team" },
{ "text": "Let’s circle back after we’ve tackled the core priorities" },
{ "text": "We need to ensure alignment before moving forward" },
{ "text": "That might be more relevant in the next planning cycle" },
{ "text": "We should let this marinate a bit longer" },
{ "text": "Let’s pencil it in for further discussion later" },
{ "text": "Let’s table this for now" },
{ "text": "That’s a good thought, but let’s revisit it later" },
{ "text": "Let’s keep this in mind for future consideration" },
{ "text": "We’ll need to assess this in the context of our current objectives" },
{ "text": "Let’s put this on the back burner for now" },
{ "text": "Interesting idea, let's explore that next quarter" },
{ "text": "We should prioritize getting feedback from stakeholders first" },
{ "text": "This might be a phase two initiative" },
{ "text": "That could fit in a future roadmap iteration" },
{ "text": "We’ll need to revisit this once we’ve hit our milestones" },
{ "text": "Let’s gather more data before moving forward" },
{ "text": "I think this could be valuable down the line, let’s revisit then" },
{ "text": "Let’s schedule a follow-up on this when the time is right" },
{ "text": "This could be part of a larger initiative, but let’s hold off for now" },
{ "text": "Let’s focus on the immediate deliverables first" },
{ "text": "We’ll circle back once we have more clarity" }
]
posted by Reverend John at 7:27 AM on January 22 [11 favorites]
{ "text": "Let's add that to our discovery backlog" },
{ "text": "What problem are we trying to solve?" },
{ "text": "That's an interesting perspective for our long-term roadmap" },
{ "text": "Let’s park that idea for now" },
{ "text": "That’s worth considering once we have more resources" },
{ "text": "We should validate that with users first" },
{ "text": "Can we revisit this after the next sprint?" },
{ "text": "It’s a great thought, but let’s prioritize our current goals" },
{ "text": "I’d like to hear more thoughts on this from the team" },
{ "text": "Let’s circle back after we’ve tackled the core priorities" },
{ "text": "We need to ensure alignment before moving forward" },
{ "text": "That might be more relevant in the next planning cycle" },
{ "text": "We should let this marinate a bit longer" },
{ "text": "Let’s pencil it in for further discussion later" },
{ "text": "Let’s table this for now" },
{ "text": "That’s a good thought, but let’s revisit it later" },
{ "text": "Let’s keep this in mind for future consideration" },
{ "text": "We’ll need to assess this in the context of our current objectives" },
{ "text": "Let’s put this on the back burner for now" },
{ "text": "Interesting idea, let's explore that next quarter" },
{ "text": "We should prioritize getting feedback from stakeholders first" },
{ "text": "This might be a phase two initiative" },
{ "text": "That could fit in a future roadmap iteration" },
{ "text": "We’ll need to revisit this once we’ve hit our milestones" },
{ "text": "Let’s gather more data before moving forward" },
{ "text": "I think this could be valuable down the line, let’s revisit then" },
{ "text": "Let’s schedule a follow-up on this when the time is right" },
{ "text": "This could be part of a larger initiative, but let’s hold off for now" },
{ "text": "Let’s focus on the immediate deliverables first" },
{ "text": "We’ll circle back once we have more clarity" }
]
posted by Reverend John at 7:27 AM on January 22 [11 favorites]
Holy shit, gelfin. That's a nuke not even from orbit, but from point blank range. Also flagged as fantastic.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:28 AM on January 22 [3 favorites]
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:28 AM on January 22 [3 favorites]
Wow. I'm in marketing and we need these phrases all the time because people think they need prancing ponies on a site to make it 'dynamic' when no, people just need the information they need.
So I guess it depends who's getting the no. :)
posted by warriorqueen at 7:30 AM on January 22 [10 favorites]
So I guess it depends who's getting the no. :)
posted by warriorqueen at 7:30 AM on January 22 [10 favorites]
Unfortunately this needs more company-specific jargon before a lot of us can use it. "We already finalized our OKRs for H1 but if you throw it in the backlog maybe we can get it prioritized in H2 planning" is my standby when PMs ask me for things (yes, engineers can play at this game). By the time July rolls around most of us are working on sometime entirely different, so.
posted by potrzebie at 7:30 AM on January 22 [5 favorites]
posted by potrzebie at 7:30 AM on January 22 [5 favorites]
The engineer 'no' is far more simple: that will require a change request and extra funding and then we'll come up with a timeline.
They also have a second: "Oh, your requirements engineer didn't specify that [extremely basic] requirement, so we didn't do it" then you loop back to #1.
The vendor "no" is even more basic: "Once we get the contract we'll get to work on that."
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:51 AM on January 22 [3 favorites]
They also have a second: "Oh, your requirements engineer didn't specify that [extremely basic] requirement, so we didn't do it" then you loop back to #1.
The vendor "no" is even more basic: "Once we get the contract we'll get to work on that."
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:51 AM on January 22 [3 favorites]
I have 1/4 of a spoon left in the autist's drawer at the moment and this made me smile. Thank you, chavenet!
posted by rabia.elizabeth at 7:55 AM on January 22 [3 favorites]
posted by rabia.elizabeth at 7:55 AM on January 22 [3 favorites]
And also, we have top men working on it.
posted by rabia.elizabeth at 7:59 AM on January 22 [3 favorites]
posted by rabia.elizabeth at 7:59 AM on January 22 [3 favorites]
For those who have spent a career in tech,
in the film biz, the best "no" to a script I've heard is, "no doubt about it, this is a movie I'd love to see". With not even a "but" included. So the meeting carries on with much hope on the scriptwriter's part ... unless they've encountered it before. Because if you have, the rest of the sentence is immediately apparent:
"but I'm not going to be the sucker who has to go to the trouble of making it"
Also, from the music biz, usually aimed at somebody who wants to know what you think of their new song/album or whatever, the shorter, sharper, more honest even:
"I don't think I'm the target market for this."
posted by philip-random at 8:21 AM on January 22 [6 favorites]
in the film biz, the best "no" to a script I've heard is, "no doubt about it, this is a movie I'd love to see". With not even a "but" included. So the meeting carries on with much hope on the scriptwriter's part ... unless they've encountered it before. Because if you have, the rest of the sentence is immediately apparent:
"but I'm not going to be the sucker who has to go to the trouble of making it"
Also, from the music biz, usually aimed at somebody who wants to know what you think of their new song/album or whatever, the shorter, sharper, more honest even:
"I don't think I'm the target market for this."
posted by philip-random at 8:21 AM on January 22 [6 favorites]
People seem surprised that these are both good and bad "use cases". They're good because they "work". When they are needed to work. Why they're bad is obvious.
It's all in the higher order properties as in "how toxic is the environment these are used in?" And other considerations.
posted by aleph at 11:43 AM on January 22 [4 favorites]
It's all in the higher order properties as in "how toxic is the environment these are used in?" And other considerations.
posted by aleph at 11:43 AM on January 22 [4 favorites]
I believe this is supposed to be satire, poking fun at the doublespeak managers use. But it can be useful to have a gentle way to redirect folks who want to spend an hour debating the merits of using Helvetica vs Arial for an internal facing dashboard that only 3 people will ever look at.
I agree. Or a roomful of engineers who (in all good-hearted earnestness) want to ideate for hours late on a Friday afternoon about a perfect solution that could only be implemented a year from now when we're actually trying to find the root cause of a bug
posted by treepour at 11:49 AM on January 22 [1 favorite]
I agree. Or a roomful of engineers who (in all good-hearted earnestness) want to ideate for hours late on a Friday afternoon about a perfect solution that could only be implemented a year from now when we're actually trying to find the root cause of a bug
posted by treepour at 11:49 AM on January 22 [1 favorite]
wooh boy, this is hilarious and hits to home as a quasi project manager (mostly web developer). my coworkers bust their asses on a particular program or initiative and ask me and my coworkers can it be featured on top menu bar of our organization's website or on top of the website, above the sites fold (so that it displays when our site's homepage loads without any further action from the user) and there's only so many programs/content that can be displayed there before it looks overloaded and ugly...you can only have 4-5 items in a drop-down menu before its gets way too long.
posted by fizzix at 12:05 PM on January 22 [1 favorite]
posted by fizzix at 12:05 PM on January 22 [1 favorite]
People seem surprised that these are both good and bad "use cases". They're good because they "work". When they are needed to work.
"Good" in this case meaning that the user feels justified in lying and/or being manipulative. So not really good at all, imo.
posted by Dysk at 12:09 PM on January 22 [1 favorite]
"Good" in this case meaning that the user feels justified in lying and/or being manipulative. So not really good at all, imo.
posted by Dysk at 12:09 PM on January 22 [1 favorite]
In some environments it *is* justified. I would prefer not to live in those.
posted by aleph at 12:22 PM on January 22 [1 favorite]
posted by aleph at 12:22 PM on January 22 [1 favorite]
Hard disagree that it is ever justified.
posted by Dysk at 12:35 PM on January 22 [1 favorite]
posted by Dysk at 12:35 PM on January 22 [1 favorite]
No? I assume the Schindler guy of "Schindler's list" had to do quite of bit of lying and manipulation. Are we agreed *that* was justified? If so, we can remove "never/ever" from the table. The only other ones (above) that I felt sympathetic to were lying/manipulation of upper management (to cope with their delusions) by team manager to protect the team.
Other people may feel differently.
posted by aleph at 1:03 PM on January 22 [4 favorites]
Other people may feel differently.
posted by aleph at 1:03 PM on January 22 [4 favorites]
const sampleData = [You can tell a PM wrote the implementation, cause this should be a list not a map (or whatever the hell list-of-pairs abomination this is).
{ "text": "Let's add that to our discovery backlog" },
{ "text": "What problem are we trying to solve?" },
..and so on into infinity
</developer snark>
posted by Mayor West at 1:41 PM on January 22 [5 favorites]
"I don't think I'm the target market for this."
We use this in the SFF world too, as feedback on other people's writing.
posted by signal at 6:43 PM on January 23 [1 favorite]
We use this in the SFF world too, as feedback on other people's writing.
posted by signal at 6:43 PM on January 23 [1 favorite]
Mod note: [We did not bury a shout-out to this in the bottomless, haunted pit of un-triaged technical debt: Gelfin's comment and this post have been added to the sidebar and Best Of blog!]
posted by taz (staff) at 2:41 AM on January 25 [1 favorite]
posted by taz (staff) at 2:41 AM on January 25 [1 favorite]
This gave me surprisingly painful flashbacks.
Not something I would have thought would need a trigger warning, but damn, the link cuts deep.
posted by alikins at 9:01 PM on January 25 [2 favorites]
Not something I would have thought would need a trigger warning, but damn, the link cuts deep.
posted by alikins at 9:01 PM on January 25 [2 favorites]
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I've always been fond of "I'll take that under advisement" and then waiting to see if someone clocks the Die Hard reference of what I actually mean by that.
posted by Molesome at 1:02 AM on January 22 [9 favorites]