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To mean or not to mean

Consultants are very good at using new terms to make their clients feel that they are getting something new, different and leading edge. No report is ever complete without the terms "Innovative Solution", "leading-edge", "High Performing", "World class", "creating Value" or "Value Add", "achieved outcomes", and "Best Practice". We all have our own TLA's (Three (or four) Letter Acronyms) and use them to tie clients to our solutions.

For example IBM had recently completed a survey which suggests that CEO's believe that "Business model innovation is becoming the new strategic differentiator". When I started as a consultant we called it Corporate Reorganisation, and centralisation or decentralisation were the big issues depending on the current state of the client. We need to get "Management Buy-in" (approval) from the "C-level" executives (the Management Group).

There are some terms which we use which have very different meanings in different circumstances. Actionable means "capable of being acted on or completed in the near future" when used in a consulting document but means "giving cause for legal action" in normal conversation. Surface is used by management professionals as a synonym of "raise," as in "raise concerns." For instance: "I think we need to surface those issues before the product is rolled out." Drivers no longer sit behind a steering wheel but are the factors or agents that move something forward as in: "What are the key drivers of organizational change?".  Executing a project is a good thing not a way of killing it.

We have roadmaps, baselines, frameworks and blueprints not work plans any more. We empower junior teams with SME's (Subject Matter Experts) on-line and off-line (by email and telephone, both publicly and privately) so that we can spread our experience more thinly. We need to set the scope (boundaries) of a project, i.e. to determine what "functionality" will be included. After projects are "scoped," they are invariably "descoped" as reality reasserts itself.

Everyone in business is always looking for "quick wins," (small steps or initiatives that will produce immediate, positive results) especially Consultants. They help to justify the fees for the first few weeks or months when we are busy finding out about the client and preparing project plans, risk assessments, as-is analysis etc.

The problem is that, if we stop using jargon, clients will realise that they hire us to borrow their watch to tell them the time and then charge them for the privilege.

Actually most clients know this already, but as with many things, they don't want us to state the obvious (unless that is just what they are paying us for). They want what they pay for - new ideas, some-one to pass on difficult messages, someone to teach them skills they don't have or provide short term experienced resources that they don't want to hire.

So does charging $3000 per day give you the right to blind your clients with jargon? Or is that misuse of jargon the only way of justifying the fees? The answer to both questions should be no. But we have to admit that jargon can be a help.