Techie folks & their jargon fixation

 

No idea how I landed myself here, nevertheless, create the space they say, and bigger life happens!

So here I am, bang in the middle of the thick and thin of tech projects. So what, if this was never an area of curiosity or attention. But when you land somewhere, you come to terms eventually and make peace.

And this does throw an interesting opportunity to add flavour to the monotonous mundane. The other adult around has forever had a problem with the jargon techies use. He has always wondered why they can’t use plain English. Going by my current mantra ‘if something irks someone, go for it’, why should I drop this golden opportunity.

So currently, the language at home is hugely inspired by the thick and thin of a project lifecycle. Forgive me folks, the post is destined to sound absolutely rocket-science now. You will wonder, what the hell it is you are doing, if you are not associated with this terminology.

A typical evening, for example, goes something like this…

“What’s for dinner, Mama”, yell the forever hungry progeny.

Dinner project, I say, will kick-off in 10 minutes. I will reach out to you for Requirements Gathering. This by the way, we all know is an iterative process. This consumes the longest time. The analysis is optimized and synthesized somehow, after a few hundred iterations, the scope for the said dinner is defined.

Now that we have followed six sigma quality protocol in defining scope, the build process begins. There goes peeling and chopping and fire treatment and all those essential steps pertaining to the build phase. This is followed by Conference Room Pilot. This is an acceptance testing. Brat tastes the said deliverable and either approves it or more often comes up with additional requirements and modifications. Oh! You made only chole, make green chutney too, and the chole for God’s sake need some zing, can you toss in some more dhania powder and kitchen king masala into it please, and who adds such little coriander. These my friends, are modifications suggested by Power User. I however put my foot down and say no additional requirements will be taken up unless a CR is raised. Therefore, a Change Request is raised and said green chutney is included in scope now.

Well, all changes are incorporated and it is now time for Playback Sessions. We follow the entire lifecycle. Key Users are provided a demo, features are discovered, and further process refinement is suggested. This Chole requires tadka to add more drama to the taste. Yet again, changes are incorporated.

It’s time for cut-over now. The said dinner gets a go-live announcement. Post-production support is always required. Can you add onion salad to this with a dash of lemon. I have to perform. KPIs will be measured.

One day of using this jargon and brat is particularly fed up. She requests, can you limit the insanity within your community. We are just fine with our plain English. No rocket-science jargon required here.