Simple Words, Fog Words
As we approach the end of what has been a difficult year for many of us, I am going to devote my last, very short post of 2023 to a rather “left-field” topic that is related to our broader project manager roles. After all, don’t we all get a bit silly toward Christmas? :-)
?Whatever your views on Elon Musk, you have to agree that his Public Relations folks are really good at their jobs of “spin”.
?Last month, a second attempt to launch Musk’s SpaceX Starship ended in a disaster. To quote a spokesperson for Space X, the Spaceship had a “Rapid Unexpected Decomposition”. I wasn’t watching the incident, just listening while I was doing other things,? so intrigued as to what a R.U.D was I looked at the incident.
?A “Rapid Unexpected Decomposition” translated into simple words … “It blew up!”
?I wonder how many project managers would love to have access to such great Spin Doctors.
?Sponsor: “So Rob, how is my project going?”
?Rob, PM:? “Well Big Cheese, we just had a Rapid Unexpected Situation or as we PM’s like to call it … a R.U.S. Don’t worry we are working on it. We have engaged a R.U.S expert.”
?Translated into simple words “We have discovered we got the scope wrong and we are going to miss the deadline and blow the costs by 50%”.
?Sidebar: I was watching the ex-CEO of Optus, Kelly Bayer Rosmarin, appearing before a Senate Inquiry about the recent Optus network failure. To a group of Senators she stated something along the lines of? “A routine software upgrade resulted in routing information changes propagated through multiple layers in our network and exceeding preset safety levels on key peer-to-peer? routers which could not handle these. This resulted in those routers disconnecting from the Optus IP Core network to protect themselves.”
?Sounds like Rapid Unexpected Decomposition to me or, in simple terms “Someone stuffed up!”. :-)
?No wonder planned future Senate enquiries into the Optus failure will not be looking at the causes of the failure!
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?The fog of words
?Don Watson’s brilliant and darkly funny book Weasel Words outs it this way “A weasel word, or anonymous authority, is a word and phrase aimed at creating an impression that something specific and meaningful has been said when in fact only a vague, ambiguous, or irrelevant claim has been communicated.”
?We are all familiar with weasel words such as “involuntary career event” (you're fired), and “negative patient outcomes” (you're dead), “right-sizing” (sacking people), “collateral damage” (innocent civilians killed). You’ll hear weasel words during every news cast especially when politicians are involved
?Another variation of “fog words” is a concept I learned from the wonderful Gerry Weinberg … the concept of hypermathematisis.
?Hypermathematsis is a disease that unfortunately lots of PM’s, IT and other specialists caught early on in their careers.? Hypermathematisis is the deliberate use of large and complex words to give the impression of how smart someone is.
?Imagine that you are at a party and someone comes and asks you what do you do for work. “I am a methodologist working in a PMO” you reply. Wow! Sounds much smarter than saying “I am really interested in task lists and how they fit together.” (OK, it is Christmas.) Please don’t get me started on “Agile Release Train Engineer” or “Data Grand Master” or “Prompt Engineer” or “Data Lake”… all these are real.
?In many, many recent discussions with senior business folks, who are sponsors of IT projects, a common concern is how hypemathematisis and weasel words (my terms) makes it really difficult for them, as sponsors, to really understand what is happening in the projects that they are supposed to own
?It’s simple really. If they don’t understand then they can make poor decisions, they may not be able to help or, more typically, put unreasonable constraints such as time and budget on your project to limit their exposure.
?Many folks have learnt that by using simple and plain English actually makes them smarter than the folks who use unnecessarily complex words …Rapid Unexpected Decomposition indeed!
?I hope we all have a great Christmas Break and a better 2024. See you all then.
Program Director at Seven Consulting
1 年Great final article for the year Rob. Trying to bamboozle the executive teams acronyms and tech spec can be an attempt to keep them at arms length so the team can "get on with the job". This generally ends the same way as the SpaceX rocket. Have a great Christmas all.
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1 年1/ If they are being paid a shi*load of money that is not deserved then they have to make their reports look like they are worth it. It reminds me of an old story.. There was a village somewhere that had a watermelon that got bigger and bigger. They had never seen the likes of it before so they called in someone to help. The man who was a city boy and thought he was sophisticated told them "Don't be silly, it's just an oversize watermelon" and to prove it he got a cutlass and slashed the watermelon to bits. The villagers in a rage drove him out of the village.
Principal Consultant at SwanSpeed: Rightsourcing, Time Series Forecasting and Anomaly Detection
1 年how in the blue blazes did you miss out SNAFU.... btw, the jargoneering is really pernicious, so most people don't even realise that much talk is meaningless, and the actions which follow are often futile.
Takes Complicated Out of Complexity * Problem Fixer * AI/Expert Systems Expertise * Collaborative * Complex Project Delivery * Risk & Governance Management * Systems/Critical Practitioner * Mentor * Thought Provoker
1 年And, a Happy Christmas and New Year Rob, one of the finest project delivery minds in the Southern Hemisphere.??
Retired Executive
1 年Merry Christmas Rob PS I do like the concepts of data lakes or data swamps! Describes some situations perfectly.