Consulting Journal: Writing

Writing: Avoiding parody

by David Blakey

There are some expressions that you should avoid, and others that you should use only after careful thought.

[Monday 3 May 2004]

A friend recently sent me a list of phrases used in consultants' reports and the meaning of those phrases. Here is the list.

Essentially complete: Half done
Schedule exposure: Slipped three weeks
We predict: We hope to God
Screen design is lagging: Not a single screen exists
Risk is high but acceptable: 100:1 odds, or with 10 times the budget and headcount, we stand a 50/50 chance
Potential show stopper: All team members have updated their résumés
Serious but not insurmountable problems: It'll take a miracle
Basic agreement, however: The bastards won't talk to us
Results are being quantified: We're massaging the numbers so that they'll agree with our conclusions
Task force to review: 7 people who are incompetent at their regular jobs have been loaned to the project
Not well defined: Nobody has thought about it
Not well understood: Now that we think about it, we don't want to think about it anymore
Require further analysis and management attention: Totally out of control
A number of fixes have been identified: The whole team is shooting up
Results are encouraging: Power-on, produced no smoke
Less than expected: Abend again
A high risk project: No way we can make it
Impact being determined: Where the hell are we?
Aggressive milestone: Manager's dreaming again
No contingency: Cancel vacations, kiss the family good-bye, bring a change of underwear to work with you

Are they relevant?

There are some interesting features of this list. Of the 20 items, 3 relate to IT development, rather than consulting. Of the remaining 17, 12 relate to project management, rather than consulting. That leaves 5.

Are they accurate?

Here are the remaining five.

We predict

This is supposed to mean We hope to God.

Actually, consultants are wary of stating that they predict. They sometimes say There is a strong likelihood.

If consultants had little confidence in a prediction, it is unlikely that they would state that they had confidence in it. So this is not a good example of what consultants say.

Basic agreement, however

This is supposed to mean The bastards won't talk to us.

Again, if consultants are unable to reach an agreement with a supplier or vendor, they will state this fact.

You might imagine that this is a phrase that consultants would use, because it contains the word however, which some consultants use instead of but, because they have been taught not to use but.

But this is not what consultants say.

Results are being quantified

This is translated as We're massaging the numbers so that they'll agree with our conclusions.

I have never known consultants who have massaged the numbers, although I know several who have been asked to do so by their clients. Consultants need to show a chain of evidence, and massaging the numbers just will not work.

This statement seems like something a consultant would say because it includes the word quantified. We are careful to make sure that our clients know the difference between qualitative and quantitative evidence, so we do tend to use words like quantified. That does not make it a good example of what consultants say.

Not well defined

This is supposed to mean Nobody has thought about it. This definition is almost right. Our research oftens shows that our clients just have not thought about some issues, or, if they have thought about them, they have not documented their thoughts.

In our reports, we can write Your brand strategy is not well defined, and within the report we can write We have found no evidence of a clear brand strategy. If documents exist that define your brand strategy, we have not discovered them and they have not been offered to us.

Not well understood

The definition for this is Now that we think about it, we don't want to think about it anymore. This one is also almost right. Rather than consultants not wanting to think about an issue any more, it is often our clients who have discovered an issue and then taken no further action. I use the expression putting it into the too-hard-to-do tray. Some clients do this. If the issues are important, then we need to try to get our clients to work on them.

We can be blunt: Since this issue was raised, you have assigned no people or resources to handling it, or we can be polite: This issue is not well understood. Our clients will understand that, in saying the second, we mean the first.

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