The corporate world has a language all its own. When entering it for the first time, you might hear your manager say, “This is just an opportunity for you to fail forward,” and have absolutely no idea what they mean. 

We get it. We’ve definitely been there. 

That’s why we’ve compiled a list of major corporate buzzwords we’ve heard to create the ultimate corporate lingo dictionary. We’ve organized them into sections: leadership & strategy, performance and productivity, operations and management, and tech and product management. That way, you can use this as a quick reference in case you’re in a meeting with the CEO and they mention something about moving the needle to get some low-hanging fruit, and you don’t have a clue what they mean.

Leadership & Strategy

You’ll likely hear a lot of these words from higher-level executives, but sometimes they trickle down into the manager realm, so it’s helpful to know exactly what each term means. 

• Move the Needle: Create a noticeable impact on key performance indicators (KPIs).
• Low-Hanging Fruit: Easy wins that require minimal effort.
• Mission-Critical: Absolutely essential to the success or function of a business.
• Business Continuity: Planning to ensure operations continue during disruptions.
• Core Competency: A company’s defining strength or capability.
• Big Rock Items: The most critical priorities in a given quarter or year.
• Strategic Alignment: Ensuring all work aligns with business goals.

Performance & Productivity

These are the words you’ll likely hear in meetings when talking about performance, and, overall, are some of the most commonly used corporate lingo. 

• Bandwidth: How much time or mental energy someone has to take on new tasks.
• Touch Base: To connect or check in.
• Circle Back: Come back to something later.
• Value-Add: Something that increases worth and/or enhances output.
• Synergy: Things work really well together.
• Outcomes Over Outputs: Focusing on results and impact.
• Time to Value (TTV): The time it takes for a customer or user to realize the benefit of a product or service.
• Fail Forward: Embracing your mistakes as learning opportunities.
• Stand-Up Meeting: A meeting where everyone shares what they’re currently working on.

Operations & Management

Managers love to use these words. You’ll hear them a lot. 

• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Teams from different departments work together.
• Change Management: Structured approach to implementing change within an organization.
• Operationalize: Turning a concept or goal into repeatable, measurable processes.
• Scalability: The ability to grow or handle increased demand efficiently.
• Resource Constraints: Polite way to say, “We don’t have the people or money.”
• Ping: “I’ll ping you” = I’ll message you.
• Blocker: Anything stopping progress. Often used in stand-ups.
• Stakeholder: Anyone affected by or interested in a project’s outcome (e.g. execs, users, PMs).

Tech and Product Management

There are a lot of tech and product management terms that pop up in corporate lingo, which are essential to know.

• Tech Debt: Shortcuts or outdated code that needs to be cleaned up later.
• Bug Bash: A coordinated event to find and fix as many bugs as possible.
• Story Points: A rough estimate of the effort/complexity of a task.
• Sprint: A fixed time (usually 1–2 weeks) when specific tasks are completed.
• Retrospective: A meeting held at the end of a sprint to reflect on what went well and what could be improved.
• KPIs (Key Performance Indicators): Metrics used to measure success.
• North Star Metric: A single key metric that best captures the value delivered to users.
• Churn: When users stop using a product or service.
• Ship It: Slang for launching or releasing something into production or to users. Usually a celebratory vibe.

When to Use Corporate Lingo

You don’t have to use any of these words in actual practice, but knowing them will give you an edge. It’s pretty similar to brain rot – if you don’t know what things mean, you’re going to be absolutely confused. 

You’ll likely start using corporate lingo naturally as you become more ingrained in corporate culture. However, if you want to incorporate more of it into your daily vernacular, pick a few of your favorites to focus on. It’s easy once you get the hang of it. 

If you hear some corporate lingo you’ve never heard before, share it with our Slack community and see if anyone else has! It’s a great place to learn more about working in corporate culture. If you aren’t an RTC member, what are you waiting for? Join the more than 35,000 women in tech as they learn, achieve, and encourage each other.