Colloquial American IT/Business Jargon

I don't know, how much of these terms are used in India. Some might be used of which I was not aware of, but majorly these could be the part of American colloquial.

Can be helpful if one is working in a global team.

1) "Putting it on the table" - Believe it or not, this phrase has different meanings in the US and the UK. Ok, it could be used in these forms, "Putting the thoughts on the table" or "Table down the thoughts".

What it means in the US: When you say that you are putting "something" on the table (during a meeting), it means that you want that thing to be discussed and would want to have an open discussion before taking a decision or coming to the conclusion.

What it means in the UK: When the same thing is said in Europe or specifically in british terms, it would mean that you have taken a decision and putting it on the table for others to take a look. But it would never allow a further discussion.

Just in case if this term is used by your foreign counterpart, be aware of which part of the world he belongs to, if any doubts then be clear before taking a decision.

2) "Converging to a RatHole" - This generally happens during a session of brain storming. During the discussion there might be a small disagreement on something which might lead the conversation to a totally different trip. After sometime people realize that they deviated from the main topic or "find themselves converging to a rat hote".

As far as usage of it is concerned, it could simply be "lets not get into a rat hole". It would thus mean not to corner oneself.

3) Sleep on - This, I believe should be pretty global and most people must be aware off. But just in case...

It means, to think about (something) overnight before deciding. Thus if not clear about things in general I might say during the meeting that "ill sleep on it and we can put it on the table tomorrow" :-)

4) TBD - To be determined (This acronyms is used quite often)

At the EOD
A: Should we expose this method to the client?
B: Hmmm, not sure we might have to consult C
A: ok, so m putting this under TBD

5) Follow the sun - Oh boy.. should I let this one out ... It's actually a term used in my project but this is something in general and every IT professional (with a entrepreneurish nature) should be aware off :-).

These days after so much of outsourcing to AP (Asia Pacific) region the number of people in the team in our part of the world is increasing rapidly. Thus, it becomes important to work around the clock because of a huge time difference between India and the US. This term basically suggests how to make this time difference the strength instead of a weakness.

Imagine, my boss in India assigns a work to me (assuming m in the US) before leaving for home and finds an email when logs on the next morning with the work done. In between these 12-14 hrs, I might have done the same to my European counterpart and so on and so forth. Thus it is nothing but to follow the sun and delegate work in such a fashion that it gets completed without anyone losing sleep.

It won't be long, before people in a global team start replaceing their 12hr clocks by 24hrs clock in their homes and offices to save time and meet the customer's demand.

Should be appending this list as and when I come across new terminologies.