Wordsmith collection

Work, Creativity & Productivity

by Wordsmith @wordsmith

88 knowledge-worker words for clearer meetings, memos and decisions, from stakeholder and synergy to triage, salient and galvanize.

• accountability Having to answer for what you do and face the consequences.
• agile Quick and ready to move, in body or in mind.
• alignment An arrangement of things in a line.
• articulate Able to speak clearly and put thoughts into words well.
• autonomy The right to govern yourself, or the freedom to act independently.
• bandwidth The rate at which data flows through a digital network.
• bleeding-edge Of or pertaining to something, such as technology, which is too new and untested to be reliable or to have any assurance of safety; (in a weakened sense) that represents the latest developments in something.
• bottleneck The part of a process that is too slow or awkward.
• brainstorm To think up ideas, often creatively, to solve a problem.
• burnout Long-term exhaustion and loss of interest, especially in your career.
• cogent Clear and convincing, backed by good reasons and evidence.
• collaboration The act of working together with others on something.
• compliance The act or state of doing what a rule, law or order says.
• consensus General agreement among the members of a group.
• constraint Something that restricts or limits.
• contingency Something that may or may not happen in the future.
• critique A detailed judgement of someone's work, or the act of giving one.
• curate To pick things with care and taste, as for a collection or an exhibition.
• deadline The date or time by which something has to be finished.
• delegate A person authorized to represent others, for example at a conference.
• deliverable A finished product or piece of work that is to be handed over.
• diplomatic About the relationships between the governments of countries.
• disruptive Causing trouble or unrest that interrupts what is going on.
• dissent Disagreement with the views of those in authority, such as a government or religion.
• efficiency How well time, energy or other resources are used for their intended purpose.
• eloquent Good at expressing ideas clearly and persuasively in speech or writing.
• empower To give someone more confidence and control over their own life.
• ethical Connected with the accepted ideas of what is right and wrong.
• execute To carry out a plan, an order or an action.
• exigency An urgent situation that calls for immediate action and great effort.
• facilitate To make something easier to do or happen.
• feedback Comments and opinions on how well something was done.
• galvanize To shock or stir people into sudden action.
• granular Made up of many small grains or particles.
• heuristic A practical way of solving a problem that is useful but not guaranteed to be perfect.
• holistic Looking at the whole of something rather than splitting it into parts.
• ideation The forming of ideas or mental pictures in the mind.
• impedance A measure of how strongly a circuit opposes an alternating current.
• implement To put a plan or idea into practice and carry it out.
• inclusive Taking in everything within its range, from one end to the other.
• inevitable Sure to happen, and impossible to stop or avoid.
• initiative A fresh approach or new way of dealing with a problem.
• innovation Bringing in something new, or the new thing that changes old ways.
• irrelevant Having nothing to do with the thing being talked about.
• iterate To repeat an activity, making small changes each time.
• iteration One version or variation of something among several.
• judicious Showing good judgment and sound thinking.
• KPI Initialism of kingpin inclination.
• leverage Influence that you can use to gain an advantage.
• liaise To talk and work with other people so everyone agrees what to do.
• milestone An important event in a person's life or career, or in a project.
• mitigate To make something bad less severe or easier to bear.
• momentum The force something builds up as it keeps moving or growing.
• morale The confidence, spirit and enthusiasm of a person or group facing a task.
• nuance A small, subtle difference or fine detail.
• objective A goal that someone works hard to reach.
• optimize To make something as good or as efficient as it can be.
• orthogonal Meeting at right angles, so the lines are perpendicular to each other.
• ownership The state of having full legal control of something.
• paradigm A pattern of thought or beliefs, or a model example of something.
• paradigm shift A radical change in thinking from an accepted point of view to a new one, necessitated when new scientific discoveries produce anomalies in the current paradigm.
• pertinent Directly connected to what is being discussed, and so important to it.
• pivot A fixed point or pin that something turns on.
• prioritize To put something first, or to rank things by how important they are.
• proactive Acting in advance to deal with an expected change or difficulty.
• process A series of events that leads to a result or a product.
• productivity How much people produce, and how efficiently they do it.
• prototype An early sample or model built to test an idea or process.
• prudent Careful and sensible, thinking ahead before acting and not wasting money.
• resilience The ability to recover quickly from illness, misfortune or a crisis.
• retroactive Taking effect from an earlier date, so it also covers what already happened.
• salient Standing out and worth noticing.
• scope How far a subject reaches and what it covers.
• scrum A tightly packed and disorderly crowd of people.
• solicit To ask for something, or try to get it, often again and again.
• stakeholder A person or group with a real interest in a situation or undertaking.
• strategic Having to do with planning, especially on a large scale or long term.
• strategy A plan of action for reaching a specific goal.
• streamline To make a process simpler so that it works more efficiently.
• succinct Said or written in few words, short and to the point.
• synergy The benefit that comes from combining different groups, people or processes.
• tactical Having to do with the methods planned to win or gain an advantage.
• trade-off Any situation in which the quality or quantity of one thing must be decreased for another to be increased.
• transparency Openness that lets others look closely at what is being done.
• triage Sorting patients to decide who is treated first, by how urgent their need is.
• unprecedented Never seen, done, or known before.
• visionary Someone who has creative and positive ideas about the future.
• workflow The process or series of steps by which tasks get done.

Definitions from Open English WordNet (CC BY 4.0) and Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0).