Acronym’s are Seriously Stupid

I’ve been dealing with a bunch of project managers, directors and marketing people lately and they all seem to speak in this foreign language that ever so slightly resembles English.

UAT, ERP, EPM, EBQ? Is there a massive shortage of letters all of a sudden?

The problem with Acronym’s is that they’re very specific to the particular field they’re being used in. When I talk about EPM is that Electronic Project Management or Enterprise Performance Management or Electronic Power Management or Easy Pocket Manager?

Someone joked that the Computer industry is running out of TLA’s (three letter acronyms) and I have to agree that its quiet possible. It’s fine to use acronym’s if you’re with people who’ll understand them, fellow geeks and techies for example will probably understand what PCI is or SCSI but if you’re a project manager addressing a team of people of varied skills its probably better that you keep the acronym’s down to a minimum.

It’s not just the acronym’s though, project manager’s and other “corporate types” seem to have there own language… its perfect for a golf game with fellow corporate types but useless when you’re talking to your low level minion’s. The same is true if I address a group of non-technical people I tend to “dumb down” the language a little so that the people listening to me can follow what I’m talking about.

Try for one day to not use an acronym or at least stick to the ones listed in the oxford dictionary.