Ask HN: How do you keep track of company specific lingo?

2 points by bweitzman 5 years ago | 2 comments

At almost every place I've worked, I've ran into issues when people overload normal words to refer to very specific work related concepts.

* These terms often pop up organically, which creates confusion as not everybody is aware of the specific meaning.

* Terms frequently need to change for one reason or another, which has lead to multiple terms competing with each other but meaning (mostly) the same thing.

* New team members don't know the specific definitions, so there is an additional learning curve during onboarding.

Has anybody else encountered this problem? Any good tips or tools for keeping everybody on the same page when it comes to company lingo?

rachelbythebay 5 years ago |

Create a wiki page. Every time you hit a new one, ask the person what it means and add to it. Any time someone asks you what something means, tell them and then send them to the wiki page. The rest pretty much takes care of itself.

consilience 5 years ago |

Avoiding companies that use lingo is the easiest solution.