Watch your Language: banish TLAs, T-Shirt Sizing and Crisis Talk.

Talk simply, in real English.

TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms, yes, the irony) hide important matters behind jargon. Every industry has them. Tech has API, SaaS, and SDK. Business has ROI, KPI, and OKR. Education has CPD, PGCE, and QTS. And let’s not start on medicine or conversations with our financial adviser.

They serve a purpose within an expert community; it’s a shorthand which can save time when everyone shares the same context. But they become barriers when overused, new people feel excluded, and clarity suffers.

If you cannot explain it without the acronym, admit that you do not understand it well enough.

‘T-shirt sizing’ and such practices cause a similar challenge. This of course is the approach of estimating effort or complexity by assigning labels like Small, Medium, Large, XL, as if projects were garments.

Is it a cool and neat idea, or is it avoiding the rigorous work of getting precise? My own experience is too often the latter. If a project is ‘Large,’ what does that mean? Three months? Six? Ten people or two? £50,000 or £200,000?

T-shirt sizing might feel collaborative and agile, but often it is vagueness masquerading as methodology. Insist on a number; precision requires effort.

And be careful with the drama. Is it urgent or is someone hiding their poor planning? Is it really a crisis or did the Project Manager not do their job? When I am working with a client they will often remark on how much more we achieve when I am in the room. There’s no magic and it’s not complicated. That’s because I insist on an agenda, minimise the gossip and turn vagueness into precision.

Action: watch your language! Be simple (but not simplistic), concrete and drama free.