9 September 2001, 15:44 GMT

 

Can manager Maria Skorn clench her buttocks in time?

Project Managers are increasingly using strange, arcane phrases that no-one understands (least of all themselves). What started as a quaint idiosyncracy of the project management world is now starting to get out of control. "We're really trying to shut a stable door," Project Manager Mark Grapple agrees.

"We can't cap this now," Grapple's colleague Maria Skorn confirmed. "As a very wise old Japanese friend once told me: He wo hitte, shiri tsubome - There's no use squeezing your buttocks after you have farted." She paused, looking slightly embarrassed, then quickly barked: "Don't cover your head but expose your bottom!"

In fact a recent Gartner Group study found that PM-exclusive metaphors have mushroomed in the last 10 years, from an average world total of about 10000 in 1991, to an estimated 148,000 in January this year.

Worryingly, Gartner Group predicts that by 2004, these figures will have skyrocketed, and over 48 billion PM-related metaphors will be flying around meeting rooms, having been soaked up, used and further mutated by hapless project managers.

In a desperate bid to put a lid on the problem, UK consultancy firm Farcry Professionals Ltd. introduced a highly experimental system, comparable to the infamous "swear box". Any time a member of staff uses a phrase that no-one has heard of, they must put a pound coin in the quaintly named "buttock box".

"If they're really talking out of their arse," Farcry director Paul o'Grady explained, "then they have to pay the buttock box. Makes sense, in a funny sort of way."

Unfortunately, the experiment soon turned into a shambles, first with managers donating most of their salaries to the buttock boxes. Then, as the system began to deteriorate, the boxes filled up with anonymous scraps of paper with "IOU one pound" scribbled almost illegibly on each one. This particular experiment was abandoned after just a few weeks.

The overall problem is further propagated by managers and staff who nod knowingly when an unfamiliar phrase floats across the meeting table. In fact, IBM recently held an emergency meeting to address this issue:

"We're facing a rain dance of rubber-volcanic proportions," senior analyst Fred Banza explained, and the other attendees promptly agreed. Banza immediately pounced on one of the attendees, and challenged her to explain exactly what a rubber volcano is. Of course the attendee couldn't. After sufficient taunts, she was sent stumbling out of the room, sobbing shamefully.

"This exactly pinpoints the problem," Banza solemnly explained. "As long as people nod and smile as if they understand perfectly, these bizarre phrases will spread, mutate and propagate. It's like giving a baby a hand-grenade - and then throwing it out with the bathwater! In fact this increase in metaphor collateral is like Tardis wallpaper."

Another IBM analyst, Larry Swinesong, put the problem down to a distinct lack of imagination amongst managers. "If only they could just try and express themselves using real-world concepts. At the very least they should stick to the core set of classic metaphors instead of constantly inventing new ones, accidentally or otherwise. At least then we'd all be singing from the same hymn sheet, instead of putting a Beowulf in our broom closet."

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