A dictionary of modern lifeOriginal definitions · Illustrated satire
Lucifer’s Lexicon

Modern life, properly defined.

In alphabetical disorder

The dictionary.

54words, properly defined.

A

  1. Corporate Speak

    ACCOUNTABILITY n.

    Responsibility assigned downward after authority has remained above.

  2. Agile & Delivery

    AGILE adj.

    A software-development method for treating the absence of a plan as adaptability.

  3. Data & AI

    AI STRATEGY n.

    An executive pledge to keep up with the competition, consisting of a PowerPoint, some vibe coding and a generative-AI team in search of a purpose.

  4. Corporate Speak

    ALIGNMENT n.

    Agreement sufficiently vague to survive contact with disagreement.

  5. Meetings & Office Life

    ALL-HANDS n.

    A meeting requiring everybody's attendance and very few people's participation.

  6. Software Engineering

    API n.

    A contract between systems, revised whenever either party feels sufficiently confident.

  7. Corporate Speak

    AUTONOMY n.

    Freedom to choose among approved alternatives.

B

  1. Finance & Startups

    BANKER n.

    One who lends what did not exist and forecloses upon what does.

  2. Governance & Procurement

    BUSINESS CASE n.

    Arithmetic prepared in support of a conclusion already reached.

C

  1. Meetings & Office Life

    CIRCLE BACK v.

    To postpone an unwanted conversation with sufficient optimism to avoid ending it.

  2. Cloud & Infrastructure

    CLOUD n.

    Someone else's computer, made mysterious enough to justify recurring payment.

  3. Corporate Speak

    COLLABORATION n.

    The division of responsibility among enough people that blame becomes impractical.

  4. Consulting & Transformation

    CONSULTANT n.

    One who learns your business from your employees and recommends it back to you in slides.

  5. People & HR

    CULTURE n.

    The behaviour rewarded after the values have been printed.

  6. Careers & Recruitment

    CULTURE FIT n.

    The quality of resembling the people already hired.

  7. Product & Customer

    CUSTOMER JOURNEY n.

    The route by which a simple purchase acquires seventeen internal owners.

D

  1. Data & AI

    DATA LAKE n.

    A place where information is poured faster than anybody learns to swim.

  2. Governance & Procurement

    DUE DILIGENCE n.

    The careful investigation performed immediately before proceeding anyway.

E

  1. People & HR

    eNPS n.

    A measure of employee feeling, converted into a number so that it may be ignored scientifically.

  2. Incidents & Operations

    ERROR BUDGET n.

    The approved quantity of failure.

F

  1. Cloud & Infrastructure

    FINOPS n.

    The ceremony by which a company gives its cloud waste a dashboard, a cost centre and an owner, thereby making it respectable.

G

  1. Data & AI

    GENERATIVE AI n.

    A method of generating plausible text and implausible valuations in a Ponzi scheme of mutual enthusiasm, whose promised return is a workforce without workers.

  2. Governance & Procurement

    GOVERNANCE n.

    The machinery by which a decision acquires enough signatures to become nobody's fault.

H

  1. People & HR

    HEADCOUNT n.

    People after conversion into budget.

  2. People & HR

    HEADCOUNT FREEZE n.

    A hiring ban that freezes vacancies, but not the work.

  3. Data & AI

    HUMAN IN THE LOOP n.

    A person retained to accept responsibility for the machine's decisions.

K

  1. Cloud & Infrastructure

    KAFKA n.

    A system for ensuring that no event is truly lost, merely waiting somewhere you have not yet inspected.

  2. Cloud & Infrastructure

    KUBERNETES n.

    A system for arranging containers so that nobody knows where the application is.

L

  1. Technology Companies

    LINKEDIN n.

    A place where employment is temporary and enthusiasm permanent.

M

  1. Software Engineering

    MICROSERVICE n.

    A small application distinguished by requiring a network call to perform what was once a function.

  2. Product & Customer

    MVP n.

    The smallest thing management is willing to call finished and customers are expected to call useful.

O

  1. Corporate Speak

    OKR n.

    A goal made measurable so its failure can be reported quarterly.

  2. Corporate Speak

    OWNERSHIP n.

    Responsibility bestowed without the vulgar accompaniment of power.

P

  1. People & HR

    PERFORMANCE REVIEW n.

    An annual ceremony in which twelve months of work are compressed into three adjectives.

  2. Incidents & Operations

    POST-MORTEM n.

    A meeting at which the dead are questioned about their failure to prevent the murder.

  3. Consulting & Transformation

    POWERPOINT n.

    A software package for dressing up big ideas with no substance in corporate colours and bullet points.

R

  1. Remote & Hybrid Work

    RETURN TO OFFICE n.

    An accounting exercise in which office-space costs are justified by compulsory video calls between adjacent desks.

  2. People & HR

    RIGHT-SIZING n.

    Redundancy expressed by someone retaining a role.

  3. Product & Customer

    ROADMAP n.

    A chronology of promises arranged before the obstacles are known.

  4. Incidents & Operations

    RUNBOOK n.

    Instructions written for an emergency and first read during one.

S

  1. Agile & Delivery

    SAFE n.

    A system for preserving the spirit of agility by protecting management from it.

  2. Enterprise Software

    SAP n.

    Software designed to fit every business after sufficient alteration to resemble none.

  3. Security & Compliance

    SECURITY AWARENESS n.

    The annual instruction not to perform the behaviour required by several daily workflows.

  4. Cloud & Infrastructure

    SERVERLESS adj.

    Possessing servers in quantities sufficient to make their existence somebody else's concern.

  5. Consumer Digital Life

    SOCIAL MEDIA n.

    A machine for converting attention into revenue and acquaintance into evidence.

  6. Agile & Delivery

    STORY POINT n.

    An imaginary unit of effort, valued chiefly for the precision with which it obscures time.

  7. Consumer Digital Life

    SUBSCRIPTION n.

    The transformation of a purchase into a permanent obligation.

T

  1. Consulting & Transformation

    TARGET OPERATING MODEL n.

    A diagram of an organisation that does not yet exist, drawn by people who will not work in it.

  2. Software Engineering

    TECHNICAL DEBT n.

    A shortcut whose bill is sent to developers who were not present.

  3. Consumer Digital Life

    TERMS OF SERVICE n.

    An agreement between a corporation that has read it and a person who has not.

  4. Software Engineering

    TEST COVERAGE n.

    A percentage frequently mistaken for confidence.

V

  1. Agile & Delivery

    VELOCITY n.

    A number derived from the past and employed to disappoint the future.

  2. Finance & Startups

    VENTURE CAPITALIST n.

    A gambler distinguished from the ordinary kind by playing with other people's pensions.

X

  1. Technology Companies

    X n.

    A social network renamed after the mark traditionally used to indicate an error.