Friday roundup: roadmap, bottom out, architect

This week's Friday roundup is all about office jargon, inspired by an excellent BBC News Magazine article on '50 office-speak phrases you love to hate' (thanks for spotting this one, Sarah).

In addition to the 50 in the list, our web editor at work has reported overhearing the following recently:

  • "We're roadmapping it"
  • "I'll bottom that out with the guys"

I'm not even sure what the second of those means. Perhaps something akin to 'I'll get to the bottom of it' – or perhaps it's related to the bottom line?


Not this type of roadmap


And a new one on me, although it's listed in the Concise OED, is the use of 'architect' as a verb. In a meeting today I heard:

  • "It's important to architect your systems from the bottom up"

According to the OED, 'architect' in this context means (perhaps obviously): "design and make (a program or system)."

Incidentally, in that same meeting I also heard 'granularity' (number 41 on the Beeb's list)...