Words (Core Vocabulary)
- role / title / scope / responsibilities / deliverables
- individual contributor (IC) / lead / manager / director / VP
- stakeholder / cross-functional / subject-matter expert (SME)
- brief / requirements / acceptance criteria
- task / ticket / backlog / sprint / milestone / dependency
- roadmap / timeline / estimate / blocker / risk / mitigation
- SOP (standard operating procedure) / playbook / runbook
- tools: Slack/Teams, Zoom/Meet, Google Workspace / Microsoft 365, Jira/Asana/Trello/ClickUp, Confluence/Notion
- handoff / sign-off / go-live / post-mortem / retro
Phrases (Scope → plan → execute → report)
Clarifying scope
- What’s in scope for this role/project, and what’s out of scope?
- Who are the stakeholders, and who signs off?
Planning work
- Let’s break this into tickets with owners and due dates.
- Do we have any dependencies or risks to track?
Execution & collaboration
- Could you share the doc for comments?
- Let’s align on the definition of done and handoff steps.
Status & reporting
- Quick update: on track, one blocker (waiting on access), ETA Friday.
- After go-live, we’ll run a retro and capture learnings.
Contextual Examples (Natural, everyday)
- Kickoff: Who owns sign-off and what’s the timeline for milestone 1?
- Daily standup: Yesterday I finished the spec, today I’ll start dev, blocked by credentials.
- Post-launch: Let’s schedule a retro and document next steps.
Collocations & Phrases (bold the key words)
Scope & ownership
- define the scope
- assign an owner
- identify stakeholders
- obtain sign-off
Planning & tracking
- create tickets
- estimate effort
- manage dependencies
- update the roadmap
Execution & review
- share a document
- request feedback
- conduct a retro
- document learnings
Canadian Cultural Context (How to sound natural & polite)
- Teams value clear ownership and polite accountability (“Just checking in on the ticket”).
- Written docs and meeting notes are common; decisions are often documented for transparency.
- Inclusive language and correct names/pronouns matter.
Extra Mini-Patterns (plug-and-play)
- Scope check: “What’s in scope for this release, and who signs off?”
- Status note: “On track; one blocker waiting for data—ETA Friday.”
- Retro ask: “Can we book a retro to capture learnings and next steps?”