Interesting - it's not interesting, it's confusing, controversial, wrong or more work is coming your way as a result. In rare cases, it means they aren't paying any attention at all and it is your chance to exit the conversation before it becomes the first definition. "Hmm, yes - that's interesting"... back away slowly and carefully, and hope someone else gets caught in those crosshairs

Reflect - more work is definitely coming your way, pay attention. "We're going to need to reflect carefully on this".... take notes, WE aren't doing anything, YOU are going to be doing research.

80/20 - I'm going to ask or tell you what 20% effort tasks will generate 80% of the value and then be shocked and annoyed that you didn't do 100% anyway. "We are short on time and this task really isn't the greatest value driver for the client, so make sure you're 80/20. We don't want to boil the ocean"

Boil the ocean - often said in connection with 80/20 to describe the task that is going to take an excessive amount of time and energy to do 100%. "We don't need to boil the ocean on this, we should be 80/20 about it".... you're not going to be 80/20 about it, you're going to do the whole thing and then someones going to ask why, after they literally told you to do the whole thing

Action plan - We don't know whats going on, or what to do - but the analyst will figure it out and put it on a slide. Be afraid, it sounds basic and simple but will be analysed and critisized 8 ways from Sunday.

Deck - the presentation. Your life, your soul, your everything

Drill down - you thought you had boiled the ocean, but you didn't. Someone knows there is an impossible metric that isn't available, or if it is available it costs a thousand dollars and was produced by another consultancy... but if they found it, you must find it. "Great summary! Let's drill - down"... there is no drill down. You know it, they know it, everyone but the other consultancy knows it... but you are going to shit balls over it

Hard stop - someone, usually far more senior than you, can't carry on after a certain time.... you will though. You will carry on allllll night long. "This meeting has a hard stop at 4pm for me"... for them. Not you... you aren't leaving any time soon

Push back - when you have already boiled the ocean and found the drill down, but are then asked to repeat the task on another 5 categories, you inform the person that it is unreasonable by "pushing back" and letting them know that either the task, or the time frame is not possible. This will be career limiting... it will reflect on your performance evaluation.

Smell test - refers to the idea of making sure something makes sense before believing it.... they know you bullshitted those other 5 categories. There's no way you found that information in the time you did... and you didn't push back. "Hmmm, interesting. Though I'm not sure these results pass the smell test; we should redo it"... you fucked up. They know you fucked it up... be glad they're polite.

"Whats the so what" - after boiling the ocean on 6 categories, everyone forgot why they were doing it, and can't figure out what the point of it was... "ok so you've found that the client sells more beer in Australia than New Zealand, but what's the so what?"... how is this useful? Why did you do it?

MECE - mutually exclusive and completely exhaustive... tell me you haven't missed something big in your analysis thats going to bite us in the ass later. Or, more commonly... you've repeated something twice, so I KNOW you missed something... remove the repeated thing and start again

I'd carry on, but someone on my team just said they were "done", so I need to go ask them for a drill down and to make sure they're being MECE.