retro

Definition

The fashionable celebration of things from decades past, because apparently we've run out of new ideas. In business contexts, short for 'retrospective'—a meeting where teams discuss what went wrong and promise to do better next time (spoiler: they won't). The aesthetic choice that lets you charge premium prices for furniture that looks suspiciously like what your grandparents threw out.

Example Usage

The team scheduled a retro to discuss why the sprint went off the rails again.

Source: Common industry terminology

Related Terms

Intermediate

restructuring

The corporate euphemism for firing people and shuffling departments while pretending it's all part of a strategic master plan. Companies restructure when they need to look busy or when consultants need to justify their fees. It's like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, except sometimes it actually works and the ship doesn't sink.

💼 Corporate / Business

Beginner

Quarterback

To lead or coordinate a project, borrowing from football despite most office workers never having touched a football. The person who gets credit when things work and blamed when they don't.

💼 Corporate / Business

Intermediate

paradigm

A fancy word for 'the way we think about and do things around here,' often invoked by consultants right before they charge you six figures to change it. It's your conceptual framework, belief system, or model for understanding the world—until someone comes along and shifts it. The corporate world's favorite term for 'we need to completely rethink this entire mess.'

💼 Corporate / Business

Beginner

strategy

A plan of action designed to achieve a specific goal, or what every executive claims to have when they're really just winging it with a PowerPoint deck. Originally a military term for winning wars, now equally applied to launching products, conquering markets, or deciding which social media platform to abandon next. The more syllables in your strategy name, the less likely anyone understands it.

💼 Corporate / Business

Beginner

quota

A predetermined target or limit assigned to something, whether it's sales numbers to hit or immigration caps to enforce. It's management's way of turning vague goals into specific numbers that someone will definitely miss. The corporate world's favorite tool for creating both motivation and anxiety in equal measure.

💼 Corporate / Business

Beginner

logistics

The unglamorous but essential art of getting the right stuff to the right place at the right time without everything going catastrophically wrong. It's the behind-the-scenes choreography that makes modern life possible—from Amazon deliveries to military operations. Supply chain wizards who master logistics are the reason you can order toilet paper at 2 AM and have it by noon.

💼 Corporate / Business

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Intermediate

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