Acronyms: an easy guide for business communication

As each company adopts their own business expressions and terminology, it is easy for one to feel overwhelmed and lost in their first weeks on the job — God knows how useful this would have been when I moved industries to Tech.

In this blog post I want to share the most common acronyms used in tech businesses across the globe as well as providing you with some tips to better adapt to a new company environment, equipping you for success.

New job/company start — a few tips

• Request a list/page of acronyms/glossary that’s used in the company during your first week. This will help you understanding conversations through email, meetings, and instant messages shared;
• Proactively invite people from other teams for a virtual chat. Such attitude will help you understanding realities from different specialty areas as well as building relationships that later can be useful in cross-functional projects;
• Attend company (and department) all hands. If your company organises a weekly, monthly or quarterly all hands meeting, do attend. It is a great opportunity to get context and understand what’s going on;
• Own 1:1 time with your Manager. If there’s the practice to organise 1:1 time between you and your Manager, own the agenda. This meeting is about you and your development so there’s only benefit in prioritising what you want to discuss with your Manager. If there’s no such a practice, propose to your Manager that you sync at least bi-weekly, individually, for 30 minutes with the goal to go through your current challenges, discuss career achievements/concerns and anything else relevant;
• Get clarity over role expectations for the first 6 months. It is in your best interest to know what’s expected of you, as an employee. Meet your manager and design together a plan or a list of outcomes that are expected of you in the first half year, this will help you having a North Star during the time you’re integrating yourself.

Common business acronyms (> 100)

The word acronym stands for an abbreviation formed from the initial letters of other words and pronounced as a word. As you start your first job, move industries, roles, and/or companies, you’ll be presented with multiple acronyms per day so it is important to get familiar with the most common ones or have, at hand, available a list (like this one) you may consult if needed.

The list below is ordered alphabetically. Enjoy 🙂

• AC — Agile Coach
• AOB — any other business
• ASAP — as soon as possible
• ATDD — Acceptance Test Driven Development
• ATM — at the moment
• AWS — Amazon Web Services
• BA — Business Analyst
• B2B — business to business
• B2C — business to consumer
• BD — business development
• BE — back-end
• BID — break it down
• CAPA — corrective action and prevention action
• CEO — Chief Executive Officer
• CF — cash flow
• CFO — Chief Financial Officer
• CISO — Chief Information Security Officer
• CM — Change Management / Change Manager
• CMO — Chief Marketing Officer
• COO — Chief Operating Officer
• COB — close of business
• CPU2- central processing unit
• CRM — customer relationship management
• CS — Customer Success
• CSAT — customer satisfaction
• CTA — call to action
• CTO — Chief Technology Officer
• CTQ — critical to quality
• CX — customer experience
• DEI — diversity, equality, and inclusion
• DM — direct message/mail
• DMADV — Define, Measure, Analyse, Design, and Verify
• DMAIC -Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve and Control
• DoD — definition of done
• DPU — Defects per Unit
• EOD — end of day
• EOM — end of month
• EOY — end of year
• ETA — estimate time to arrival
• ETC — estimate time to complete
• EV — earned value
• EVP — Executive Vice President
• FE — front-end
• FIFO — first in, first out
• FTE — full-time employee
• FYI — for your information
• GP — gross profit
• GTD — getting things done
• HQ — headquarters
• HR — Human Resources
• HT — handle time
• IAM — in a meeting
• IM — instant messaging
• IM(H)O — in my (humble) opinion
• IPO — initial public offering
• JIT — just in time
• KPI — key performance indicator
• LGTM — looks good to me
• LMK — let me know
• MoM — month over month
• MoSCoW — Must have, Should have, Could have, Would have
• MTD — month to date
• MSA — master service agreement
• MVP — minimum viable product
• NDA — non disclosure agreement
• NI — net income
• NP — net profit
• NPS — net promoter score
• NWR — not work related
• N/A — not applicable
• OC — out contractor
• OKR — objective key result
• OOO — out of office
• PaaS — platform as a service
• PDCA — Plan, Do, Check, and Act
• PI — productivity index
• POV — point of view
• PR — public relations
• PTE — part-time employee
• PTO — paid time off
• P&L — profit and loss
• QA(E) — quality assurance (engineer)
• QDIP — Quality, Delivery, Inventory, and Productivity
• QFD — Quality Function Deployment
• RACI — Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed
• RCA — root cause analysis
• RFI — request for information
• RFD — request for discussion
• RFP — request for proposal
• ROA — return on assets
• ROE — return on equity
• ROI — return over investment
• RPA — robotic process automation
• RSVP — please respond
• R&D — research and development
• R&R — repeatability and reproducibility
• SaaS — software as a service
• SDLC — software development lifecycle
• SEO — search engine optimisation
• SIPOC — Suppliers, Inputs, Process, Outputs, and Customers
• SLA — service level agreement
• SLO — service level objective
• SM — Scrum Master
• SMART — specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, time-bound
• SMB — small to medium business
• SME — subject matter expert
• SPOC — single point of contact
• SOP — standard operating procedure
• SoW — statement of work
• SQDC — Safety, Quality, Delivery, Cost
• SVP — Senior Vice President
• SWOT — strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats
• TBC — to be confirmed
• TBD — to be decided/defined
• TL — Team Lead
• TL;DR — too long, didn’t read
• TMI — too much information
• TOC — Theory of Constraints
• TOS — terms of service
• TYT — take your time
• T&C — terms and conditions
• UI — user interface
• UX — user experience
• VOB — value of business
• VoC — voice of the customer
• VP — Vice President
• VPN — virtual private network
• WDYT — what do you think?
• WFH — working from home
• WIP — work in progress
• WOM — word of mouth
• YoY — year over year
• YTD — year to date

Want to contribute to this list? Share your contribution in the comments!