{"id":43703,"date":"2014-11-04T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-11-04T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.msdn.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/2014\/11\/04\/microspeak-line-of-sight\/"},"modified":"2014-11-04T07:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-11-04T07:00:00","slug":"microspeak-line-of-sight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/20141104-00\/?p=43703","title":{"rendered":"Microspeak: Line of sight"},"content":{"rendered":"

I first encountered this term in a meeting I attended.<\/p>\n

Q: We would like to be able to reverse the polarity of the neutron flow without requiring a reboot. <\/p>\n

A: Yes, that is something we’ve been thinking about, but we don’t have line of sight to having that feature before the end of the month. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

From context, having line of sight<\/i> to a result means something like “Have made it part of our immediate plans to achieve that result.”\n This appears to be extending the idiom on the horizon<\/i>. Literally, something on the horizon<\/i>. is at the edge of what can be seen. Figuratively, then, something that is on the horizon<\/i> is at the edge of what can be predicted. And if something can be seen, then you have line of sight<\/i> to it.\n There is another aspect of line of sight<\/i>: The view to the object must be unobstructed. Taking the analogy further, then, having line of sight<\/i> to a result means that there is a plan for achieving that result that is not dependent on work from another team.\n Note that I don’t know if the “unobstructed” part of the analogy was intended by the speaker. All I have to work from is that one snippet of conversation.\n In an attempt to obtain better insight into the phrase line of sight<\/i>, I searched the intranet, and the hits fell into a few categories.\n One category was people using the term literally, usually in the context of wireless communications.\n Another category appeared to use the phrase as a synonym for “insight obtained from information”:<\/p>\n

Monthly tear sheets<\/a> are improving line of sight<\/i>. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Teams were empowered to reallocate expenses within discretionary line items, but there was a lack of transparency into these changes. Forecasting was a challenge because we did not have line of sight<\/i> into these reallocation decisions. We will address this by developing a pivot<\/a> tool that provides management a consolidated line of sight<\/i> into spend by resource. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Note also the business jargony use of spend<\/i> as a noun, meaning expenditure<\/i>.\n The third category appears to be what I heard in that meeting, where it means something like “a path to a result”:<\/p>\n

XYZ was impacted by ABC and DEF. We have line of sight<\/i> to get back on track. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And then I think I hit the jackpot: Somebody defined the term, sort of.<\/p>\n

\n

Line of sight to ending year $XX under budget<\/b> <\/p>\n

XYZ is at 99% pass, with line of sight to ending the year at 100% pass. ABC is $YY under budget, and is on track to end the year at $XX under budget. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The value $XX was repeated both in the heading and in the body, which let me match the two statements. And one of the statements uses the phrase line of sight<\/i>, whereas the other uses the more conventional phrase on track<\/i>.\n I therefore conclude that the two are roughly synonyms. Line of sight to X<\/i> means on track to X<\/i>.\n Though this means that one of the citations above translates to “We are on track to get back on track,” which sounds kind of eerily meta.<\/p>\n

The preferred emphatic form of line of sight<\/i> appears to be clear line of sight<\/i>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I first encountered this term in a meeting I attended. Q: We would like to be able to reverse the polarity of the neutron flow without requiring a reboot. A: Yes, that is something we’ve been thinking about, but we don’t have line of sight to having that feature before the end of the month. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1069,"featured_media":111744,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[105,26],"class_list":["post-43703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-oldnewthing","tag-microspeak","tag-other"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"

I first encountered this term in a meeting I attended. Q: We would like to be able to reverse the polarity of the neutron flow without requiring a reboot. A: Yes, that is something we’ve been thinking about, but we don’t have line of sight to having that feature before the end of the month. […]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1069"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}