Happy Monday, {{ First Name | Reader }}! Managing projects involves lots of discussions about time. Accurate English makes it a lot easier to stay on track and keep everyone aligned.
Today you will learn how to:
And you can test your English level (B1, B2 or C1) with a quick quiz 😏
VOCABULARY
Time Collocations for Project Management
A collocation is two or more words that often go together, e.g. fast food (not quick food) or strong coffee (not powerful coffee)
About delays
push back → delay or reschedule to a later time/date
collocations: tasks, deadlines, events
hold off → delay temporarily
collocations: actions, decisions, launches
The meeting is scheduled for Monday but you want to move it to Wednesday.
→ “Can we push back the meeting until Wednesday?”
Your team was planning to send an email but you ask to wait for a bit.
→ “Can we hold off on sending the email until we get more information?”
About limits
time box → limit the time for something
collocations: tasks, meetings, discussionsrun out of → to use all of a resource
collocations: time, money, ideas
You want to limit the amount of time for the daily meeting since it often overruns.
→ “Moving forwards, let’s time box the daily meeting to 30 minutes.”
The project is not finished but the deadline is tomorrow.
→ “We’re running out of time.”
General tips for collocations
For native speakers, it’s easy to know when a collocation feels right or wrong.
How can you train this ‘feeling'?
1. Think about what the phrase is managing. Time, money, decisions,…
2. What action is being performed? Improving, delaying, etc…
3. Use it in context. Does it sound natural? You can always check if a collocation is common by looking it up in a dictionary
TECH
Sprint Planning
The goal of a sprint planning meeting is to determine what tasks are going to be completed in the next 1-4 weeks.
It’s therefore really important to clearly explain what’s going to happen and when.
Consider this dialogue from a sprint planning meeting:
Project Manager: So to summarise, we’re going to split the tasks between the two main features and the bug fixes.
Developer 1: Sounds good, I’m happy with the workload. I focus on completing feature X early in the sprint and get everything finished until Friday.
Project Manager: Great! We have a mid-sprint meeting scheduled on Thursday at ten and thirty so I’ll check in with you all then.
What English mistakes can you see?
3 common mistakes when talking about time:
Mistake 1: Using the present tense for future actions
“I focus on completing feature X” → I will focus on completing feature X
Rule: Use will or going to for future tense (Review rules)
Mistake 2: Mixing up 'by’ and ‘until’
"finished until Friday" → finished by Friday
Rule: Use ‘by’ for deadlines and ‘until’ for durations (More examples)
Mistake 3: Pronunciation of times
10:30 = ten thirty OR half past ten (NOT ten and thirty)
Rule: Saying the time can be complicated, and even different in British or American English (Learn more)
QUIZ
What did you learn today? Take this quick quiz to check your level!
Note: answers will be displayed in a new window.
B1: Intermediate
B2: Upper Intermediate
C1: Advanced
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