Teamwork in English
The words of team life, the daily stand-up and its verb tenses, the phrases for helping, delegating and giving feedback, and the abbreviations of team chat.
- 28 cards
- 5 topics
- Free
The outline, topic by topic
Each topic is weighted the way the exam weighs it.
- Concepts
- Questions
- Sort and link
- Scenarios
- Understand
A few cards from the deck
A heads-up: what is it?
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A warning given in advance so that others can get ready.
It is used in messages: "Heads-up: the deploy is at 5 p.m." It informs; it does not ask for anything.
The CI is red and nobody can merge. Which word describes this problem for the whole team?
- a blocker
- a heads-up
- a handover
- a follow-up
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a blocker
A blocker stops work from moving forward. A heads-up warns, a handover passes a task on, a follow-up is a chaser: none of them describes an obstacle.
To say you are blocked, you say "I'm … on the login bug"; to say you have too much work, "I'm … this week".
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To say you are blocked, you say "I'm stuck on the login bug"; to say you have too much work, "I'm swamped this week".
"Stuck" is about a specific blockage; "swamped" is about a workload that is too heavy. Both are common in speech and in writing.
Blocker: what is it?
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An obstacle that stops a task from moving forward until it is removed.
It is the third part of the daily stand-up: "My blocker is the missing API key." Saying it early lets others help.
Your colleague writes: "I'm swamped this week, could someone pick up ticket 42?" You have some time. What do you reply?
- Great news, enjoy your quiet week!
- I can take it, I've got some capacity.
- Oh no, get well soon and rest up!
- I'll hand it over to you on Friday.
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I can take it, I've got some capacity.
"Swamped" means overloaded with work and "to pick up" means to take over a task: she asks someone to take the ticket, so you answer by accepting. The other answers read "swamped" as a quiet week or an illness, or pass the ticket the wrong way round.