Hurry Up and Wait

Phrase · Slang & Abbreviations

Definitions

  1. A situation where urgent preparation is followed by delay, idleness, or blocked progress. In engineering slang, hurry up and wait happens when organizational timing and technical timing are badly misaligned.

    In plain English: Being rushed to prepare, only to end up waiting anyway.

    Example: "The deploy process was classic hurry up and wait: everyone scrambled to be ready, then sat for forty minutes waiting on one external approval nobody had confirmed in advance."

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