Monday, October 19, 2015

Turnkey

I understand a Turnkey system as something that only needs to by switched on in order to run. You turn the key, and it operates.

In the education world, they seem to like to use "turnkey" as a verb meaning "train somebody else on a procedure you've had 45 minutes of training in." I don't know why they don't just say "train." It's a perfectly good word, and it so neatly describes the activity usually being attempted. But, no, gotta "turnkey" it. I'm going to turnkey this to you and then you turnkey it to your departments, and they'll turnkey it to the working groups. All this turnkeying.

It just isn't what turnkey means.