How to Stop Losing Hours to Company Jargon (And Build This in 5 Minutes)
Why every company needs an abbreviations dictionary (and how to build one in 5 minutes)
Key Takeaways
- Company jargon and abbreviations create hidden communication bottlenecks that slow down every team
- Needle's Internal Abbreviations Creator workflow auto-extracts abbreviations from your docs into a Google Sheet in 5 minutes
- AI-powered "vibe automation" replaces manual regex and pattern matching with natural language instructions
- The workflow deduplicates against existing entries, iterates up to 3 times for accuracy, and works across any document format
Every company speaks its own language.
CAC. MRR. NPS. OKRs. CSAT. ARR.
Sales calls it one thing. Marketing calls it another. Engineering has their own version. And the new hire? They're completely lost.
I realized this was a real problem when I was in a meeting last month and someone said "we need to improve our CAC/LTV ratio for the new vertical" and three people in the room had no idea what that meant.
Not because they weren't smart. Because nobody had ever explained the internal abbreviations.
The Abbreviation Problem Nobody Talks About
Here's what actually happens in most companies:
Someone creates a document. They use abbreviations because everyone in their department knows what they mean. That document gets shared. Someone from another team reads it and either:
- Pretends to understand
- Interrupts to ask what it means
- Googles it and gets the wrong definition
It's a communication bottleneck that slows everything down. According to internal surveys, new hires spend an average of 2-4 weeks just learning company-specific terminology before they can contribute effectively.
And the thing is... most founders don't even realize how many abbreviations their company uses until someone makes them count.
How the Internal Abbreviations Creator Works
It's one of our most popular workflow templates in Needle: the Internal Abbreviations Creator. Here's the step-by-step process:
- Connect your docs - Link it to wherever your internal docs live (Google Drive, Confluence, Notion, or any other source)
- AI scans everything - The agent reads through all documents, extracts abbreviations, and figures out definitions from context
- Deduplication check - It checks your existing abbreviations sheet (if you have one) to avoid creating duplicates
- Organized output - Everything gets written to a Google Sheet with proper definitions, structured and ready to share
No more "wait, what does that stand for?" moments in meetings.
The Technical Details (For the Nerds)
The workflow does a few smart things under the hood:
First, it iterates through each document in your collection. For every doc, it spins up an AI agent that reads the content and identifies abbreviations.
Then it checks your existing abbreviations sheet to avoid creating duplicates. Because maybe you already started this process manually and gave up after 20 entries.
Finally, it writes everything back to the sheet with proper definitions. The agent has access to tools like "update cells," "add rows," and "get values in a range"... so it can structure the output however makes sense.
The agent can iterate up to 3 times to get it right. Usually takes one pass.
Vibe Automation vs. Traditional Automation
| Aspect | Traditional Automation | Vibe Automation (Needle) |
|---|---|---|
| Setup time | Days to weeks | ~5 minutes |
| Pattern definition | Manual regex rules | AI understands context automatically |
| Edge case handling | Custom logic per case | AI adapts to any format |
| Definitions | Mapped manually | Inferred from document context |
| Maintenance | Breaks when docs change format | Self-adapting, no maintenance |
| Technical skill required | Developer-level | None - just describe what you want |
With vibe automation, you just say "extract all the abbreviations from these docs and put them in a sheet." The AI figures out the rest.
This is what I mean when I say your imagination is the limiting factor. If you can describe what you want to happen, you can probably build it.
Try It Yourself
The template is live in Needle. Here's how to get started:
- Create a collection and connect your Google Drive (or wherever your docs are)
- Run the Internal Abbreviations Creator workflow
- Get a complete abbreviations guide for your company
Takes about 5 minutes to set up. Saves hours of confusion.
Summary
Company jargon and abbreviations are a silent productivity killer that slows down onboarding, cross-team collaboration, and everyday communication. Needle's Internal Abbreviations Creator workflow solves this by automatically scanning your internal documents, extracting every abbreviation, deduplicating against existing entries, and organizing definitions into a shareable Google Sheet. The entire setup takes about 5 minutes, replaces days of manual regex-based automation work, and adapts to any document format without maintenance. If you can describe it, you can automate it.
P.S. If you build something cool with this template, send it my way. Those stories are how we figure out what to build next.
Jan Heimes is Co-founder at Needle. He still occasionally forgets what half the abbreviations in his own company mean.
