What was said? “We should put a tiger team on that, pronto!”
Did someone really say that? Yes, at another alumni board meeting when talking about breaking out in teams to tackle specific problems.
What does it mean? A tiger team is a specialized team that focuses on a specific goal to solve a particular problem. In the business setting it usually refers to putting a team of people with mixed skills/abilities to tackle a problem from multiple angles… usually at a fast, aggressive pace.
Origin: The term tiger team is a US military reference from World War II referring to elite forces to test defenses. The term was made famous by the NASA Apollo 13 mission in 1970. During the mission’s emergency landing mission, Gene Kranz and a tiger team of experts worked together on the complex issues to bring the NASA crew back safely home. The term Tiger Team became more mainstream in businesses when there was a new opportunity or issue requiring hand-picking and forming a team of dedicated experts to tackle the problem at hand.
HOT Idioms 