All through this week in meetings, people kept on saying to each other, ‘Is that a hard limit? 11.15? Is that hard?’ or words to that effect.
The usage appears to be used to indicate that if you *have* to leave a meeting at 11.15, for example, that is terms as a ‘hard’ limit or end.
But if the meeting is meant to end at 11.15, but if the other party can afford a bit of extra time, that’s a ’soft’ limit or end.
On the basis that the vast majority of SMS Text News readers are frequently in and out of meetings, I wondered if anyone could tell me if they’ve a) used the terminology or b) heard of it being used.
It’s crept up on me over the past month or so. Now it’s everywhere.
When asked the question, ‘Is 4.30pm your hard limit?’ in a meeting earlier this week, I replied, ‘No, I just have to leave at 4.30pm’ to bemused and confused faces……..
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Krystal on 
Comment by Brent Brookler on 4 February 2007:
over here in the US, in ‘merican, we call it ‘hard stop’ and yes it is frequently used.. it is used as you suggest, when there is a call or another meeting that you have to get to immediately at that time.
Comment by Heath Row on 5 February 2007:
Yeah; “hard stop,” as in, “I have a hard stop at 2 p.m.” to indicate that the meeting has to end then. Personally, I’d prefer that meetings be run efficiently enough that they end when they were intended to. Meeting creep is a bother.
Comment by Shai Berger on 6 February 2007:
I can confirm that we use “hard stop” in Canada as well.
And I’ve also noticed this: Someone - usually the senior in the room guy - will say they have a hard stop, just to establish their importance. And then the meeting runs long and they’ve forgotten that they declared a hard stop. Which just means if you *really* have a hard stop, you have to escalate the term somehow.
Also, when doing a sales meeting, I’ve noticed the customer will sometimes say this but really they mean “I don’t want your sales pitch to take up more than X minutes of my time”.