the roles and working arrangements of a group that will be used for carrying out a specific task, as in: “Let’s regroup after the intro meeting so we can set our flying formation for the next two weeks”; derived from parlance common in the military, this phrase can evoke the high-stakes precision of air force jets executing a nighttime sortie, but also the lower-stakes whimsy of a circling flock of Canadian geese deciding which airport runway looks most appealing as a landing area1
- Which can suddenly become very high-stakes, as in the case of the unfortunate flock that chose a spot near LaGuardia Airport, thus launching Captain Sully into aviation lore (and creating another disaster/biopic opportunity for Tom Hanks). ↩