Certain things are better discussed in private or outside the time that was scheduled to discuss another purpose. This means when a topic comes up that members in a meeting will feel more comfortable about talking about another time, they may use jargon and say “Let’s take it offline”.
For example…
Let’s say Tina and Toby, the project managers of two businesses working collaboratively to develop an app have organised a teleconference with the tech teams of both businesses. They are particularly concerned about how to accelerate the work being done to deliver the app on time. However, during the discussion about how this can be achieved, the tech team leads of both businesses start talking about using one algorithm over another. But they soon realise that this topic is not part of the agenda of the current meeting and agree that this topic will be taken offline to discuss further
