// Glossary
The product management glossary.
Clear, practical definitions of the terms, frameworks, and roles that show up across product discovery, strategy, prioritization, delivery, and growth — the language of building products with evidence.
179 terms
A
A/B TestingExperimentation & Validation
An online controlled experiment that randomly splits users between two versions and measures which performs better on a chosen metric.
AARRR (Pirate Metrics)Growth
A framework of five growth stages: Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral and Revenue.
Acceptance CriteriaRequirements
The specific, testable conditions a user story or feature must meet to be accepted as complete and correct.
ActivationGrowth
The moment a new user first experiences the product's core value, measured by a defined activation event.
Affinity MappingDiscovery
Affinity mapping groups related observations or ideas into clusters so teams can examine patterns and develop shared interpretations.
Agent MemoryAI Coding & Agentic Development
The mechanisms that let an AI agent keep and reuse information across steps and sessions, beyond a single model call.
Agent-Ready BacklogAI Product Development
A backlog whose tickets are bounded, testable and traceable enough for an AI coding agent to build without inventing product decisions.
Agentic WorkflowAI Coding & Agentic Development
A multi-step process where an AI model is called repeatedly, with tools and feedback, to build toward a result instead of answering in one pass.
AgileAgile
An approach to building products in small, frequent increments, using feedback to adjust direction as the team learns.
AI AgentAI Coding & Agentic Development
A system that uses an AI model to pursue a goal over multiple steps, choosing actions, using tools and reacting to results.
AI Coding AgentAI Coding & Agentic Development
AI-Generated CodeAI Coding & Agentic Development
Source code written fully or partly by an AI model, from single-line suggestions to whole features built by coding agents.
Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR)Growth
The yearly value of a company's recurring subscription revenue, excluding one-time fees and services.
Architecture Decision Record (ADR)Delivery & Engineering
A short, numbered document that records one significant architecture decision, its context and its consequences.
Assumption MappingDiscovery
Assumption mapping ranks the beliefs behind a product idea by importance and evidence so teams can test the riskiest ones first.
Assumption RegisterDiscovery
An assumption register is a maintained record of important beliefs, their supporting evidence, ownership, status, and conditions for review.
B
Backlog Grooming (Refinement)Backlog
The ongoing work of clarifying, splitting, estimating, and reordering backlog items.
Backlog ItemBacklog
A backlog item is a single unit of proposed product work or investigation, such as a story, bug, task or spike.
Beta TestingExperimentation & Validation
A pre-release test where real users outside the team use a nearly finished product in their own environment and report issues before launch.
Business AnalystPersonas
A role that bridges business needs and technical solutions by eliciting, analyzing and documenting requirements.
Business Model CanvasStrategy
A one-page template that shows how a business creates, delivers and captures value across nine building blocks.
Business RulesRequirements
Statements that define or constrain how a business operates, such as eligibility, pricing or approval policies, which a product must enforce.
C
Capacity PlanningRoadmap
Capacity planning compares expected work with the time, skills, and availability a team can realistically provide.
ChurnGrowth
The loss of customers or recurring revenue when people stop using or paying for a product.
Coding Agent HandoffAI Coding & Agentic Development
The point where a defined unit of work, such as a ticket or spec, is passed to an AI coding agent with the context and checks it needs.
Cohort AnalysisGrowth
Grouping users by a shared start point or trait and comparing how each group behaves over time.
Competitive AnalysisDiscovery
Researching the products and alternatives customers could choose instead of yours, to find gaps and decide how to stand apart.
Context CompactionAI Product Development
Summarizing older parts of an AI conversation or agent session so the work can continue within the model's context window limit.
Context DriftAI Product Development
Context drift is the divergence between the information an AI system acts on and the current, approved truth about a product or business.
Context EngineeringAI Product Development
The discipline of deciding and assembling exactly what information an AI model sees at each step, so it has what it needs and little it does not.
Context ManagementAI Product Development
The ongoing practice of keeping the information an AI works from relevant, accurate and current as tasks and sessions accumulate.
Context WindowAI Product Development
The maximum amount of text, measured in tokens, that a language model can consider at once, including its instructions, the conversation and its own reply.
Continuous Delivery (CD)Delivery & Engineering
An approach that keeps software always releasable, so any change can reach production safely and quickly on demand.
Continuous Integration (CI)Delivery & Engineering
A practice where developers merge code into a shared main branch at least daily, with every merge automatically built and tested.
Conversion RateProduct Analytics
The percentage of users who complete a desired action out of all users who could have completed it.
Cost of DelayPrioritization
The value lost for each unit of time a piece of work is not delivered, combining value and urgency.
Cross-functional TeamTeams & Leadership
A cross-functional team is a group of people from different disciplines who work together toward a shared outcome.
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)Growth
The average total sales and marketing cost to acquire one new paying customer.
Customer Feedback AnalysisDiscovery
Customer feedback analysis organizes and interprets customer input to identify themes, understand needs, and inform product decisions.
Customer Feedback LoopDiscovery
A customer feedback loop connects customer input to a decision, a response, and learning about whether the action addressed the need.
Customer InterviewDiscovery
A one-on-one conversation that uncovers how customers really behave, the problems they face, and the workarounds they use, in their own words.
Customer Lifetime Value (LTV)Growth
Customer lifetime value estimates the revenue or economic value expected over a customer relationship, using an explicitly defined model.
D
DACI Decision-Making FrameworkTeams & Leadership
DACI is a decision-making framework that assigns four roles to an important decision: Driver, Approver, Contributors, and Informed.
DAU/MAU RatioProduct Analytics
Daily active users divided by monthly active users: a measure of how often monthly users come back.
Decision LogTeams & Leadership
A decision log is a structured record of important decisions made during product work.
Definition of Done (DoD)Requirements
A shared, explicit standard of everything that must be true before any piece of work counts as complete.
Definition of Ready (DoR)Backlog
The criteria a backlog item must meet before a team will pull it into a sprint.
DependencyBacklog
A relationship where one piece of work cannot start or finish until another one does.
Design SystemUX & Design
A complete set of standards, reusable components and patterns, maintained by a team, for designing consistent products at scale.
Design ThinkingDiscovery
A human-centered approach to problem solving: understand people, frame the problem, generate ideas, prototype, and test with users.
Drop-off RateProduct Analytics
Drop-off rate is the share of an eligible group that does not progress to a defined next step within the allowed time.
Dual-Track AgileAgile
Running continuous discovery and delivery in parallel so teams build the right thing and build it right.
E
Edge CaseRequirements
An edge case is a situation at the limits of expected inputs or operating conditions that checks behavior beyond a product’s typical path.
Empathy MapDiscovery
A collaborative canvas that captures what a user says, thinks, does, and feels, giving the team a shared picture of their mindset.
EpicBacklog
A large body of work that groups related user stories under one goal.
Event TaxonomyProduct Analytics
The agreed system for naming and structuring the events and properties a product tracks.
Event TrackingProduct Analytics
Recording specific user actions in a product as timestamped events so they can be analyzed.
Expansion RevenueGrowth
Extra recurring revenue from existing customers through upgrades, added seats, add-ons, cross-sells or higher usage.
Experiment DesignExperimentation & Validation
The plan that structures a product test before it runs: hypothesis, method, participants, metrics, duration and success criteria.
F
Feature AdoptionGrowth
The extent to which eligible users discover, start using and keep using a specific feature.
Feature FlagDelivery & Engineering
A switch in the code that turns a feature on or off for some or all users without deploying new code.
Feedback ManagementDiscovery
Feedback management is the ongoing system for collecting, organizing, assigning, reviewing, and responding to customer and stakeholder input.
Five WhysDiscovery
A root-cause technique that asks "why?" repeatedly about a problem until it reaches the underlying cause rather than a symptom.
FounderPersonas
An entrepreneur building a product and company from scratch, often without a dedicated product team.
Functional RequirementsRequirements
Functional requirements describe the observable behaviors and capabilities a product or system must provide.
Funnel AnalysisProduct Analytics
Measuring how many users move through an ordered series of steps toward a goal, and where they stop.
G
H
I
ICE ScoringPrioritization
A fast prioritization method that rates each idea on Impact, Confidence and Ease and combines them into one score.
Idea ManagementDiscovery
Idea management is the ongoing process of capturing, evaluating, and deciding what to do with potential product improvements.
Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)Strategy
An ideal customer profile describes the customer or company type most likely to benefit from an offering and be a good commercial fit.
Impact-Effort MatrixPrioritization
A 2×2 grid that plots initiatives by expected impact against required effort to find quick wins and avoid time sinks.
Implicit RequirementsRequirements
Implicit requirements are needs or constraints that stakeholders expect a product to satisfy without having stated them clearly.
INVESTBacklog
A checklist for good user stories: Independent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimable, Small, Testable.
J
Jobs to be Done (JTBD)Discovery
A theory that customers "hire" products to make progress in a specific situation, focusing teams on outcomes rather than features.
Journey MapUX & Design
A visualization of the steps a person goes through to reach a goal, with their actions, thoughts and emotions at each stage.
K
KanbanAgile
A flow-based method that visualizes work on a board and limits how much is in progress at once.
Kano ModelPrioritization
A model that classifies features by how they affect customer satisfaction: must-be, performance, attractive, indifferent or reverse.
Key Performance Indicator (KPI)Product Analytics
A key performance indicator is a measure selected to assess performance against an important product or business objective.
M
Market Requirements Document (MRD)Requirements
A market requirements document summarizes a target market, its unmet needs, and the opportunity a product should address.
Market ValidationDiscovery
Market validation tests whether a defined customer segment has meaningful demand for a proposed offering under realistic conditions.
Minimum Viable Product (MVP)Strategy
The smallest version of a new product that lets a team test its riskiest assumptions with real customers.
Model Context Protocol (MCP)AI Coding & Agentic Development
An open standard for connecting AI applications to external tools, data and workflows through a common client-server protocol.
Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR)Growth
The predictable subscription revenue a business expects each month from active customers, normalized to a monthly amount.
MoSCoWPrioritization
A prioritization technique that sorts requirements into Must have, Should have, Could have and Won't have (this time).
N
Net Promoter Score (NPS)Growth
A loyalty score from -100 to +100 based on how likely customers are to recommend a product, on a 0 to 10 scale.
Net Revenue Retention (NRR)Growth
The share of recurring revenue kept from existing customers over a period, after expansion, downgrades and cancellations.
Non-functional RequirementsRequirements
Requirements about how well a system must perform, such as speed, security and reliability, rather than what it does.
North Star MetricStrategy
The single metric that best captures the core value a product delivers to customers, supported by a few input metrics.
Now-Next-Later RoadmapRoadmap
A roadmap format that groups work into three time horizons, Now, Next and Later, instead of exact dates.
O
OKRsRoadmap
OKRs pair a qualitative objective with measurable key results that show progress toward a goal within a defined period.
Opportunity CostPrioritization
The value of the best alternative you give up when you choose one option, such as one initiative over another.
Opportunity ScoringPrioritization
A method that ranks customer needs by importance and current satisfaction to find the most underserved opportunities.
Opportunity Solution TreeDiscovery
An opportunity solution tree connects a desired outcome to customer needs, candidate solutions, and the assumption tests used to evaluate them.
Out of ScopeRequirements
Out of scope identifies the work, features or behaviors deliberately excluded from a specific project or release.
Outcome-Based RoadmapRoadmap
An outcome-based roadmap organizes product direction around measurable results rather than a fixed list of features to deliver.
P
PersonaDiscovery
A fictional but research-based profile of a key user group, so teams design for a concrete person instead of a vague "user."
Portfolio RoadmapRoadmap
A portfolio roadmap shows the planned direction, major initiatives, and dependencies across several products or product lines.
PositioningStrategy
Positioning defines the customers, competitive context and differentiated value through which a product should be understood.
Pricing StrategyGrowth
The decisions that set how a product charges for value: approach, model, value metric, packaging and price points.
Prioritization FrameworkPrioritization
A structured method for deciding the order of product work using agreed criteria such as value, effort, confidence or urgency.
Problem StatementDiscovery
A concise description of a specific user problem, who has it, and why it matters, written without proposing a solution.
Problem-Solution FitDiscovery
Problem-solution fit is evidence that a defined customer group cares about a problem and that a proposed value proposition addresses it.
Product AnalyticsProduct Analytics
Product analytics examines in-product behavior to understand usage, evaluate outcomes, and inform product decisions.
Product BacklogBacklog
The ordered list of everything that might be done to improve a product.
Product BriefRequirements
A short document that frames a product opportunity, its users, goals and constraints before detailed requirements are written.
Product ContextAI Product Development
Product context is the body of knowledge that explains what a product is, who it serves, why it exists, how it works, and what has already been decided about it.
Product Decision RightsTeams & Leadership
Product decision rights define who has the authority to make, approve, contribute to, or escalate different product decisions.
Product DesignerPersonas
A designer responsible for how a digital product works and feels, from flows and prototypes to the final interface.
Product Development ProcessStrategy
The end-to-end sequence of work that takes a product from an idea to customers' hands and keeps improving it.
Product DifferentiationStrategy
How a product stands apart from competing options through attributes customers value and see as different.
Product DiscoveryDiscovery
Product discovery investigates customer problems and tests possible solutions to reduce uncertainty about what a team should build.
Product ExperimentExperimentation & Validation
A deliberate test that exposes a product idea or assumption to real users to learn whether it holds before the team commits more resources.
Product FeatureStrategy
A distinct capability or characteristic of a product that lets users do something or do it better.
Product InitiativeRoadmap
A product initiative is a coordinated effort or area of investment intended to advance a product goal or measurable outcome.
Product InsightsDiscovery
Product insights are evidence-based interpretations that clarify customer needs, product behavior, or opportunities and inform a decision or test.
Product ManagerPersonas
The person accountable for a product's success, deciding what to build and why.
Product Operations (Product Ops)Personas
The function that helps product teams scale by providing shared data, customer insights and consistent ways of working.
Product OwnerPersonas
The Scrum role accountable for maximizing product value by owning and ordering the Product Backlog.
Product PivotExperimentation & Validation
A fundamental change to one part of a product's strategy, such as its customer, problem or business model, made because evidence shows it is not working.
Product PortfolioRoadmap
A product portfolio is the set of products and major offerings a company manages and invests in to support its strategy.
Product PrinciplesStrategy
Product principles are reusable decision guidelines that express the qualities and trade-offs a product team intends to uphold.
Product Requirements Document (PRD)Requirements
A product requirements document defines what a product or feature must do, why it matters, and how success will be assessed.
Product RoadmapRoadmap
A product roadmap communicates the direction, priorities, and intended evolution of a product in support of its strategy.
Product SpecificationRequirements
A detailed description of how a product or feature will behave: its flows, screens, states, rules and error handling.
Product StrategyStrategy
Product strategy defines the customers, problems, differentiation, and business goals that guide a product toward its vision.
Product VisionStrategy
A short statement of the long-term purpose of a product and the positive change it aims to bring to its users.
Product-Led Growth (PLG)Growth
A go-to-market strategy where the product itself drives customer acquisition, conversion and expansion.
Product-Market Fit (PMF)Strategy
The state where a product satisfies a real market well enough that customers keep using it, pay for it and recommend it.
Prompt EngineeringAI Product Development
The practice of designing, testing and refining the instructions and inputs given to a language model so it produces the output you need reliably.
PrototypeExperimentation & Validation
An early, testable version of a product or feature built to explore and validate ideas and interactions before full development.
R
Release ManagementDelivery & Engineering
The practice of planning, coordinating and controlling how new or changed software reaches users safely and reliably.
Release PlanRoadmap
A short- to medium-term plan for what a team will deliver in an upcoming release, roughly when, and with what scope.
Requirement Alignment AuditAI Product Development
A repeatable pre-release review that checks whether implemented behavior still matches current, approved requirements and records each mismatch.
Requirements ManagementRequirements
Requirements management keeps requirements agreed, prioritized, traceable, and current as a product and its supporting decisions change.
Requirements TraceabilityRequirements
Requirements traceability connects a requirement to its originating needs and decisions and to the implementation and tests that follow.
Requirements-to-Code TraceabilityAI Product Development
The ability to trace implemented code back to the requirement and decision that authorized it, and forward from a requirement to its code and tests.
RetentionGrowth
The share of users or customers who keep using or paying for a product over time.
Retention AnalysisProduct Analytics
The method for measuring whether and when groups of users come back to a product over time.
RetrospectiveAgile
A regular team meeting to reflect on how the last iteration went and agree on concrete improvements to try next.
RICE ScoringPrioritization
A prioritization formula that ranks ideas by Reach × Impact × Confidence ÷ Effort.
Roadmap DependencyRoadmap
A relationship where one roadmap item cannot start, finish or deliver value until another item, team or party delivers.
S
Scope CreepRequirements
Scope creep is uncontrolled expansion of agreed work without adequately reviewing and accepting its impact on delivery commitments.
ScrumAgile
An agile framework where a small team delivers value in fixed-length sprints using defined accountabilities, events and artifacts.
Solo BuilderPersonas
A person who creates and runs a software product alone, handling product, design, code, launch and support without a team.
Source of TruthAI Product Development
A source of truth is the designated, authoritative place where a specific piece of information is maintained and kept current.
Spec-Driven DevelopmentAI Product Development
Spec-driven development uses reviewed specifications of intended behavior to guide implementation and verification.
Specification DriftAI Product Development
A growing mismatch between a written specification and the code it describes, caused by one changing without the other.
SprintBacklog
A short, fixed time-box in which a team completes a set of committed work.
StakeholderTeams & Leadership
A stakeholder is a person, group, or organization that affects or is affected by a product or its decisions.
Statistical SignificanceExperimentation & Validation
A judgment that an observed result, such as an A/B test difference, would be unlikely if there were no real effect, based on a p-value.
Story PointsBacklog
A relative unit agile teams use to estimate the overall effort of a backlog item.
T
TAM, SAM, SOMDiscovery
TAM, SAM and SOM estimate total market opportunity, the portion a business can serve and the portion it can realistically capture.
Target MarketStrategy
The specific group of customers a business chooses to serve first and designs its product, pricing and messaging for.
Team CharterTeams & Leadership
A team charter is a shared document that defines why a team exists, what it owns, and how its members work together.
Technical DebtDelivery & Engineering
The future cost a team takes on when it picks a quicker solution now instead of a better one that would take longer.
Technical FounderPersonas
A technical founder is a company founder with the engineering skills to build and evaluate the product and take responsibility for its technical implementation.
Technical SpikeDelivery & Engineering
A technical spike is a time-boxed investigation that answers a technical question before a team commits to implementation.
Test-Driven Development (TDD)Delivery & Engineering
A practice of writing a failing automated test before the code that makes it pass, then refactoring, in short cycles.
Theme-Based RoadmapRoadmap
A roadmap organized around a few themes, broad customer problems or areas of investment, instead of specific features.
Time to ValueProduct Analytics
How long it takes a new customer to get their first meaningful outcome from a product.
Tool CallingAI Coding & Agentic Development
The capability that lets a language model request a call to an external function or API, which the application runs and returns.
U
Usability TestingUX & Design
A research method where representative users try realistic tasks with a product or prototype while a facilitator observes where they struggle.
Use CaseRequirements
A description of how an actor interacts with a system to reach a goal, covering the main path and the alternatives.
User FlowUX & Design
The typical or ideal sequence of steps a user takes to complete one task in a product, including screens, decisions and system responses.
User ResearchDiscovery
User research systematically studies people’s needs, behavior and context to inform product and design decisions.
User StoryRequirements
A short, user-centered description of a need: as a role, I want an action, so that an outcome. Paired with acceptance criteria.
User Story MappingRequirements
A technique that arranges user stories along the user journey and by priority, so teams can plan releases that work end to end.
UX ResearcherPersonas
A specialist who studies users' needs and behavior and turns findings into evidence for product and design decisions.
V
Validation EvidenceExperimentation & Validation
Validation evidence is information used to assess a product assumption, interpreted in light of its source, strength, relevance, and limitations.
Value PropositionDiscovery
A clear statement of the specific value a product delivers to a specific customer segment, and why it beats their alternatives.
VelocityAgile
The amount of work an agile team finishes in a sprint, used to plan future sprints and forecast delivery.
Venture BuilderPersonas
A venture builder actively creates companies with shared operating resources, working from internal ideas or with external founders and partners.
Vibe CoderPersonas
A builder who ships products fast with AI coding tools, often without formal product training.
Vibe CodingAI Coding & Agentic Development
Building software by describing what you want to an AI and accepting the code it generates, judging results by whether they work rather than by reading the code.
W
Weighted ScoringPrioritization
Weighted scoring ranks options by multiplying ratings against agreed criteria by their weights and adding the results into a total score.
Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF)Prioritization
A prioritization model that ranks work by cost of delay divided by job duration or size, so valuable, quick jobs go first.
WireframeUX & Design
A skeletal outline of a screen that shows layout, content hierarchy and key elements before any visual design is applied.
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