Product Operations Glossary

Agile at Scale refers to applying agile principles and practices across multiple teams and larger organizations to achieve enterprise-wide agility and benefits.

Agile focuses on adaptability and delivering value incrementally, while Lean emphasizes reducing waste and optimizing the flow of value.

Agile is iterative and adaptive, while Waterfall follows a linear, sequential approach with distinct phases and less flexibility.

Methods for identifying unfair treatment of different groups in algorithmic systems.

Using algorithms to determine how different touchpoints contribute to conversions.

Alpha testing is an early stage of software testing where internal teams test the product to identify and fix bugs before beta testing.

Strategic management of relationships with industry analysts to build credibility, gain market insights, and influence market perception.

An analytics dashboard wireframe is a visual guide outlining the layout and elements of a dashboard displaying key metrics and data.

Annual churn rate is the percentage of customers who stop using a product or service over a year, indicating customer retention.

Annual Contract Value (ACV) is the average annual value of a customer contract or subscription, normalized to a 12-month period.

An annual product roadmap outlines the planned features, releases, and initiatives for a product over the course of a year.

ARR is the total amount of revenue expected to be generated from all active subscriptions or contracts over a 12-month period, a key metric for SaaS businesses.

Identifying patterns/events that deviate significantly from expected behavior.

The Ansoff Matrix is a strategic planning tool that identifies growth opportunities through market penetration, development, and diversification.

Techniques to improve mobile app visibility/ranking in app stores.

High-level structure of software components/their relationships.

Understanding the protocols that allow different software applications to communicate and share data seamlessly.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) refers to the development of computer systems that can perform tasks that typically require human intelligence.

An Assistant Product Manager supports the product team in managing the product lifecycle, from ideation to launch, and assists in driving product success.

An Associate Product Manager assists in managing the product lifecycle, working with cross-functional teams to develop and launch products that meet customer needs.

An Associate Product Marketing Manager assists in developing and executing marketing strategies to promote products, drive adoption, and increase market share.

Assumption mapping is a technique used to identify and evaluate the assumptions underlying a project, product, or decision to manage risk and uncertainty.

An Assumption Matrix identifies and prioritizes key assumptions about a product or business, helping to validate or invalidate them.

Methodology breaking interfaces into fundamental building blocks.

Study of how different marketing touchpoints influence conversions.

Systems for assigning conversion credit across marketing channels.

An augmented product includes additional features, services, or benefits beyond the core product to enhance its value and differentiation.

Applications/features combining real-world and digital elements.

Software making choices based on rules/algorithms without human intervention.

Structure/tools for running automated software tests.

Plan for implementing and maintaining automated test suites.

B2B (Business-to-Business) marketing targets other businesses as customers, focusing on building relationships and demonstrating value.

B2B SaaS (Business-to-Business Software as a Service) provides cloud-based software solutions to businesses on a subscription basis.

The back end refers to the server-side components of an application, handling data processing, storage, and business logic.

A backlog is a prioritized list of features, user stories, or tasks that a development team plans to work on in an agile project.

Backlog grooming is the process of refining, prioritizing, and maintaining the backlog to ensure it reflects the most valuable work.

Backlog refinement involves adding detail, estimates, and order to backlog items to ensure the team understands the work ahead.

A recurring event where the development team reviews, clarifies, and breaks down backlog items to ensure a shared understanding of the work ahead.

A baseline is a reference point that represents the current state of a project or product, used to measure progress and performance.

Sales enablement tools providing key competitive intelligence for positioning products against competitors effectively.

Behavior-Driven Development (BDD) is a software development approach that focuses on defining and testing the desired behavior of a system.

Understanding how psychological, cognitive, and emotional factors influence customer purchasing decisions.

Behavioral product management applies behavioral science principles to understand user behavior and design products that drive desired actions.

Behavioral segmentation divides a market into segments based on customer behaviors, such as purchase patterns or product usage.

A standard or point of reference used to compare and evaluate performance, quality, or value, often based on industry best practices or competitor analysis.

Measuring product performance against industry standards and competitors to identify improvement opportunities.

Best practices include prioritizing customer needs, leveraging data, collaborating cross-functionally, continuously improving, and adopting agile methods.

Beta testing is a pre-release testing phase where a select group of external users test the product to provide feedback and identify issues.

Managing early-access product testing with real users to identify bugs and gather feedback before full release.

A Bill of Materials (BOM) is a comprehensive list of raw materials, components, and assemblies required to manufacture a product.

The BCG Growth-Share Matrix is a portfolio management tool that helps companies decide how to allocate resources based on market share and growth.

Strategies for converting highly interested prospects into customers at the final stage of the sales funnel.

Brainstorming is a creative group problem-solving technique that encourages generating a large number of ideas without judgment.

A brainstorming meeting is a focused session where team members collaborate to generate ideas and solutions for a specific problem or goal.

Branching is a version control concept where developers create separate lines of development to work on features or fixes independently.

Brand equity is the commercial value derived from customer perception of a brand name, based on factors like awareness, loyalty, and associations.

A brand extension strategy involves using an established brand name to launch new products or enter new markets, leveraging brand equity.

The visual and conceptual elements that distinguish your product in the market and resonate with customers.

Using established brand equity to launch new products or enter new markets successfully.

A brand manager oversees the development, positioning, and performance of a brand to drive growth, increase market share, and build customer loyalty.

Brand recognition is the extent to which consumers can correctly identify a particular product or service by its brand elements alone.

Brand reputation is the overall perception and sentiment that customers, stakeholders, and the public have about a company or its products/services.

Branding is the process of creating a unique identity and image for a product or company to differentiate it from competitors and build customer loyalty.

The break-even point is the level of sales at which total revenues equal total costs, resulting in neither profit nor loss.

Bubble sort is a simple sorting algorithm that repeatedly compares adjacent elements and swaps them if they are in the wrong order.

A sorting algorithm that works by distributing elements into a number of buckets, then sorting each bucket individually.

Bugs are errors, flaws, or failures in a computer program or system that cause it to produce an incorrect or unexpected result.

A burn up chart tracks the amount of work completed and total scope over time, showing progress towards a project's completion.

A burndown chart shows the amount of work remaining and the time left to complete it, tracking progress towards a project's completion.

Business agility is the ability of an organization to rapidly adapt to market changes and continuously deliver value to customers.

A business backlog is a prioritized list of business initiatives, projects, and requirements that an organization plans to address.

A business case is a formal document that justifies an investment or project by outlining its objectives, benefits, costs, and risks to support decision-making.

Business customer management involves strategies and processes to acquire, retain, and grow profitable customer relationships.

Business development planning involves identifying, researching, and executing strategies to grow a business, such as partnerships or new markets.

Business Intelligence (BI) refers to technologies, processes, and practices used to collect, analyze, and present business information for decision-making.

A business model describes how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value, outlining its products, customers, revenue streams, and costs.

A strategic template for developing and documenting new or existing business models, outlining nine key elements on a single page.

A business plan is a written document describing a company's goals, strategies, target market, financial projections, and competitive landscape.

A business roadmap is a high-level visual representation of an organization's vision, goals, and key milestones over a specific timeframe.

B2B refers to commerce between businesses, such as a manufacturer selling to a wholesaler, rather than between a business and individual consumers.

B2C refers to commerce between a business and individual consumers, such as retail stores selling products directly to customers.

Business transformation is the process of fundamentally changing an organization's operations, products, or business model to improve performance.

Specialized marketing and sales approaches for products targeting software developers and technical users.

Strategies for humanizing business interactions and creating more personal customer experiences.

Buy-a-Feature is a prioritization technique where stakeholders "buy" features using a limited budget to determine their relative importance.

Buy-in is the agreement and support from stakeholders for a product strategy, roadmap, or decision, essential for successful implementation.

Understanding customer decision-making processes, motivations, and behaviors to improve product success.

Buyer experience encompasses all interactions a buyer has with a company throughout the purchasing process, shaping their perception of the brand.

A buyer persona is a detailed profile representing a company's ideal customer based on market research and data about existing customers.

The buyer's journey is the process a customer goes through, from recognizing a need to making a purchase decision and becoming a loyal advocate.

Effectively communicating with and selling to executive-level decision makers in organizations.

CAD (Computer-Aided Design) and CAE (Computer-Aided Engineering) are software tools used for designing, simulating, and optimizing products.

Managing long-term investments in product development, infrastructure, and business growth.

CRC (Class-Responsibility-Collaboration) cards are a brainstorming tool used in object-oriented software design to define classes and their interactions.

Customer Success Management (CSM) software helps businesses manage and optimize customer relationships to increase retention and loyalty.

Cadence in Agile refers to the regular rhythm or frequency of events, such as sprints or releases, that provide structure and predictability.

Cannibalization is when a company's new product takes sales away from its existing products rather than expanding the overall market.

Capacity planning is the process of determining the resources (e.g., people, equipment) needed to meet demand for a product or service.

Captive product pricing is a strategy where the core product is priced low, but essential accessories have high profit margins.