Product Management Glossary

An Epic is a large body of work that can be broken down into smaller tasks or user stories, typically spanning multiple weeks or sprints.

An initiative is a high-level strategic theme that groups related projects and epics to achieve a specific business goal or product objective.

An internal roadmap is a detailed strategic plan for product development used within an organization to align teams on timelines, resources, and dependencies.

A milestone is a significant event or marker in a project timeline used to track progress against major goals or deliverables.

Learn what a North Star Metric is and how it aligns product strategy, engineering, and sales around a single core value measurement for long-term growth.

A Now-Next-Later roadmap is a flexible planning tool that organizes product initiatives into three time horizons instead of fixed calendar dates.

Product Strategy is a high-level plan that defines a product's goals and how to achieve them by connecting vision to tactical execution on a roadmap.

A public roadmap is a shared document that shows customers and stakeholders the future direction of a product to build trust and gather feedback.

A roadmap is a strategic visual guide that communicates the direction, priorities, and progress of a product to align teams and stakeholders.

A Theme is a high-level strategic focus area that groups related epics and initiatives to align a product roadmap with broader business goals.

A Key Result is a measurable metric used to track progress toward an objective. Learn how to define and measure success using the OKR framework.

A Key Performance Indicator (KPI) is a measurable value that tracks how effectively a team or company is achieving its key business objectives.

A lagging indicator is a metric used to measure the final results of a process or project after it has been completed.

A leading indicator is a predictive metric used to forecast future outcomes. Learn how product teams use leading indicators to influence results early.

An Objective is a qualitative, aspirational goal that defines what you want to achieve. Learn how Objectives drive team alignment and focus within OKRs.

OKR (Objectives and Key Results) is a goal-setting framework used by teams to define measurable goals and track their outcomes through specific metrics.

Cost of Delay is a prioritization metric that quantifies the economic impact of time on project outcomes. Learn how to use it to rank features by urgency.

ICE Score is a simple prioritization framework that ranks ideas by Impact, Confidence, and Ease to help teams identify high-value tasks quickly.

The Kano Model is a prioritization framework used to categorize features based on how they impact customer satisfaction versus their level of functionality.

MoSCoW Method is a prioritization technique that categorizes requirements into Must have, Should have, Could have, and Won't have to manage project scope.

RICE Score is a prioritization framework that uses Reach, Impact, Confidence, and Effort to rank product features and initiatives objectively.

Story Points are a relative unit of measure used in Agile to estimate the effort, complexity, and risk involved in completing a software task.

T-Shirt Sizing is a relative estimation technique that helps teams quickly gauge the effort required for tasks or features using standard sizes.

A Value vs Effort Matrix is a prioritization tool that plots tasks on a grid based on their business value and the work required to complete them.

Weighted Scoring is a prioritization technique that evaluates features or projects based on multiple criteria, each assigned a specific level of importance.

WSJF (Weighted Shortest Job First) is a prioritization model that identifies the most valuable tasks to complete next by calculating the Cost of Delay.

Acceptance criteria are the specific conditions a software product must meet to be accepted by a user. Learn how to write clear ACs for your agile team.

Backlog Grooming is the ongoing process of reviewing and prioritizing items in a product backlog to ensure the team is prepared for upcoming sprints.

A burndown chart is a visual tool that tracks remaining work against time, helping Agile teams predict if they will finish a sprint's scope on schedule.

A Burnup Chart is a visual tool that tracks total work completed against the total scope of a project or sprint to show progress and scope changes.

A daily standup is a short team meeting used to sync on progress, identify blockers, and plan the day's work in Agile development.

The Definition of Done is a shared standard of work requirements that a product increment must meet to be considered complete and ready for release.

A Definition of Ready (DoR) is a checklist used in Agile to confirm that a user story has all the information needed for a team to begin development.

Kanban is a visual workflow management method that helps teams visualize work, limit work-in-progress, and maximize efficiency using a board and columns.

A Product Backlog is an ordered list of everything needed in a product. It serves as the single source of truth for all potential features and fixes.

Scrum is an Agile framework for managing complex work through iterative cycles called sprints. Learn how it helps teams deliver value incrementally.

A Scrum Master is a facilitator for agile teams who removes blockers, coaches the team on Scrum practices, and ensures smooth sprint execution.

A Sprint is a fixed, short period—typically two weeks—during which a team works to complete a specific set of tasks from their product backlog.

Sprint Planning is an Agile ceremony where teams determine which backlog items to complete during the next sprint and define a clear goal for the work.

A Sprint Retrospective is a meeting held at the end of a sprint to discuss what went well, what didn't, and how the team can improve in the next cycle.

A Sprint Review is a meeting at the end of a sprint where the team demonstrates completed work to stakeholders and gathers feedback to adapt the backlog.

Sprint Velocity measures the average amount of work a team completes during a sprint. Learn how to use it to forecast project timelines and plan capacity.

A User Story is a brief, informal description of a software feature written from the perspective of the end user to explain how it provides value.

Velocity is a metric that measures the amount of work an Agile team completes during a sprint, typically calculated in story points or tasks.

A Beta Program is a structured release of a product to a limited group of users to gather feedback and identify bugs before a full launch.

A changelog is a chronological record of updates, bug fixes, and new features made to a product, helping users stay informed about product evolution.

CSAT (Customer Satisfaction Score) measures how happy customers are with a specific interaction or product feature. Learn how to calculate and use it.

A Customer Advisory Board (CAB) is a group of key customers who provide feedback on product strategy and roadmap. Learn how CABs drive product-market fit.

Customer Effort Score (CES) measures the ease of a customer's experience with a product or service. Learn how to use it to reduce friction and improve retention.

A Feature Request is a suggestion to add new functionality or improve existing features in a software product, helping teams prioritize based on user needs.

A feedback portal is a centralized hub where customers submit feature requests, vote on ideas, and track the status of product updates in real-time.

In-app feedback is the process of collecting user insights, bug reports, and feature requests directly within a software application while the user is active.

Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) is a framework for understanding customer needs by focusing on the specific outcome a user wants to achieve when using a product.

Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a customer loyalty metric that measures how likely users are to recommend your product to others on a scale of 0 to 10.

Release Notes are documents that accompany software updates to explain new features, bug fixes, and improvements to users and stakeholders.

Voice of Customer (VoC) is a methodology used to capture, analyze, and act on customer feedback to align product development with user needs.

An A/B test is a method of comparing two versions of a feature or page to see which performs better. Use it to optimize user experience with data.

Activation is the point where a new user first experiences the core value of a product, often referred to as the 'Aha! moment' in the customer journey.

Churn is the rate at which customers stop using a product or service over a specific period, often expressed as a percentage or total count.

Cohort analysis is a behavioral analytics method that breaks users into related groups to track retention, engagement, and performance over time.

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is the total amount a business spends on sales and marketing to gain a new customer. Learn how to calculate and use it.

Customer Lifetime Value (LTV) is the total revenue a business expects from a single customer account over the duration of their relationship.

DORA Metrics are four key indicators used to measure software delivery performance: deployment frequency, lead time, change failure rate, and recovery time.

A Feature Flag is a technique that lets teams turn software features on or off without deploying new code, enabling safer releases and beta testing.

A Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is the simplest version of a product used to test business ideas and gather customer feedback before full development.

Monthly Active Users (MAU) is a key product metric measuring the number of unique users who actively engage with software within a 30-day period.

Product-Market Fit is the stage where a product's value proposition aligns with a market's needs, resulting in consistent customer demand and growth.

Retention is the measure of how many users continue using a product over a specific period. It is a key indicator of product value and customer loyalty.

Time to Value (TTV) is the time it takes a new user to experience a product's core benefit. Shortening TTV improves customer activation and retention.

A user journey is a visual map of every interaction a customer has with a product. It helps teams identify pain points and optimize the total experience.

A user persona is a detailed profile representing a key segment of your audience, helping teams build products that solve specific user needs and goals.

Critical Path is the longest sequence of dependent tasks in a project that must be completed on time for the overall project to meet its deadline.

A Gantt Chart is a horizontal bar chart used to visualize a project schedule. It tracks task durations, start and end dates, and dependencies over time.

A Product Manager is the person responsible for setting a product's strategy, prioritizing features, and guiding cross-functional teams to deliver value.

A Product Owner is the role responsible for maximizing product value by managing the backlog and prioritizing features based on business goals and user needs.

A Product Requirements Document (PRD) is a guide that defines the purpose, features, and functionality of a product or feature before development begins.

A RACI Matrix is a responsibility assignment chart that clarifies who is Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed for project tasks and decisions.

A Release Train is a coordinated schedule where multiple teams release software together at a fixed cadence, ensuring predictable and synchronized delivery.

SWOT Analysis is a framework for identifying Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats to evaluate a company's competitive position and strategy.

A Technical Program Manager (TPM) is a specialized role responsible for overseeing complex, cross-functional engineering initiatives from inception to launch.

Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is a hierarchical decomposition of a project into smaller, manageable components or deliverables.