Product development dictionary
One of the secrets of successful product managers? Daily commitment — to your work, team, and self-improvement. Solving customer problems requires an incredible breadth and depth of expertise. After all, daily activities can range from setting high-level strategy to defining detailed feature requirements. And you collaborate with a cross-functional product development team that includes folks from engineering, marketing, sales, support, and beyond. To accomplish your tasks, you will use classic tools such as a product development framework, product roadmaps, and a design platform.
We created this dictionary to help you quickly learn the most common product terms. You will also find links to related articles so you can deepen your understanding of core product development concepts.
A
acceptance criteria | Conditions of satisfaction used to determine whether a user story or feature achieves the desired outcome |
A collection of software development methodologies that support adaptive planning, evolutionary development, and continuous delivery. The first agile manifesto was published in 2001 and is the foundation of many agile methods teams use today. | |
Product management in an agile environment. Planning is done in iterations, allowing product and engineering to continuously adjust the near-term roadmap and meet customer needs. | |
agile release train | A cross-functional agile team that incrementally develops, delivers, and operates (if applicable) one or more solutions in a value stream (the products, services, and systems delivered to the customer) |
A flexible product development model that blends upfront strategic planning with rapid delivery — helping organizations achieve value-first product development Related: | |
The process of monitoring how users engage with your product. Product analytics involves collecting data, tracking users' actions and metrics, and analyzing trends to inform product enhancements. | |
annual contract value | The average annual revenue received from a customer. SaaS companies use this metric to normalize subscription revenue from each contracted customer across a year. |
annual recurring revenue | Yearly revenue from new sales, renewals, and upgrades adjusted for downgrades and churn. This metric is used to track how much revenue a company can expect based on yearly subscriptions. |
application (software) | A software package (such as a product or program) that is designed so end users can perform a specific task |
application programming interface | A set of rules in an operating system used in software programs to communicate and facilitate interactions between systems |
B
A prioritized list of user stories or features for a product or service that are ready to be implemented | |
A prioritized list of user stories or features that the development team will work on during a sprint or iteration | |
The continuous process of organizing, refining, and prioritizing the product backlog to prepare for sprint planning | |
beta testing | A way to gather feedback on design, functionality, and usability from end users before a new product or feature becomes broadly available to customers |
blocked | Indicates a problem with a work item that prohibits it from moving forward |
A chart that shows the amount of work completed per day against the amount of work remaining for a release or sprint. Work can be measured in time or story points. | |
business case | The business justification for implementing an initiative or feature that demonstrates the expected benefit. Benefits can include revenue potential, customer satisfaction, or cost savings. |
A framework for how a business will deliver value. A business model typically includes a high-level vision, key objectives, customer targets and challenges, solution, value, pricing, messaging, go-to-market channels, investment required, and growth opportunity. Related: | |
A template for developing new or capturing existing business models. It includes building blocks such as challenge, solution, value proposition, competitive advantage, key metrics, operating costs, and revenue streams. |
C
capacity planning | The process of estimating the amount of work to complete and comparing it against team availability. Capacity planning helps teams balance workloads and set realistic timelines. Capacity is often measured in time, effort, or cost. |
chief product officer | An executive-level role that is responsible for all of an organization's product activities. The CPO sets the overall product strategy, making sure the direction serves the company's vision and goals. Related: |
churn | The annual percentage of customers who stop using a product or service |
An assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of competitors, either direct or indirect Related: | |
The CPE optimizes all aspects of how a customer interacts with a product and company — creating a seamless, well-rounded experience. Its seven core areas include marketing, sales, technology, supporting systems, third-party integrations, support, and policies. Related: | |
conversion rate | The percentage of prospects or visitors who become paying customers of a product or service Related: |
The ability to deploy code changes (such as new features, configuration changes, and bug fixes) at any time. This approach uses small build cycles to package software for deployment in a production-like environment so it can be rapidly deployed. | |
A process in which software code changes automatically deploy to the final production environment. Automatic run tests ensure the code functions properly before it is deployed. | |
A software development practice that requires engineers to continuously integrate or merge code into a shared repository. Automated build and test processes help teams quickly identify code issues. | |
cost of delay | A calculation used to quantify the impact of time on outcomes by estimating the revenue an initiative or feature is expected to generate and how much a delay will cost. Cost of delay is used in the Scaled Agile Framework® to make prioritization decisions based on value and urgency. |
cumulative flow diagram | A visual chart that shows cycle time, work in progress, and throughput during a given time period in colored bands |
customer advisory board | A group of existing customers that convenes periodically to provide a company with observations and guidance based on its experience with a product or service Related: |
The summation of all the interactions between a customer and an organization | |
customer journey map | A visual representation of the touchpoints a customer has with a company. A journey map can be used to capture the entire customer experience or a specific interaction. Related: |
customer research | A set of research techniques focused on understanding customers' needs, preferences, behaviors, and motivations |
customer retention | The activities or actions a company takes to retain as many current customers as possible. Strategies might include improving customer service, customer loyalty programs, and increasing purchase frequency. Related: |
cycle time | The time it takes for a work item to move from prioritization to completion |
D
definition of done | An agile term for acceptance criteria that must be met before a user story is considered complete. The definition of done includes all conditions necessary for a customer or user to accept the work. |
dependency management (product) | A relationship between features or requirements that determines the order in which they can be implemented. In product management, dependencies are typically business-, technical-, or resource-related. |
The process of imagining, creating, and iterating products to address a customer's specific needs | |
The steps involved in creating a new product or enhancing an existing one to meet a customer's wants and needs Related: | |
A visual aid representing product-related processes and workflows. A product diagram can be used to show team processes, depict a user flow within your product, capture early feature work, and more. | |
The unique value of a product or service that distinguishes it from direct and indirect competitors in the marketplace | |
The use of digital technologies to create new customer experiences and business processes or optimize existing ones |
E
ecosystem (product) | A collection of products meant to be used together. Each product can exist by itself, but provides greater value to customers as part of an integrated category of solutions. |
An engineer who specializes in developing software products | |
An agile term for a large effort of work that can be broken down into smaller user stories. An epic typically takes more than one sprint to complete. |
F
A product feature describes a customer benefit and the target end result. An individual feature can impact a product's appearance, components, or capabilities. | |
feature score | An objective way to rank features against strategy using a set of metrics (such as sales increases, customer retention, marketing potential, operational efficiencies, and effort to develop) Related: |
A customer's opinion about a product or service. This information can be collected in a variety of ways, such as ideas portals, interviews, user forums, surveys, and product analytics. | |
framework (agile) | An approach to agile software development that emphasizes moving quickly and iteratively. Some popular agile frameworks include kanban, scrum, and lean development. Recently, we also released our own: The Aha! Framework for product development. Related: |
G
A visualization used for planning and scheduling projects that maps activities (tasks or events) against time. A Gantt chart displays project phases in the order they need to be completed and shows important milestones and dependencies. Related: | |
goal (product) | A measurable, time-bound objective that has a clearly defined success metric |
The strategy for bringing a specific new experience — such as a product launch, new feature, or expansion — to market. It includes goals and initiatives, positioning and messaging, pricing, customer personas, and distribution channels. Related: |
H
hardware product | Tools, machinery, and other durable equipment. In technology, hardware describes the physical elements of a computer such as a keyboard, monitor, and central processing unit. |
hurdle rate | The minimum rate of return from a project that is required by a company or investor. Hurdle rate is calculated based on the weighted average cost of capital and the level of risk associated with the project. |
hypercompetition | An intense level of competition among companies in a rapidly changing market |
hypertext transfer protocol | Also known as HTTP, this is an application protocol used to enable communication between a user's browser and a web server |
hypertext transfer protocol secure | An extension of HTTP that uses encryption protocol to ensure secure communication between a user's browser and a web server (also known as HTTPS) |
I
The process of capturing, sorting, and prioritizing ideas from customers, partners, and internal teams. Effective idea management is vital for understanding what customers want, driving product innovation, and achieving business growth. Related: | |
Themes or big efforts of work that need to be implemented to achieve a set of goals. Initiatives roll up to the company's overall vision and goals and provide a way to prioritize work. | |
innovation (product) | Solving a problem in a new way. Product innovation might include introducing a new solution to customers or improving the functionality and performance of an existing offering. Related: |
integration (application) | Point-to-point interactions between two software applications that synchronize data and workflows |
iterative development | A software development approach that promotes designing, developing, and testing code in short, iterative cycles Related: |
J
JavaScript | A client-side scripting language commonly used in web development |
jidoka | A lean concept that empowers team members to stop a process to address quality, process, or supply issues so problems are not passed further down the value stream |
jobs to be done | A framework for understanding what "job" (task, action, etc.) a customer is trying to accomplish at a given moment. The goal is to better understand their fundamental motivation for choosing a product or service. |
K
An agile-lean development methodology that helps teams work more efficiently by visualizing work, limiting work in progress, and maximizing flow Related: | |
Visual card-based representation of work and workflow. Cards represent work, and columns represent each stage of the process. As work progresses, cards move from left to right across the board. Kanban boards can be physical or digital. | |
kaizen (lean) | A concept that promotes a continuous improvement mindset. First developed in Japan after World War II, kaizen encourages all team members to look for ways to improve based on their own observations and experience. |
Kano model | A theory for prioritizing product features by weighing potential customer delight against the implementation investment Related: |
key performance indicators | Metrics that indicate how a team is performing against strategic goals |
L
lead time | The time it takes for a work item to be prioritized from when it was added to the backlog |
lean canvas | A model designed for startup companies to quickly validate business ideas using a problem-focused approach |
The application of lean principles to product development. These principles include eliminating waste, instilling quality, creating knowledge, deferring commitment, delivering fast, respecting people, and optimizing the whole. Related: | |
lifetime value (customer) | The predicted value of a customer over the life of the relationship, including the value of upgrades or additional purchasing opportunity |
M
A document that communicates the customer’s wants and needs for a product or service. It ensures the team clearly understands the customer’s unmet needs before defining requirements. Related: | |
market research | A set of research techniques focused on understanding market characteristics, opportunity, and past or future trends. The findings are often summarized on a market requirements document. |
A marker denoting an important date on your roadmap timeline. Milestones typically indicate key benchmarks and accomplishments, such as a major product launch. | |
A product that solves problems and delights users right from the start, creating customer love | |
A minimum level of functionality needed to bring a product to market and gather feedback for future product development | |
mockup (product) | A realistic rendering or prototype of what a product or feature will look like and how it will be used |
monthly recurring revenue | Monthly revenue from new sales, renewals, and upgrades adjusted for downgrades and churn. MRR is used as a key indicator to track the growth of a SaaS business. |
MoSCoW prioritization | A prioritization technique used to reach a consensus on the importance of specific requirements. The acronym stands for "Must have, Should have, Could have, and Will not have." |
N
needfinding | A design method that focuses on looking for needs rather than solutions. This helps designers better understand the problem a customer needs to solve before identifying how to solve it. |
need-gap analysis | An approach for identifying unmet customer needs and how a product or service can fill that gap in the market |
net promoter score | A tool for measuring a customer's overall satisfaction with a product or service. The score is calculated by asking customers to answer this question using a scale of one to 10: "How likely is it that you would recommend this product to a friend or colleague?" |
O
objectives and key results | A goal-setting framework for defining business objectives and measuring their outcomes. They are usually established on a quarterly basis. |
opportunity score | A metric used to understand how well a product or feature meets customers' needs by calculating importance minus satisfaction |
owner (product) | The person responsible for detailing user stories and participating in scrum rituals (such as sprint planning, stand-ups, and retrospectives. |
P
platform (product) | A collection of products built on the same underlying architecture. Product platforms use a common set of technical components to meet the needs of different customers. |
The person responsible for managing a company’s product portfolio. A portfolio product manager analyzes and optimizes existing products, identifies opportunities to expand the portfolio, and creates the product portfolio roadmap. | |
Where a product or offering fits in a marketplace. Positioning is based on what makes a product unique and why it is better than alternative solutions. Related: | |
Any item or service that is sold to serve a customer’s need or want. A product can be physical (durable or nondurable), virtual (services or experiences), or a hybrid of both. | |
A business strategy that focuses on product usage as the main way to acquire, engage, and retain customers. It highlights the product at every stage of the customer journey — with the goal of enabling users to experience and purchase your product with minimal interference from the company. | |
product-market fit | The degree to which a product meets the needs of customers in a viable market. Achieving product-market fit is viewed as an early benchmark in building successful products. |
Stages describing how a product evolves and performs over time. The stages include development, introduction, growth, maturity, saturation, and decline. | |
The person responsible for driving the success of a product that meets customer, market, and business demands. A product manager sets product strategy, understands what customers want, and prioritizes features. Related: | |
A function designed to help product teams operate efficiently. Product operations involves improving internal workflows, promoting best practices, managing data and analytics, and overseeing product team tools. This term can refer to a discipline, role, or team. | |
product portfolio | An entire group or set of products in an organization |
A document used to define the value and purpose of a product or feature. It details who a product or feature is for, the key capabilities that will be delivered, and the benefits. Related: | |
This measures how well what you build serves business goals and delivers what customers need. It is not a single metric, but an aggregate of all the work that a company does to strategize, build, launch, market, sell, and support a product. Related: | |
program manager | The person responsible for the success of all the interconnected projects within a specific program. A program manager sets the strategic direction, schedule, and budget for a program |
project manager | The person responsible for coordinating the cross-functional work required to deliver a project on schedule and within budget |
prototype (product) | An early model or release of a product to test a concept with customers before it is fully developed |
Q
quality assurance | A way of preventing issues when delivering products or services to customers. Its purpose is to ensure an offering meets customer requirements and performance expectations. |
quality function deployment | An approach for translating customer requirements into detailed engineering specifications to build products that meet those requirements |
quality plan | Describes the standards, practices, resources, and processes required to meet the quality objectives for a product or service |
R
The launch of a new experience (such as a new product or combination of features) that will provide new value to customers. Related: | |
The process of collecting, analyzing, refining, and prioritizing product requirements and planning for their delivery | |
The Responsive Method | An human-centric philosophy based on eight key principles designed to help people and organizations respect and serve others — while also staying on track toward a goal Related: |
A meeting that takes place after an activity or event to identify what worked well and what could be improved. For example, product teams often hold a retrospective after a major release. | |
A visual representation of how a product is going to meet a set of business objectives and the work that is required to get there. Roadmaps communicate the product direction and progress against plans to different audiences (such as leadership, internal teams, customers, and partners). Related: |
S
sales-led growth | A business strategy that focuses on sales teams as the primary driver for customer conversion and retention |
A set of guidelines for implementing agile and lean principles at scale Related: | |
An agile project management approach that focuses on delivering products in short iterative cycles Related: | |
scrumban | A hybrid methodology originally meant to facilitate teams moving from scrum to kanban Related: |
A short timeboxed period between one and four weeks during which a scrum team works to complete a shippable increment of work Related: | |
stage gate process | A five-stage product development process that includes scoping, business case, development, testing, and launch. Review gates are used to evaluate progress between each state and determine whether the project should proceed. |
How a product will achieve business goals (this is used to align the organization on what needs to be achieved) Related: | |
swimlane | Horizontal lines that split status columns into sections. Swimlanes can be used to represent teammates or organize tasks by type/priority. |
SWOT analysis | A strategic market analysis of a company or product's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats |
T
Additional development work that is required when code needs to be reworked after it is deployed. This typically occurs when delivery speed is prioritized over implementing the best long-term solution. | |
technical product manager | A product manager who brings deep technical expertise to the role while focusing on core product management responsibilities |
theme (strategic/product) | A strategic initiative or grouping of related work that must be implemented to achieve a goal |
throughput | The number of work items that move through statuses during a given time period |
U
unique selling proposition | A unique benefit or feature that is meaningful to potential buyers and makes a product stand out from competitors |
unique value proposition | A clear statement that articulates the unique value a product or service provides and how it benefits customers |
usability testing | The practice of testing a product or feature with real users. Users are asked to complete specific actions while being observed to understand how they use the system and identify where they experience confusion. |
The summation of interactions a user has with a product. UX describes a person's emotions and attitudes about using all aspects of a product. Related: | |
user interface | The way a user controls a software application or hardware device to complete actions |
A fictional character that represents the ideal profile of the people who directly use a product or service | |
A visual map of the customer journey meant to help product teams design and build functionality that provides desired outcomes for end users |
V
This involves moving beyond tactical discussions and looking more holistically at the overall worth of what you prioritize, the effort it takes to build, and the actual benefit of doing so Related: | |
velocity | The amount of work a team can accomplish during a period of time. Velocity is commonly used in agile development to calculate how much work a team can complete during a sprint. Related: |
verification and validation | The process for checking that a product or service meets the requirements and accomplishes the expected purpose |
vertical market products | Products that are tailored to meet the needs of a specific industry — such as energy, healthcare, financial services, or information technology |
A short, simple statement that captures the essence of where a product is headed and what it will deliver in the future | |
voice of the customer | A market research method that uses qualitative and quantitative data to understand customers' needs and wants Related: |
W
A sequential model for planning, building, and delivering new products and features in phases. This approach is commonly used for managing the development of physical or hardware products, as well as hybrid products that include both hardware and software components. | |
weighted shortest job first | A prioritization technique that ranks jobs to be done based on value and duration. The jobs that provide the most value in the shortest duration are prioritized for implementation. |
wireframe | A basic visualization of the framework of a product. Usually a black and white rendering, a wireframe focuses more on what the product does (rather than how it looks). |
work in progress | The total number of work items a team is executing at any given time. This term is also used to broadly describe a nonfinalized work status. |
work-in-progress limits | A limit on the number of work items a team can have in progress at any one time. The purpose of these limits is to create a smooth workflow by avoiding bottlenecks. |
X
extensible markup language | Also known as XML, this text-based markup language stores, transports, and organizes data in a way that is readable to machines and humans |
Y
year over year | The statistical process of comparing one year of data to the previous year of data |
yield management | A pricing strategy for rapidly adjusting the price of a product due to market changing conditions (such as competition, demand, and consumer behavior) |
Z
zeta score | A scoring formula used to calculate a company's likelihood of going bankrupt. It is calculated using the zeta model or z-score formula. |
Ready to learn more? You can also refer to our agile dictionary, IT dictionary, and marketing dictionary.
