Glossary Archive

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A/B Testing

A/B testing is the process of comparing two versions of a digital product, such as a website, app, or feature, to determine which version performs better in terms of user engagement, conversions, or other metrics.…

AARRR (Pirate Metrics)

AARRR, playfully referred to as the “Pirate Metrics,” is a useful framework that guides Product managers through the critical stages of user behavior and product performance. The acronym stands for Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral, and…

Acceptance Criteria

Acceptance criteria refer to the specific and measurable conditions that must be met in order for a user story to be considered complete and accepted by the product owner or customer. Acceptance criteria define the…

Affinity Grouping

Affinity grouping, also known as affinity diagramming, affinity mapping, or affinity estimation, is a prioritization technique in which a group organizes a wide range of ideas and data into natural relationships. It is essentially a…

Agile

Agile is an iterative approach to product management that emphasizes flexibility, continuous improvement, and customer satisfaction. The goal of agile is to deliver value to customers as quickly as possible while also being able to…

Agile Product Development

Agile product development is a methodology that encourages product teams to focus on solving user problems in an iterative way, rather than the traditional waterfall methodology.

Agile Sprint

An agile sprint is a short period with a concentrated effort to complete certain predetermined goals, with those goals often taking the form of a new, changed, or removed feature within the product being developed.

Alpha Test

An alpha test is an early stage of product testing where a small group of testers, usually within the development team or a select group of trusted users, test the product to identify and fix…

API (Application Programming Interface)

An API, or Application Programming Interface, is a set of protocols, routines, and tools for building software applications. APIs define how software components should interact, enabling different systems to communicate and exchange data. They provide…

Backlog Grooming

"Backlog grooming, also known as backlog refinement or backlog maintenance, is the ongoing process of reviewing, refining, and prioritizing items in the product backlog to ensure that it remains well-organized, up-to-date, and ready for your…

Beta Test

Beta testing allows a user to try a new product or feature in the early stages of development before it is formally released to the market or user base. The general idea is to find…

Build-Measure-Learn

The Build-Measure-Learn loop is a Product Management process that focuses on minimizing the time it takes to get your product into the hands of your users, and maximizing your opportunities for learning.

Buy-a-Feature

Buy-a-Feature is a game-like prioritization framework used in Agile product development, in which stakeholders “buy” features they want implemented, using a limited amount of artificial money.

The Product Manager's Guide to Prioritization Frameworks

17 models to help you nail your decision making.

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Cannibalization

Product cannibalization is when a new offering from a company directly competes with its existing product portfolio, potentially reducing the original product’s sales and market share.

Continuous Delivery

Continuous delivery is a software development practice aimed at building, testing, and releasing reliable software faster and more often. The idea is to ensure that what you are working on can be deployed at any…

Continuous Discovery

Continuous discovery is the process of constantly experimenting, learning, and applying what you learn. This kind of discovery helps inform product development decisions. It focuses on what you will be building next with an emphasis…

Continuous Improvement

Continuous improvement is all about making small, smart changes regularly to keep getting better at what you do. It’s deeply rooted in Agile principles, emphasizing flexibility and quick action rather than long, drawn-out plans.

Cost of Delay

Cost of Delay is a prioritization framework used by product managers and development teams to assess the costs associated with delays in the delivery of features or products. It helps product managers to weigh their…

Customer Advisory Board (CAB)

A Customer Advisory Board is a group of hand-picked customers who meet regularly to provide feedback, suggest improvements, and discuss their needs and expectations.

Customer Churn

Customer churn, or logo churn, is the measure of how many of your customers are no longer paying for your product within a specific period. It is normally measured monthly in most SaaS companies. It…

Customer Feedback Loop

A customer feedback loop is the process of capturing feedback and using it to drive improvements to your product. This iterative loop is crucial for Product Managers who want to adapt dynamically to customer needs…

DACI

DACI stands for Driver, Approver, Contributors, and Informed – it’s a framework designed to bring structure and clarity to the decision-making process by assigning specific roles and responsibilities to the team members involved in a…

Definition of Done

Development teams often talk about the “definition of done”. It’s the term they use to describe when a piece of work is complete. It usually includes criteria like unit tests, documentation, and whatever sort of…

Design Sprint

A design sprint is a five-day process that helps answer business questions through design, prototyping, and user testing. It is a way to quickly validate if the ideas you are considering are worth moving forward,…

Dual Track Agile

Dual Track Agile is an evolution of the Agile methodology that integrates the activities of product discovery and delivery into two synchronized tracks. This method is designed to accelerate the development process and enhance product…

Eisenhower Matrix

A prioritization framework based on establishing what tasks are most important and urgent for you to do, what are either less important or urgent and which are neither and so can be safely ignored.

Epic

An epic is a large body of work that can be broken down into smaller elements, namely user stories and tasks. It is the top level of a hierarchy used in Agile product development, to…

Feature Factory

A Feature Factory is a term used to describe a software organization or team that focuses solely on shipping new features rather than delivering real value to users.

Feature Flag

A feature flag is an ability to turn features on and off in an application. Product teams can use feature flags to decide whether a feature is available for their users. It’s a way of…

General Availability (GA)

General availability (GA) is a pivotal milestone in the lifecycle of a software product - the moment you release it into the wild. When a product reaches GA, it has passed rigorous quality checks and…

GIST Framework

The GIST framework is an all-in-one approach to product planning, prioritization, and execution. It consists of four key components: Goals, Ideas, Step-Projects, and Tasks.

Goal Question Metric (GQM) Approach

The Goal Question Metric approach, or “GQM”, is an approach to software metrics that improve and measure the quality of software.

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ICE Scoring

The ICE Scoring Model is a tool for product management to assess the viability of a product or feature, utilizing three metrics: Impact, Confidence, and Ease.

Impact Mapping

Impact mapping is a visual product management planning technique that helps teams align their efforts with a clear understanding of the desired outcomes and their impact on an organization or project. It is a visual…

Incremental Innovation

Incremental innovation is a strategic approach to product development where you continuously refine your offerings through a series of small, manageable improvements.

Initiative

Product management initiatives represent a key part of your theme-based product roadmap. An initiative represents a broad piece of work that you wish to undertake and can be expressed as a problem to solve.

Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD)

The Jobs-to-be-Done framework (also called JTBD or Jobs Theory) is based on the idea that customers don’t purchase products or services based on their features or functions, but rather to fulfil a specific job or…

Kano Model

The Kano model is a prioritization framework that focuses on what will satisfy and delight your customers, and what you need to include in your product to meet their basic needs. It separates your product’s…

Lean Experimentation

Product management is all about ensuring your product solves your customer’s real-world problem. Experimentation enables teams to take an MVP and build on it, learning and prototyping as they go.

Market Requirements Document (MRD)

A market requirements document (MRD) is a detailed report that outlines the market needs and opportunities for a product. As a Product Manager, the MRD is your go-to document for understanding what the market is…

Market Validation

Market validation is the process of testing a product or service concept with the target market to determine its potential for success before a full-scale launch. It involves gathering early feedback from your potential customers…

MoSCoW Prioritization Model

The MoSCoW model is a prioritization framework used in agile project management, software development, and product management. MoSCoW stands for Must Have, Should Have, Could Have, and Won’t Have, representing the four categories to which…

MVP (Minimum Viable Product)

An MVP is the barest, minimal version of your product that is functional enough to attract early adopters. While an MVP can show value at its early stage for first adopters, the greatest benefit of…

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Objectives and Key Results (OKRs)

Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) are objectives that, if achieved, will bring measurable improvements to your product, service, company, or organization. Each objective is divided into key results which makes it easier for teams to…

Opportunity Solution Tree

The Opportunity Solution Tree (OST) is a visual framework used to systematically explore desired business outcomes, potential opportunities, and their corresponding solutions. It helps to identify the root cause of a problem, analyze possible solutions,…

Outcomes

Outcomes are the changes or benefits that happen because of what you’ve done, like launching a new feature or rolling out a product update. They’re the end game, the reason you’re doing all this work…

25 Ready-made Product OKRs

Download the ultimate collection of product OKR examples to kick-start your planning.

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Planning Poker

Planning poker is a fun and effective way for software development teams to estimate the effort or complexity of tasks, especially in Agile environments. It helps avoid the biases and inconsistencies that can mess up…

Portfolio Roadmap

A portfolio roadmap is a tool used by product managers and portfolio managers to visualize and communicate the strategic direction of a portfolio of products. It is a graphical representation that provides a high-level view…

Product

A product is any component that requires a vision, strategy, objectives, and a set of outcomes for a team to reach. This could be the actual software of the physical products your company offers, or…

Product Adoption Curve

The Product Adoption Curve is a fundamental concept in marketing and product management that demonstrates how a new product or technology is accepted and adopted by the market over time.

Product Backlog

The backlog is a list of items your team may have decided to work on. In product management, it is often recommended that you break this up into a list of potential opportunities (the product…

Product Design

Product design is the process of crafting a product from the ground up, focusing on solving user problems and providing a delightful user experience. This involves everything from the initial concept and defining the product's…

Product Differentiation

Product differentiation is what makes your product different from your competitors, both in terms of its characteristics, and the strategies you use to encourage and exploit those differences. Common methods include developing unique product features,…

Product Discovery

Product discovery is all about validating your assumptions, identifying the user problems you want to solve, and exploring potential solutions. It’s an essential phase of the product development lifecycle, focusing on understanding user needs, market…

Product Experience (PX)

Product Experience (PX) is a concept used to refer to the entire, holistic interaction and relationship a user has with a product.

Product Failure

Product failure is when a product or service introduced into the market doesn’t achieve its intended objectives or fails to meet the performance standards and expectations set by the product team.

Product Line

A product line in software development is a range of related products that are owned by one company and typically share a codebase, making for lower development costs, faster updates, and increased customer loyalty.

Product Manager

The job of a product manager is to discover market problems, and then define what should be built within their product to solve these problems. Their goal is to improve outcomes for the people who…

Product Mix

Product mix is the term used to refer to the strategic choices, composition, market positioning, and product life cycle stages that make up the entire array of products and services a business offers. It represents…

Product Onboarding

Think of product onboarding as the warm welcome your new users get when they first interact with your product. It's the initial journey you guide them through, making sure they feel at home, understand the…

Product Portfolio

A product portfolio is the umbrella term used to describe a company’s entire collection of products. For a product portfolio to be considered successful, all the products within the portfolio must be profitable and aligned…

Product Portfolio Management

Product portfolio management (PPM) is the process of orchestrating, managing, and delivering a business’s strategy across its entire product line. It’s about ensuring all the products within the portfolio collectively drive profitability and align with…

Product Requirements

Requirements are a set of documents and processes needed to move an idea forward. It usually involves running discovery, analysis, and validation of an idea – then distilling that into specs that will help your…

Product Requirements Document

A product requirements document (PRD) is usually written by a product manager and explains the purpose, requirements, specifications, and release of a product or feature you want to build. The document will serve as a…

Product Roadmap

A product roadmap is, above all, a communication tool. It is used to describe what you are working on, why you are working on it, and what the benefits of this work are. ProdPad CEO…

Product Strategy

Your product strategy is the path you will take to achieve your vision. Your strategy will often outline things like your target audience, what your objectives are, and even what marketing channels you will be…

Product Vision

Your company’s product vision is the overall idea of what the organization should be and do, and how it fits within the market as a unique offering. Often set out by the founders, it will…

Product-Market Fit

Product-market fit is the validation that your product fulfills a crucial need or solves a significant problem within its specific target market.

Proof of Concept (PoC

A proof of concept (PoC) is a mini experiment for your product – a smaller, focused test designed to validate a specific part of your solution. Instead of building everything at once, when making a…

QA Testing

Quality Assurance (QA) testing is the ongoing process of ensuring that a product meets established standards of quality and functionality. QA testing is a cornerstone in the development of any software product, aimed at detecting…

Release Planning

Release planning is how you establish the playbook for the practical execution of your product strategy. It’s a key process in product management, serving as a bridge between the strategic vision outlined in the product…

Retrospective

A retrospective, often referred to as a ‘retro’, is a structured and collaborative meeting held by product and development teams, particularly in Agile and Scrum methodologies. The purpose is to reflect on a recent period…

RICE Scoring

The RICE Scoring framework assists product managers in considering multiple factors when prioritizing features. These factors include the potential impact of a feature, the implementation effort needed, the time frame, and the personal biases of…

Roadmapping

Roadmapping is the process of creating and maintaining high-level plans and visual representations to guide the development and implementation of products, features, and technologies.

Stakeholder Management

Stakeholder management is how you identify, analyze, and prioritize your relationships with your stakeholders to effectively engage and communicate with them throughout your product’s lifecycle.

Sunk Cost

A sunk cost refers to resources that have already been spent and cannot be recovered. In Product Management, this could involve time and money allocated to research, development, or any other phase of creating a…

Technical Debt

Technical Debt, or Tech Debt, refers to the extra work that needs to be done in the future due to taking shortcuts or compromising on code quality in the present. It occurs when development teams…

Time to Value (TTV)

Time To Value (TTV) is a performance metric used when analyzing digital product engagement. It measures how long it takes a user to achieve a significant action that demonstrates the core value of your product.

User Personas

User personas are fictional representations of your test users that help your team to understand and empathize with the user for whom they’re building the product.

User Retention

User retention refers to the ability of a product or service to engage and retain users over time, ensuring continued usage and loyalty. It’s not just about attracting new users, but more importantly, keeping them…

User Story

A user story is a fundamental concept in product management, providing a clear and concise way to describe a piece of functionality from the user’s perspective. The concept is often used in Agile software development…

User Story Mapping

User Story Mapping is a visual framework used in product management that focuses on prioritizing your ideas based on user experience. It can help you to better understand your users’ needs and priorities and to…

User Testing

User Testing is part of the continuous delivery and design sprint processes. It involves evaluating products, prototypes, and mockups for real users. This helps you validate that things are moving in the right direction.

V2MOM

A strategic framework designed to streamline the process of product planning by breaking it down into five distinct yet interconnected components that, when combined, provide a comprehensive plan for achieving organizational goals.

Value Proposition

Your company’s value proposition is part of your overall strategy. It outlines the value which will be experienced by your market and the unique way in which you solve their problems.

Weighted Scoring

Weighted Scoring is a prioritization framework in which you assign numerical scores to each task or decision based on weighted factors such as market demand, effort required, or potential impact. The purpose of Weighted Scoring…

Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF)

"Weighted Shortest Job First is a prioritization technique used in product management that calculates what should be worked on first based on how quickly or easily the job can be done and how much it…

Wow Moment

A “wow moment”, also known as the “aha moment” or “value moment”, is that pivotal experience with a product where everything suddenly clicks for the user, and they get what’s great about your product.

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The Outcome

Product Management Glossary

0-9

A

A/B Testing

AARRR (Pirate Metrics)

Acceptance Criteria

Affinity Grouping

Agile

Agile Product Development

Agile Sprint

Alpha Test

API (Application Programming Interface)

B

Backlog Grooming

Beta Test

Build-Measure-Learn

Buy-a-Feature

The Product Manager's Guide to Prioritization Frameworks

C

Cannibalization

Continuous Delivery

Continuous Discovery

Continuous Improvement

Cost of Delay

Customer Advisory Board (CAB)

Customer Churn

Customer Feedback Loop

D

DACI

Definition of Done

Design Sprint

Dual Track Agile

E

Eisenhower Matrix

Epic

F

Feature Factory

Feature Flag

G

General Availability (GA)

GIST Framework

Goal Question Metric (GQM) Approach

H

I

ICE Scoring

Impact Mapping

Incremental Innovation

Initiative

J

Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD)

K

Kano Model

L

Lean Experimentation

M

Market Requirements Document (MRD)

Market Validation

MoSCoW Prioritization Model

MVP (Minimum Viable Product)

N

O

Objectives and Key Results (OKRs)

Opportunity Solution Tree

Outcomes

25 Ready-made Product OKRs

P

Planning Poker

Portfolio Roadmap

Product

Product Adoption Curve

Product Backlog

Product Design

Product Differentiation

Product Discovery

Product Experience (PX)

Product Failure

Product Line

Product Manager

Product Mix