Glossary: Product Management

Below are some key product management terms and definitions we believe product managers of all experience levels should get familiar with.

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A

A/B Test

An A/B test aims to compare the performance of two items or variations against one another. In product management, A/B tests are often used to identify the best-performing option.

Alpha Test

An alpha test is typically conducted by a product manager at the point when development is near completion. It generally occurs before any beta testing but has a similar purpose. These tests are most commonly run in the software industry.

Annual Recurring Revenue

What Is Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR)? Annual recurring revenue (ARR) refers to all ongoing revenue for a product or business,...

B

Behavioral Product Management

What is Behavioral Product Management? Behavioral product management applies behavioral science and human psychology to product design. When planning their...

Beta Test

A beta test is a widespread pre-launch distribution of a product (typically software), in which users are asked to try the product and provide feedback to help the product team improve it before general availability. If both forms of testing are deployed, beta testing occurs once alpha testing is complete.

Bill of Materials (BOM)

A bill of materials (BOM) is a complete list of the materials needed to build a product. A BOM typically lists all the parts needed in their necessary quantities.

Buyer Persona

A buyer persona is often created by product teams to describe the broad cohort of individuals who have a say in the purchasing process. This can include a number of influencers and decision makers who might not even be using the product upon purchasing. Aside from being a larger demographic, this persona will likely differ from the user persona in regards to their goals and needs.

C

Cannibalization

In product management, cannibalization is when two different products from the same company compete with one other. Product managers are often responsible for an entire line or suite of products so that cannibalization can be kept to a minimum, or avoided altogether.

Change Management

Change management is a systematic approach to supporting employees and teams as an organization transitions to new processes, tools, or initiatives.

Change Management Principles

What Are Change Management Principles? Change management principles are the guiding practices business leaders should follow to effectively manage change,...

CIRCLES Method

What is the CIRCLES Method? The CIRCLES method is a problem-solving framework that helps product managers (PMs) make a thorough...

Cross-Functional Team

A cross-functional team refers to a group which contains expertise or representation from various "functional" departments. For example, an agile cross-functional team may consist of a product manager, product owner, scrum master, engineers, QA, and design.

Customer Advisory Board

A customer advisory board is a group of customers who come together on a regular basis to share insights and advice with an organization. Usually, the members of a customer advisory board are high-level executives at their organizations and therefore can provide in-depth market insight.

Customer Development

Customer development is the portion of the Lean Startup methodology aimed at understanding the problem. This requires first fully vetting...

Customer Empathy

Customer empathy is understanding the underlying needs and feelings of customers. It goes beyond recognizing and addressing their tactical requirements...

Customer Experience

What Is Customer Experience? Customer experience refers to the totality of a customer’s encounters with a business and how those...

Customer Journey Map

Customer journey maps are visual depictions of the various touch points customers make over time when interacting with an organization. They can outline various stages and steps such as the "first touch," information-gathering process, sales interactions, buying decision etc.

D

DACI Decision-Making Framework

The DACI decision-making framework is a model designed to improve a team's effectiveness and velocity on projects, by assigning team members specific roles and responsibilities when it comes to group decisions.

Design Ops

What is design ops, and why should you make it a part of your product team’s culture? This page will...

Digital Transformation

Digital transformation is the act of revolutionizing business processes to take advantage of digital technologies, with the goal of making them more efficient, accessible, and scalable.

Disruptive Innovation

Disruptive innovation is a term coined by Clayton M. Christensen to describe any type of innovation that creates a new...

F

Feature Bloat

What is Feature Bloat? Feature bloat is a term to describe the result of packing too many features and functionalities...

Feature Factory

What is a Feature Factory? In product management lingo, feature factory is typically a derogatory term. It describes a business...

Feature Flag

What is a Feature Flag? A feature flag refers to a team’s ability to turn a feature or functionality “on”...

Feature Kickoff

What is a Product Feature Kickoff? A product feature kickoff is a meeting in which a product manager and relevant...

Features

What are Features? Features are a product’s traits or attributes that deliver value to end-users and differentiate a product in...

H

Hook Model

What is the Hook Model? The Hook Model is a four-phase process that businesses can use to create products or...

I

Idea Management

What is Idea Management? Idea management is a structured approach to generating and evaluating ideas that could help improve an...

Information Flows in Product Management

What is the Definition of Information Flows in Product Management? The success of any product depends on coordination among several...

Iterative Testing

What Is Iterative Testing? Iterative testing refers to making small, gradual changes or updates to a product based on insights...

M

Market Requirements Document (MRD)

A market requirements document, or an MRD, is a strategic document written by a product manager to help define the market’s requirements or demand for a specific product. An MRD typically contains information on the product’s vision, the competitive landscape, a business analysis and revenue opportunity, as well as a list of features or at least high-level feature categories.

Method of Procedure

What is a Method of Procedure? A method of procedure (MOP) is a step-by-step guideline for completing a project. Think...

Minimum Viable Feature (MVF)

What Is a Minimum Viable Feature? A Minimum Viable Feature (or MVF) is a small-scale feature that can quickly be...

Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

An MVP, or minimum viable product, represents the earliest stage in the product’s development cycle at which the company believes it has enough features to attract early-adopter customers and validate an idea. In industries such as software, or for companies with limited funding, the MVP can help the product team receive user feedback as quickly as possible, which they can use to iterate and improve the product.

P

Pendo

What Is Pendo? Pendo is a product-analytics app built to help software companies develop products that resonate with customers. The...

Persona

In product management, a persona is a profile of a product’s typical user. Personas are used to help a product manager (and others in the organization involved with the product’s development) understand key traits, behaviors, goals, responsibilities, and needs of a specific type of user. Product managers often document various personas, such as buyer personas, customer personas, and decision-maker personas, to better understand how to meet the needs of these constituencies.

PERT Chart

What Is a PERT Chart? A PERT chart is a visual project management tool used to map out and track...

Product Architecture

What is Product Architecture? Product architecture is the organization (or chunking) of a product’s functional elements. It’s the ways these...

Product Brief

What is a Product Brief? A product brief, or product spec, defines a product’s goals, attributes, and overall direction. It...

Product Design

Product design describes the process of imagining, creating, and iterating products that solve users’ problems or address specific needs in a given market.

Product Differentiation

What is Product Differentiation? Product differentiation is a process used by businesses to distinguish a product or service from other...

Product Enablement

What is Product Enablement? Product enablement helps employees at large companies gain relevant product knowledge. The term takes its name...

Product Leadership

What Is Product Leadership? Product leadership can describe several management-level roles with responsibility for the success of the company’s products....

Product Lifecycle

The product lifecycle model breaks down the various stages of a product’s evolution, from its debut to its retirement. Each phase comes with its own characteristics, demands, and challenges.

Product Management Audit

A product management audit is a complete, objective review of a company's product strategy and product management processes. Each aspect of the product strategy and process is numerically rated to identify areas of weakness that would benefit from improvement, as well as any areas that are completely lacking.

Product Ops

Product ops, or product operations, is a relatively new discipline somewhat similar to marketing ops. Product ops builds a foundation for excellence by reinforcing product strategy with metrics, infrastructure, business processes, best practices, budgeting, and reporting. In short, product ops teams serve to support the product team and help build better products.

Product Portfolio Manager

What Is a Product Portfolio Manager? A product portfolio manager (PPM) strategically oversees all of the products in a business’s...

Product Requirements Document

A product requirements document (PRD) is an artifact used in the product development process to communicate what capabilities must be included in a product release to the development and testing teams. This document is typically used more in “waterfall” environments where product definition, design and delivery happen sequentially, but may be used in an “agile” setting as well.

Product Requirements Management

What is Product Requirements Management? Product requirements management is the ongoing process of overseeing the implementation of all requirements needed...

Product Stack

What is a Product Stack? A product stack refers to the apps, technologies, and other resources product managers use to...

Program Management

What is Program Management? Program Management is an organizational function that oversees a group of individual projects linked together through...

Q

Quality Function Deployment (QFD)

Quality Function Deployment, or QFD, is a model for product development and production popularized in Japan in the 1960's. The model aids in translating customer needs and expectations into technical requirements by listening to the voice of customer.

R

Rational Product Management

What is Rational Product Management? Rational product management is a unifying process for product development. Based on the rational development...

Refactoring

Refactoring is the process by which development teams clean up a codebase or change the internal structure of a piece of software to improve it. Refactoring is intended to not make any noticeable impact on the user's end, but can make it easier for development teams to continue working on the code and adding new functionalities in the future.

Release Management

What Is Release Management? Release management is one of those modern business terms that has several meanings. For IT departments,...

Release Notes

What Is a Release Note? A release note refers to the technical documentation produced and distributed alongside the launch of...

Release Plan

What is a Release Plan? Definition: A release plan is a tactical document designed to capture and track the features...

S

Scope Creep

What is Scope Creep? Scope creep is the phenomenon in which a team’s initial plan—the scope of work it agreed...

SMART Goal Setting

What is SMART goal setting? SMART framework provides the framework for setting clear, attainable goals in project management. The acronym...

Stakeholder

What are Stakeholders? Stakeholders are individuals (or groups) that can either impact the success and execution of a product or...

Stakeholder Analysis

A stakeholder analysis is the process of identifying stakeholders before a project begins; grouping them according to their levels of participation, interest, and influence in the project; and determining how best to involve and communicate each of these stakeholder groups throughout.

SWOT Analysis

A SWOT analysis is a planning framework that a business can use to identify a strategic endeavor’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The term SWOT is an acronym for these four factors.In a SWOT analysis, a project’s (or product’s) strengths and weaknesses are internal factors. Strengths might include the company’s domain expertise or intellectual property. Weaknesses might include missing skillsets or a lack of budget. Opportunities and threats, by contrast, are external and refer to competition, the market, or changing trends that could affect the company.

T

Technical Debt

Technical debt describes what results when development teams take actions to expedite the delivery of a piece of functionality or a project which later need to be refactored. In other words, it's the result of prioritizing speedy delivery over perfect code.

The User Is Drunk

What Is “The User Is Drunk”? “The User is Drunk” is a product management and UX design concept that emphasizes...

Total Addressable Market (TAM)

Total Addressable Market (TAM) refers to the maximum size of the opportunity for a particular product or solution.

U

Usability Testing

What is Usability Testing? Usability testing is a technique to evaluate how easy or difficult users find a company’s product....

Use Case

What is a Use Case? Definition: A use case is a hypothetical (but plausible) scenario showing how a product’s user...

User Experience

User Experience refers to the feeling users experience when using a product, application, system, or service. It is a broad term which can cover anything from how well the user can navigate the product, how easy it is to use, how relevant the content displayed is etc.

User Interface

A user interface, or UI, is any part of a product or system which the end user interacts with. Users...

User Persona

A user persona is a composite biography (or series of biographies) drafted based on market research and experience to describe...

User Research

User research is the discipline of learning about users’ needs and thought processes by studying how they perform tasks, observing how they interact with a product, or by using other data-driven strategies.

V

Voice of Customer (VoC)

Voice of customer, or VoC, refers broadly to the various processes by which organizations gather feedback from their customers. It...

W

Waterfall

What Is the Waterfall Method? Waterfall is a long-term product development method characterized by linear sequential phases for planning, building,...

Wireframe

What Is a Wireframe? A wireframe is a basic, two-dimensional visual representation of a web page, app interface, or product...

Working Backwards (the Amazon Method)

What Is the Amazon Working Backwards Method? The Amazon working backward method is a product development approach that starts with...