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...
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Check out our glossary of common product management terms and definitions.
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...
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What is AARRR Pirate Metrics? AARRR Pirate Metrics framework is an acronym for a set of five user-behavior metrics that product-led growth businesses should...
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In agile methodologies, acceptance criteria refers to a set of predefined requirements that must be met in order to mark a user story complete....
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What is an acceptance test? Learn more about acceptance testing and other agile practices and terminology in our agile glossary.
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What is an Action Priority Matrix? An action priority matrix is a diagram that helps people determine which tasks to focus on, and in...
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Adaptive Software Development (ASD) is a direct outgrowth of an earlier agile framework, Rapid Application Development (RAD). It aims to enable teams to quickly...
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An affinity diagram helps teams visualize and review large amounts of information by grouping items into categories. This post discusses why affinity diagrams are...
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Affinity grouping can be used as a collaborative prioritization activity. It works by having a group of participants brainstorm ideas and opportunities on Post-It...
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Agile is an iterative product-development methodology in which teams work in brief, incremental “sprints,” and then regroup frequently to review the work and make...
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An agile framework is one of many documented software-development approaches based on the agile philosophy articulated in the Agile Manifesto.
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The Agile Manifesto is a brief document built on 4 values and 12 principles for agile software development. The Agile Manifesto was published in...
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There are 12 agile principles outlined in The Agile Manifesto in addition to the 4 agile values. These 12 principles for agile software development help...
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What is an Agile Product Owner? In an agile organization, the product owner is responsible for prioritizing and overseeing the development team’s tasks and...
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What is an agile release train? An Agile Release Train (ART) is a feature of the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe). It is a long-term,...
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Agile transformation is the process of transitioning an entire organization to a nimble, reactive approach based on agile principles. Understanding agile transformation begins with...
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Agile Values refers to the set of 4 values outlined by the Agile Alliance in The Agile Manifesto. This set of values encourages putting...
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An alpha test is typically conducted by a product manager at the point when development is near completion. It generally occurs before any beta...
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What Is Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR)? Annual recurring revenue (ARR) refers to all ongoing revenue for a product or business, projected over one year....
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Backlog grooming, also referred to as backlog refinement or story time, is a recurring event for agile product development teams. The primary purpose of...
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What is Behavioral Product Management? Behavioral product management applies behavioral science and human psychology to product design. When planning their products, behavioral product managers...
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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...
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A bill of materials (BOM) is a complete list of the materials needed to build a product. A BOM typically lists all the parts...
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Product managers can use bubble sort to arrange a string of initiatives in the correct order based on prioritization scores.
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What is Bucket Sort? Bucket Sort is a sorting technique that places items in buckets, or categories. These items are then prioritized or ranked...
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What is a burndown chart and how are they used? Learn more about burndown charts and other terminology in our product management glossary.
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What is Business Agility? Business agility applies the principles of agile development to the entire organization. This allows companies to be more responsive to...
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Business Intelligence (BI), is a method of compiling, analyzing and interpreting business data to make better-informed decisions. BI data is typically compiled through extensive...
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A business model canvas is a one-page summary describing the high-level strategic details needed to get a business (or product) successfully to market. The...
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What is Business Transformation? Business transformation is an umbrella term for making fundamental changes in how a business or organization runs. This includes personnel,...
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Buy-a-Feature is one of many prioritization frameworks product managers can use. It's commonly used to help organizations identify the features that customers and key...
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A buyer persona is often created by product teams to describe the broad cohort of individuals who have a say in the purchasing process....
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What is product cannibalization? Learn more about cannibalization and other product management terminology in our resources library.
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What is a Certified Product Manager? A certified product manager is a PM who has completed an education program from a product industry organization....
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What Is Change Enablement? Change enablement, called change management, refers to providing people with the necessary information and support–alongside tools, processes, and strategies– to...
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Learn how change management refers to a systematic approach to supporting employees and teams through transitions to new processes or tools.
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What Are Change Management Principles? Change management principles are the guiding practices business leaders should follow to effectively manage change, transitions, and disruptions within...
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A channel of distribution is the method a company uses to get a product or service into the hands of a consumer as efficiently...
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What is a Chief Product Officer? A chief product officer (CPO) is a corporate title referring to an executive who leads the entire product...
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Churn is a measurement of the percentage of accounts that cancel or choose not to renew their subscriptions. A high churn rate can negatively...
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What is the CIRCLES Method? The CIRCLES method is a problem-solving framework that helps product managers (PMs) make a thorough and thoughtful response to...
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What is Competitive Intelligence? Competitive intelligence is defined as data-driven insight into the competitive landscape of your target market. Consequently, it breaks down where...
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What is competitive landscape? The term refers to the list of options a customer could choose rather than your product.
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What is a concept review? The term refers to the initial idea for a new product or feature and its implementation.
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In software product development, continuous delivery (CD) is the successful execution of continuous deployment. Whereas continuous deployment aims to reduce the amount of time...
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In software product development, continuous deployment refers to a strategy that aims to reduce the amount of time between writing code and pushing it...
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What Is Continuous Improvement? Continuous improvement is a company culture that encourages all employees to look for ways to enhance the business’s operations. This...
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Continuous integration or CI, refers to an engineering practice that is said to help automate certain pieces of work and identify bugs early in...
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Cost of delay (CoD) is a prioritization framework that helps a business quantify the economic value of completing a project sooner as opposed to...
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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...
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What is the Crystal Method? Crystal is an agile framework focusing on individuals and their interactions, as opposed to processes and tools. In other...
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Customer Acquisition Cost, or CAC, measures how much you’re spending to acquire new customers. Analyzing CAC in conjunction with LTV or MRR is a...
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A customer advisory board is a group of customers who come together on a regular basis to share insights and advice with an organization....
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Customer development is the portion of the Lean Startup methodology aimed at understanding the problem. This requires first fully vetting the opportunity and validating...
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Customer empathy is understanding the underlying needs and feelings of customers. It goes beyond recognizing and addressing their tactical requirements and puts things into...
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What Is Customer Experience? Customer experience refers to the totality of a customer’s encounters with a business and how those interactions make the person...
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What is customer feedback? Customer feedback is information from those who buy and use your product. Moreover, product managers, designers, marketers, and salespeople, depend...
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Customer journey maps are visual depictions of the various touch points customers make over time when interacting with an organization. They can outline various...
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Captive product pricing is a pricing strategy to attract a large volume of customers to purchase a core product once that has accessories.
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What Is Customer Validation? Customer validation is an essential phase of the product development process (i.e., the steps needed to take a product from...
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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...
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What is a daily scum? Daily scrums are quick meetings held each day for the members of the product development team working on a...
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A data product manager focuses on collecting, organizing, storing, and sharing product management data within an organization.
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A DEEP Backlog is one of the suggested objectives of a product backlog grooming session. DEEP is an acronym used to indicate a few key...
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In the Scrum agile framework, Definition of Done describes the requirements that must be met in order for a story to be considered complete....
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Definition of Ready describes the requirements that must be met in order for a story to move from the backlog to development. In keeping...
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In project management, a dependency describes a relationship between two initiatives that must be executed in a particular order. If Initiative A is dependent...
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Dependency management is the process of tracking and minimizing disruptions between dependencies. Effective dependency management can reduce risks and increase the likelihood that your...
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In product management, a design concept is a short description of the idea behind a planned product.
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What is design ops, and why should you adapt it for your culture? Learn the basics of design ops and how to incorporate it...
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Design thinking is a framework for innovation based on viewing problems or needs from the user’s perspective. Because this human-centered approach demands a thorough...
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DevOps combines traditional software development and IT operations into a unified framework, merging coding, testing, packaging, integration, deployment, and monitoring into a single overarching...
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What Is a Digital Product Manager? A product manager is responsible for driving the development of products to market success. A digital product manager...
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Digital transformation refers to the trend where businesses use digital technologies to enhance and replace existing business processes.
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What is Disciplined Agile? Disciplined Agile (DA), is a process decision framework that puts individuals first and offers only lightweight guidance to help teams...
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Disruptive innovation is a term coined by Clayton M. Christensen to describe any type of innovation that creates a new industry, market, or business...
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Distinctive competence refers to a superior characteristic, strength, or quality that distinguishes a company from its competitors. This distinctive quality can be just about...
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Explore how to document a product roadmap to help align your product team to meet their OKRs and develop a clear go-to-market plan.
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Dual-track agile is where the cross-functional product team breaks its daily development work into two tracks: discovery and delivery.
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The Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM) is an agile framework that addresses the entire project lifecycle and its impact on the business. Like the...
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What is the Eisenhower Matrix? The Eisenhower Matrix is a productivity, prioritization, and time-management framework designed to help you prioritize a list of tasks...
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What Is the End-User Era? The end-user era refers to a new trend in how businesses buy software. The decisions about which enterprise applications...
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The engineering backlog lists and prioritizes the stories, epics, and/or initiatives that are to be worked on by the engineering team for a given...
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What is Enterprise Architecture? Enterprise architecture is a strategic and comprehensive blueprint for how IT infrastructure will be used across an organization to help...
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What is an Enterprise Architecture Roadmap? An enterprise architecture roadmap is a strategic blueprint that communicates how a company’s IT plans will help the...
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What is enterprise feedback management? Enterprise feedback management (EFM) describes the processes and software used to collect and manage customer feedback at an enterprise-level...
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What Is Enterprise Transformation? Enterprise transformation refers to a fundamental change in the way a business operates. Consequently, this could include a change to...
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An epic, like a theme, is typically a group of features or stories with a common strategic goal. Note that an epic is one...
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What is eXtreme Programming? eXtreme Programming (XP) is an agile framework that emphasizes both the broader philosophy of agile—to produce higher-quality software to please...
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A feature audit is an exercise to give a product team a visual snapshot of how many customers use each feature in the product,...
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What is Feature Bloat? Feature bloat is a term to describe the result of packing too many features and functionalities into a product. Usually,...
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What is feature creep? Learn more about feature creeep and other product management terminology in our resources library.
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What is Feature Driven Development? (FDD) Feature Driven Development (FDD) is an agile framework that, as its name suggests, organizes software development around making...
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What is a Feature Factory? In product management lingo, feature factory is typically a derogatory term. It describes a business focused on building features...
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A feature flag refers to a team’s ability to turn a feature or functionality “on” or “off” at their discretion. Feature flags help a...
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A product feature kickoff is a meeting in which a product manager and stakeholders set plans, goals, and responsibilities for a new feature.
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How can your team be more outcome focused? Transition to a feature-less roadmap to ship initiatives that provide real user value.
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What Is a Feature Outcome Assessment? A feature outcome assessment focuses on specific, measurable outcomes rather than product features. Why Is It Important for...
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What is a feature release? Whereas a product release is focused on the introduction of an entirely new offering to the market, the term...
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What are product features? Learn more about product features and other product management terminology in our resources library.
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What is feedback management? Feedback management collects user feedback to identify opportunities to improve a product or service. Product teams who regularly listen to...
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Fibonacci agile estimation refers to using this sequence as the scoring scale when estimating the effort of agile development tasks.
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What is a finance product manager? Like a product manager in any other industry, a finance product manager is responsible for the success of...
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A fundamentally new product gives customers the ability to do something that no existing product can.
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A Gantt chart, or harmonogram, is a bar chart that graphically illustrates a schedule for planning, coordinating, and tracking specific tasks related to a...
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What is General Availability? General Availability (GA) is the release of a product to the general public. When a product reaches GA, it becomes...
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GIST planning is to only build products and solutions with the objectives of the organization in mind. So how can you use GIST planning?
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What is a Go-to-Market Strategy? A go-to-market strategy is a tactical plan detailing how a company plans to execute a successful product release and...
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Goal-Question-Metrics (GQMs) is a strategic framework used to define goals, ask relevant questions, and improve metrics. GQMs empower product managers to clarify purpose, align...
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A greenfield project can describe any project that a team starts from scratch. Learn the pros and common pitfalls of a greenfield project.
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What Is a Group Product Manager? A group product manager (GPM) is a product leader who manages the product team responsible for a particular...
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Learn what growth product managers do, how they are centric to product-led growth and what success looks like for a growth product manager.
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The HEART framework is a methodology to improve the user experience (UX) of software. The framework helps a company evaluate any aspect of its...
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What is the Hook Model? The Hook Model is a four-phase process that businesses can use to create products or services used habitually by...
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The ICE Scoring Model is a relatively quick way to assign a numerical value to different potential projects or ideas to prioritize them based...
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An idea backlog is a list of ideas that need more discussion or vetting before a product team can decide whether to move forward...
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Idea management is a structured approach to generating and evaluating ideas that could help improve an organization’s bottom line.
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What is ideation? Ideation is an intentional exercise to generate a high volume of ideas for a business’s products, services, and customer experience. Unlike...
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Impact Mapping is a graphic strategy planning method to decide which features to build into a product. As it begins with the intended goal...
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Implicit requirements are features and characteristics of the product experience that customers will expect. This post discusses examples of implicit requirements and how they...
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What is in-app messaging? Learn more about in-app messaging and other product management terminology in our resources library.
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What is incident management practice? Incident management practice is the process of identifying and resolving unplanned incidents (often referred to as major incidents by...
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What Is Incremental Innovation? Incremental innovation refers to a series of small-scale improvements made to an existing product or service to add or sustain...
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Information flows in product management is a two-step process for creating a shared understanding of product strategy.
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What is information technology? Information technology (IT) is the hardware and software used to create, store, transmit, manipulate, and display information and data. Metaphorically,...
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What is innovation management? There are many definitions of innovation management. At its core, innovation management is the process of putting something new into...
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Intuitive design refers to making products easy to use. In this post, we’ll discuss why intuitive design is important and how to do it.
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IoT (internet of things) product managers are product professionals who are responsible for products that connect to the internet. The role is in a...
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What is IT Management? Information Technology (IT) management is the monitoring and administration of an organization’s information technology systems and resources. The department manages...
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What Is an IT Project Manager? An IT project manager oversees complex projects involving a company’s IT infrastructure. Examples include installing computer hardware, setting...
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What is an iteration? An iteration is a set amount of time (typically 1-2 weeks) reserved for development in agile software development.
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Learn the definition and best practices of iterative testing. Discover the 6 reasons product managers need to conduct iterative testing.
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What Is Jira? Jira is a software application developed by the Australian software company Atlassian that allows teams to track issues, manage projects, and...
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The jobs-to-be-done framework is an approach to developing products based on understanding both the customer’s specific goal, or “job,” and the thought processes that...
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A kanban board is a type of workflow that is commonly used to manage initiatives in project management. Kanban boards can be found in...
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What is a Kanban Roadmap? Learn how a Kanban roadmap can help product managers leverage the Kanban methodology in their strategic planning.
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The Kano Model is one of many prioritization frameworks designed to help product teams prioritize initiatives. Kano can help teams determine which features will...
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Key performance indicators (KPIs) are quantitative metrics organizations use to analyze and track progress toward business objectives.
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What Is a Lead Product Manager? A lead product manager is a position that has different responsibilities in different companies. Three of the most...
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What is Lean Software Development (LSD)? Lean Software Development (LSD) is an agile framework based on optimizing development time and resources, eliminating waste, and...
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Large scale Scrum (LeSS) is a scaled-up version of the traditional, one-team Scrum. LeSS uses many principles of the Scrum agile framework but with...
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Lifetime Value (LTV) is an estimate of how much revenue an account will bring in over its lifetime. LTV, when used alongside an efficiency...
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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...
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What is Market Validation? Market validation is the process of presenting a concept for a product to its target market and learn from those...
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What is a Method of Procedure? A method of procedure (MOP) is a step-by-step guideline for completing a project. Think of it as a...
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What Is a Minimum Viable Experience (MVE)? In product management, “minimum viable” refers to something the team believes it can release to the market...
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What is a minimum viable feature? Learn more about more product management terminology in our resources library.
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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...
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A mockup is a realistic visual representation of a product. In this post, we’ll discuss the role of mockups in product management and explain...
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Monthly recurring revenue (MRR) is a calculation of revenue generation by month and conveys an up-to-date measurement of financial health.
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What is MoSCoW Prioritization? MoSCoW prioritization, also known as the MoSCoW method or MoSCoW analysis, is a popular prioritization technique for managing requirements. The...
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Needfinding is a unique research process that product teams use to identify a market need before building a product. In this post, we’ll discuss...
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What is a Net Promoter Score? A net promoter score is a method of using a single survey question to gauge customer satisfaction with...
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What are Objectives and Key Results? OKRs are a management strategy that sets up business objectives and measurable outcomes for alignment.
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Product teams use opportunity scoring as one of several popular strategies for prioritizing features on a product roadmap.
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What is an Opportunity Solution Tree? An Opportunity Solution Tree (OST) is a visual aid that helps enable the product discovery process through the...
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Pair programming is an agile software development practice in which two programmers team up at one workstation to maximize efficiency. With pair programming, one...
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What Is Pair Programming? Pair programming is a practice in agile software development where two programmers share a workstation. This includes a single computer....
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What Is the PDCA Cycle? The PDCA cycle is a project management framework that businesses can use to implement incremental change. PDCA stands for...
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What Is Pendo? Pendo is a product-analytics app built to help software companies develop products that resonate with customers. The app allows software makers...
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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...
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What Is a PERT Chart? A PERT chart is a visual project management tool used to map out and track the tasks and timelines....
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What is a product pivot? Learn more about product pivots and other product management terminology in our resources library.
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Planning poker (also called Scrum poker) helps agile teams estimate the time and effort needed to complete each initiative on their product backlog.
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What is a Platform Product Manager? A Platform Product Manager (PM), is one of the most challenging roles in product management. They are responsible...
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Prioritization is the process by which a set of items are ranked in order of importance. In product management, initiatives that live in the...
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A problem statement describes a specific issue or opportunity in the market. It is crafted to guide focused efforts in finding solutions. For product...
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What is Product Adoption? Learn more about product adoption and other product management terminology in our resources library.
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What are Product Analytics? The term product analytics refers to capturing and analyzing quantitative data through embedded tools that record how users interact with...
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What is Product Architecture? Product architecture is the organization (or chunking) of a product’s functional elements. It’s the ways these elements, or chunks, interact....
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What is a product backlog? It lists and prioritizes task-level details required to execute the strategic plan detailed on a product roadmap.
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A product brief is an effective tool for product development. Read more to learn how how to write a successful product brief.
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Product-centric describes a company focused on the details of its products above other considerations, including its customers’ needs.
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What is product consolidation and how can it affect your team? Learn how product consolidation can create a better user experience.
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A product council is a group of stakeholders that meets regularly to review the strategy and progress of a product.
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What is a Product Critique A product critique objectively analyzes a product’s functionality, design, and user experience. A product critique aims to understand if...
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What is Product Design? Product design describes the process of imagining, creating, and iterating products that solve users’ problems.
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A product designer is responsible for the user experience of a product, usually taking direction on the business goals and objectives from product management....
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What Is the Product Development Cycle? The product development cycle is the process of taking a product from an idea through its market release...
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What is a Product Development Manager? A Product Development Manager (PDM)—often a software engineer, QA tester, or UX designer—is responsible for identifying new opportunities...
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What Is the Product Development Process? The product development process encompasses all steps needed to take a product from concept to market availability. This...
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What is Product Differentiation? Product differentiation is a process used by businesses to distinguish a product or service from other similar ones available in...
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Product discovery helps product teams decide which features or products to prioritize and build. Learn the 7 steps to implement this process.
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What is a Product Disruptor? A product disruptor is an innovation that represents a change in a product’s direction, business model, or value proposition....
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What is Product Enablement? Product enablement helps employees at large companies gain relevant product knowledge. The term takes its name from sales enablement, the...
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Product excellence is a customer-focused framework for developing a significant products or features and getting it to market quickly.
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What is a Product Launch? A product launch refers to a business’s planned and coordinated effort to debut a new product to the market...
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What is Product Launch Management? Product launch management is the process of coordinating all strategic efforts needed for a successful market release. Product launch...
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What is a Product Launch Manager? A product launch manager coordinates all efforts across the company related to releasing new products to the market....
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Product launch timelines visually represent the project plan to successfully release new products. The goal of the timeline is to ensure a successful product...
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What Is Product Leadership? Product leadership can describe several management-level roles with responsibility for the success of the company’s products. The purpose of a...
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Just as a farmer can’t grow a thriving, highly productive garden without fertile, nutrient-rich soil, it’s not possible to have a successful product-led organization...
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What Is Product-Led Growth? Product-led growth is a business strategy in which a company uses its product as the main tool to acquire customers....
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What is a company if not a vehicle for delivering products that meet customer needs? Whether that product is a software application, a physical...
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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...
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What is a product management audit? Learn more about the purpose of a product management audit and how to conduct your own
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A product management platform is a tool that helps companies plan, develop, and launch products. A product management platform can give teams the ability...
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Product leaders are responsible for discovering and recruiting the right people for the product team. To do so, they need to seek out product...
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A product manager drives the development of products, and is ultimately responsible for the success of those products. Product managers are information gatherers, defining...
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Product-market fit describes a scenario in which a company's target customers are buying, using, and telling others about the company's product in numbers large...
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A product marketing manager’s (PMM) primary responsibility is to communicate the product’s value to the market. A PMM’s responsibilities could include training the sales...
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What Are Product Metrics? Product metrics, sometimes called key performance indicators, are quantifiable data points that an organization tracks and analyzes to gauge a...
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A product's mission plays a key role in distilling the "why" of a product. Here are 10 steps to craft your mission.
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What is a Product Mix Strategy? A successful product mix strategy enables a company to focus efforts and resources on the products and product...
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What is product onboarding? Learn more about product onboarding and other product management terminology in our resources library.
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Product ops, or product operations, is a relatively new discipline somewhat similar to marketing ops. Product ops builds a foundation for excellence by reinforcing...
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What is product optimization? Product optimization is the process of refining a product to make it more valuable to current users.
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The product owner bridges the gap between product strategy and development. They are usually responsible for the product backlog, organizing sprints, and are expected...
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What is Product Planning? Product Planning is researching, making decisions, and taking action to develop a successful product. Consequently, the result is a clear...
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Product portfolio management refers to the practice of managing an organization’s entire product portfolio, which consists of all the products the organization has. A...
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What Is a Product Portfolio Manager? A product portfolio manager (PPM) strategically oversees all of the products in a business’s portfolio and ensures alignment...
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What Is Product Positioning? Product positioning is the process of deciding and communicating how you want your market to think and feel about your...
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What is the Product Process Matrix? The product process matrix merges the product lifecycle, which encompasses all aspects of the product development process—from ideation...
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Product profitability refers to how much money a product makes minus what it costs to build, sell, and support it.
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A product requirements document (PRD) is an artifact used in the product development process to communicate what capabilities must be included in a product...
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Product requirements management is the ongoing process of overseeing the requirements needed to deliver a product to the market.
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What is product sense? Learn more about product sense and other product management terminology in our resource library!
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What Is a Product Specification? A Product Specification, commonly referred to as a product spec, is an important product document that outlines key requirements...
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What is a Product Stack? A product stack refers to the apps, technologies, and other resources product managers use to bring their products to...
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A Product Strategist identifies new opportunities, assesses the company’s product performance, and helps develop its long-term strategic plans for future product lines. This distinguishes...
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What is Product Strategy? Learn more about product strategy and get a free template to effectively guide your own strategy.
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A product strategy framework is a high-level plan of what a product team hopes to accomplish in a given timeframe.
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What is product tree prioritization? Learn more about product tree prioritization, its benefits, and other product management terminology in our resources library.
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A product vision, or product vision statement, describes the overarching long-term mission of your product. Vision statements are aspirational and communicate concisely where the...
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What is Product Vulnerability? A product vulnerability also referred to as a security vulnerability, is defined as an exploitable glitch, weakness, or flaw found...
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What is Program Management? Program Management is an organizational function that oversees a group of individual projects linked together through a shared organizational goal...
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A program manager coordinates the interdependencies among projects, products, and other important strategic initiatives across an organization. This role requires one to focus closely...
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A project manager oversees many of the logistical aspects of the product development process. They differ from product managers in that they oversee the...
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Project roadmaps provide a strategic overview of the major elements of a project. A project roadmap should include a project’s objectives, milestones, deliverables, resources,...
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What is the Definition of Product? Ask a few people that question, and their specific answers will vary, but they’ll all probably describe it...
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What is quality assurance vs. quality control? Learn how QA helps a business ensure its products meet the standards set by the company.
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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...
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What is Rapid Application Development (RAD)? Rapid Application Development is an agile framework focused primarily on rapid prototyping of software products, frequently iterating based...
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Rapid experimentation is an agile approach to the product development process. With this approach, frequent experiments are deployed in an attempt to discover new,...
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Rapid prototyping is an agile strategy used throughout the product development process. With this approach, 3-dimensional prototypes of a product or feature are created...
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What is Rational Product Management? Rational product management is a unifying process for product development. Based on the rational development process used by the...
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Refactoring is the process by which development teams clean up a codebase or change the internal structure of a piece of software to improve...
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What is a Release Demo? Definition: A release demo is typically given by agile teams at the end of a sprint. These demos are...
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What Is Release Management? Release management is one of those modern business terms that has several meanings. For IT departments, the term describes overseeing...
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What Is a Release Note? A release note refers to the technical documentation produced and distributed alongside the launch of a new software product...
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What is a Release Plan? Definition: A release plan is a tactical document designed to capture and track the features planned for an upcoming...
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What Is Retention? Customer retention refers to a company’s or product’s ability to retain customers over time. If a company or product has high...
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Why is the retention rate so important? It is used to determine the percentage of customers who continue paying for a product over time.
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A retrospective is a meeting held after a product ships to discuss what happened during the product development and release process, with the goal...
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The RICE scoring model is a framework designed to help product managers determine which products, features, and other initiatives to prioritize on their roadmaps...
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What is a Roadmap? Definition: A roadmap is a high-level strategic document that is created and maintained to communicate the strategic vision and objectives...
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Roadmap milestones are dates signaling events or deadlines the team needs to be aware of. Learn our two recommended roadmap milestones tips.
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What is the Roadmap Revolution? A roadmap revolution is a complete re-evaluation of a product roadmap, commonly conducted at the beginning of the year....
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What Is a Roadmapping Tool? A roadmap is a strategic blueprint that captures and communicates the basic plan and goals for a project. A...
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What is the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)? The Scaled Agile Framework, or SAFe, is an agile framework developed for development teams. Most importantly, SAFE’s...
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What is Scope Creep? Scope creep is the phenomenon in which a team’s initial plan—the scope of work it agreed to complete—slowly grows to...
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What is Scrum Agile Framework? In an agile context, Scrum is an approach to project management. Typically the Scrum agile framework favors moving projects...
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A scrum master is a facilitator for an agile team working under the scrum methodology. The scrum master serves as a point person responsible...
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What Is a Scrum Meeting? Scrum is an agile framework that teams use to produce products faster by breaking large development projects into smaller...
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What Is Scrumban? Scrumban is a project management framework that combines important features of two popular agile methodologies: Scrum and Kanban. The Scrumban framework...
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What is Service Transformation? Service transformation refers to the process of expanding an organization’s focus to include new service offerings in addition to their...
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What is Shadow IT? Shadow IT is a catch-all for any technology used within a corporate environment. The use of the technology typically outside...
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What is the Shape Up Method? The Shape Up Method describes the specific processes used by product development teams to shape, bet, and build...
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What is a Shipyard Engine? A shipyard engine describes a product team’s process to keep its organization informed about the frequent updates the team...
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What is SMART goal setting? The SMART framework provides the framework for setting clear, attainable goals in project management. The acronym stands for Specific,...
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What is an Agile Sprint? In agile methodology, a sprint is a period (e.g., 14 days) in which an agreed-upon set of development tasks...
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What is a Sprint Backlog? A sprint backlog is the set of items that a cross-functional product team selects from its product backlog to...
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What is a sprint goal? Learn how sprint goals play a role in the product development process and discover related topics in our glossary.
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What is Sprint Planning? In the Scrum agile framework, a sprint planning meeting is an event that establishes the product development goal and plan...
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What are Stakeholders? Stakeholders are individuals (or groups) that can either impact the success and execution or are impacted by a product. The first...
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A stakeholder analysis is the process of identifying stakeholders before a project begins; grouping them according to their levels of participation, interest, and influence...
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Stakeholder management refers to identifying, prioritizing, and engaging stakeholders throughout the product development process.
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What is a Standup? A daily standup is a quick session where each member of the team shares what they accomplished yesterday, what they’ll...
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What is Story Mapping? Story mapping is a method for arranging user stories to create a more holistic view of how they fit into...
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What is a Story Point? A story point is a unit of measurement used by development teams to estimate the amount of effort required...
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Learn how story points can help teams create a shared understanding about the overall effort each task will take.
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A sunk cost is an investment that can’t be recovered. Examples of sunk costs in business include marketing, research, new software installation or equipment,...
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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...
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What are the 4 Ds of Time Management? The 4 Ds of time management, sometimes referred to as the 4 Ds of productivity, is...
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Technical debt describes what results when development teams take actions to expedite the delivery of a piece of functionality or a project which later...
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A technical product manager (PM) is a product manager with a strong technical background that is typically focused on the more technical aspects of...
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What Is “The User Is Drunk”? “The User is Drunk” is a product management and UX design concept that emphasizes designing products or websites...
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What Is a Theme? In product management, a theme is a high-level goal or plan for the product. The theme sits at the top...
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What Is a Timeline Roadmap? A timeline roadmap serves several strategic purposes. First, it communicates the priority order of a team’s initiatives based on...
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What is a Top-Down Product Strategy? Definition: A top-down product strategy is one where high-level objectives and a long-term vision are defined first and...
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Total Addressable Market (TAM) refers to the maximum size of the opportunity for a particular product or solution.
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What is Tribe Model Management? Tribe model management is part of an agile scaling strategy first used to help Spotify’s growing development department. The...
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What Does Turnover Rate Mean? For a product or marketing team, turnover rate refers to the percentage of customers lost over a period of...
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A product’s unique selling proposition (USP), is its unique competitive advantage, or the reason a customer would select the product over any other option....
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Usability testing refers to a technique to evaluate the difficulting of finding a company's product. Learn the 7 steps of usability testing.
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What is a Use Case? Definition: A use case is a hypothetical (but plausible) scenario showing how a product’s user might interact with the...
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User Experience refers to the feeling users experience when using a product, application, system, or service. It is a broad term which can cover...
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What Is a User Flow? A user flow is a chart or diagram showing the path a user will take in an application to...
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A user interface, or UI, is any part of a product or system which the end user interacts with. Users work within a user...
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A user persona is a composite biography (or series of biographies) drafted based on market research and experience to describe the relevant characteristics, needs,...
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User research is the discipline of learning about users’ needs and thought processes by studying how they perform tasks, observing how they interact with...
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A user story is a small, self-contained unit of development work designed to accomplish a specific goal within a product. A user story is...
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The primary focus of a UX designer (short for User Experience Designer) is on overall user satisfaction and usability with a product. UX designers...
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What is a Value Proposition? A value proposition is a statement that identifies measurable benefits prospective customers can expect when buying a product or...
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Value vs. complexity is a prioritization framework that allows a product team to evaluate each initiative according to how much value the initiative will...
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What Are Vanity Metrics? Vanity metrics are statistics that look spectacular on the surface but don’t necessarily translate to any meaningful business results. Examples...
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What is velocity in product management? Discover the definition and when agile development teams use velocity in their sprint cycles.
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Voice of the customer, or VoC, is the research and analytics that capture customers’ needs, wants, expectations, preferences, and dislikes. It can also refer...
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A backlog is a list of task-level details required to execute on a larger strategic plan. A quick glance at a prioritized backlog conveys...
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What is a product engagement score (PES)? It measures how a user interacts with your product and helps define the customer experience.
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Product operating models help teams deliver the greatest value to customers, by centering it around the product's functions and operations.
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What Is the Waterfall Method? Waterfall is a long-term product development method characterized by linear sequential phases for planning, building, and delivering new features...
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Weighted scoring prioritization uses numerical scoring to rank your strategic initiatives against benefit and cost categories. It is useful for product teams looking for...
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What is Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF)? Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF) is a tool used in the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) to help...
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What Is a Wireframe? A wireframe is a basic, two-dimensional visual representation of a web page, app interface, or product layout. You can think...
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The Amazon working backward method is a product development approach that starts with the team imagining the product is ready to ship.
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