Product management glossary

This product management glossary defines the terms PMs and founders use every day, from strategy and discovery to metrics, delivery and fundraising. Each entry starts with a one-sentence definition, followed by a line on why it matters. Where we've written a deeper guide, the term links to it.

Strategy and vision

Product vision

Product vision is the long-term picture of what a product will achieve for its users and why it matters. It's the "where are we going" that a roadmap and strategy work towards.

Product strategy

Product strategy is the plan for how a product will reach its vision: which users to serve, which problems to solve and which bets to make first. A good strategy makes it obvious what you won't build.

North Star metric

A North Star metric is the single measure that best captures the value a product delivers to its users. Teams use it to align decisions across functions. See our guide to the North Star metric.

OKRs

OKRs (objectives and key results) are a goal-setting method that pairs a qualitative objective with a few measurable key results. The approach is associated with Andy Grove at Intel and was popularised by John Doerr.

Product-market fit

Product-market fit is the point at which a product satisfies a strong market demand, so customers pull it from you rather than you pushing it on them. The phrase was popularised by Marc Andreessen.

Jobs to be done

Jobs to be done (JTBD) is a framework that describes what a customer is trying to accomplish when they "hire" a product. It's associated with Clayton Christensen and shifts focus from demographics to motivation.

Value proposition

A value proposition is a clear statement of the benefit a product delivers and to whom. If you can't say it in one sentence, users probably can't either.

Positioning

Positioning is how a product is defined in customers' minds relative to the alternatives. It answers "what is this, who is it for and why is it better than what I use now?"

Total addressable market

Total addressable market (TAM) is the total revenue opportunity if a product captured its entire market. It's often paired with serviceable addressable market (SAM) and serviceable obtainable market (SOM) in pitch decks.

Moat

A moat is a durable advantage that makes a business hard to copy, such as network effects, switching costs, brand or proprietary data. Features alone are rarely a moat.

Go-to-market strategy

A go-to-market (GTM) strategy is the plan for how a product reaches and wins customers: target segment, pricing, channels and messaging. Product and GTM decisions should be made together.

Competitive analysis

Competitive analysis is the structured study of alternatives your users could choose instead of you, including doing nothing. A product teardown is one hands-on way to do it.

Discovery and research

Product discovery

Product discovery is the work of deciding what to build by understanding users' problems and testing ideas before committing engineering time. It reduces the risk of building something nobody wants.

Customer interview

A customer interview is a structured conversation with a user or prospect to understand their behaviour, problems and context. Good interviews ask about past behaviour, not future intentions. See our customer interviews guide.

Problem statement

A problem statement is a short description of the user problem a team is trying to solve, who has it and why it matters. Writing it down before discussing solutions prevents a lot of wasted debate.

User persona

A user persona is a fictional, research-based profile of a typical user, covering their goals, behaviours and frustrations. Personas are useful when grounded in real research and harmful when invented in a meeting room.

User journey map

A user journey map is a visual of the steps a user takes to reach a goal, including their actions, thoughts and pain points at each stage. It helps teams spot where experiences break down.

Assumption

An assumption is something a team believes to be true but hasn't yet proven. Listing your riskiest assumptions is a quick way to decide what to test first.

Hypothesis

A hypothesis is a testable prediction about how a change will affect user behaviour or a metric. A useful format is "We believe [change] will cause [outcome] for [users], and we'll know when [measure] moves."

Prototype

A prototype is an early, often rough version of a product or feature built to test an idea. It can be anything from a paper sketch to a clickable mock-up.

Usability testing

Usability testing is watching real users try to complete tasks with a product to find where they struggle. A handful of sessions often reveals the biggest problems.

Opportunity solution tree

An opportunity solution tree is a visual map linking a desired outcome to the user opportunities that could drive it and the solutions and experiments for each. It was introduced by product discovery coach Teresa Torres.

Double diamond

The double diamond is a design process model with two phases of diverging and converging: first on the problem, then on the solution. It was popularised by the UK Design Council.

Dogfooding

Dogfooding is a team using its own product in day-to-day work. It surfaces friction quickly, though it can mislead if your team isn't like your users.

Planning and prioritisation

Product roadmap

A product roadmap is a plan that shows what a team intends to work on and why, over time. Good roadmaps communicate priorities and outcomes, not just a list of dates. See our product roadmap guide.

Now, Next, Later roadmap

A Now, Next, Later roadmap is a roadmap format that groups work by time horizon instead of fixed dates. It signals confidence honestly: "Now" is committed, "Later" is directional.

Backlog

A backlog is the ordered list of work a team might do, such as features, fixes and experiments. A healthy backlog is pruned often; an endless one is a sign of avoided decisions.

Prioritisation

Prioritisation is the process of deciding what to work on first given limited time and people. Frameworks help, but the judgement is yours. See our guide to product prioritisation frameworks.

RICE scoring

RICE is a prioritisation framework that scores ideas by Reach, Impact, Confidence and Effort. The framework came out of Intercom and is useful for comparing many ideas on one scale.

ICE scoring

ICE is a quick prioritisation method that scores ideas by Impact, Confidence and Ease. It's lighter than RICE and popular with growth teams running many experiments.

MoSCoW method

The MoSCoW method is a prioritisation technique that sorts requirements into Must have, Should have, Could have and Won't have. It's most useful for agreeing the scope of a fixed release.

Kano model

The Kano model is a framework that classifies features by how they affect customer satisfaction: basic expectations, performance features and delighters. It was developed by Professor Noriaki Kano.

Cost of delay

Cost of delay is the value lost by not delivering something sooner. It helps compare work that's urgent with work that's merely important.

Opportunity cost

Opportunity cost is the value of the best option you give up when you choose another. Every "yes" on a roadmap is a "no" to something else.

Technical debt

Technical debt is the future cost of shortcuts taken in code or architecture to ship faster. A little is a sensible trade-off; too much slows every future change.

Scope creep

Scope creep is the gradual expansion of a project's requirements after work has started. Clear acceptance criteria and a written PRD are the best defence.

Dependency

A dependency is a piece of work that can't proceed until another team, system or decision is ready. Mapping dependencies early is one of a PM's most underrated jobs.

Delivery and execution

Product requirements document

A product requirements document (PRD) is a written description of what a product or feature should do, for whom and why. It aligns design, engineering and stakeholders before work begins. See how to write a PRD.

PR-FAQ

A PR-FAQ is a planning document written as a future press release plus a list of likely questions and answers. It's part of Amazon's "working backwards" approach.

Working backwards

Working backwards is an approach to product planning that starts from the customer outcome and works back to what needs to be built. It's closely associated with Amazon.

User story

A user story is a short description of a feature from the user's point of view, often written as "As a [user], I want [goal] so that [reason]." It keeps the focus on outcomes rather than tasks.

Acceptance criteria

Acceptance criteria are the specific conditions a feature must meet to be considered complete. They turn a user story into something testable.

Epic

An epic is a large body of work that's broken down into smaller user stories. It usually maps to a feature or a meaningful chunk of a project.

Agile

Agile is an approach to software development that favours short cycles, frequent feedback and adapting to change over detailed upfront plans. Scrum and Kanban are two common ways to practise it.

Scrum

Scrum is an agile framework in which a team works in fixed-length sprints, with defined roles such as product owner and scrum master. It suits teams that benefit from a regular planning cadence.

Sprint

A sprint is a fixed period, often one or two weeks, in which a team commits to completing a set amount of work. It ends with a review of what shipped.

Kanban

Kanban is a way of managing work that visualises tasks on a board and limits how much work is in progress at once. It originated in Toyota's manufacturing system.

Definition of done

A definition of done is a team's shared checklist of what "finished" means, such as tested, documented and released. It prevents work being called done when it isn't.

Minimum viable product

A minimum viable product (MVP) is the smallest version of a product that lets a team learn whether its core idea works with real users. "Minimum" is about learning, not about shipping something broken.

Feature flag

A feature flag is a switch in code that turns a feature on or off without a new release. It enables staged rollouts, quick rollbacks and experiments.

Staged rollout

A staged rollout is releasing a change to a small percentage of users first and expanding as confidence grows. It limits the damage if something goes wrong.

Beta

A beta is a pre-release version of a product shared with a limited group to find problems and gather feedback. A closed beta is invite-only; an open beta is available to anyone who opts in.

Release notes

Release notes are a short summary of what changed in a product release and why it matters to users. Good ones are written for users, not engineers.

Stakeholder

A stakeholder is anyone with an interest in or influence over a product decision, such as leadership, sales, support or legal. Managing stakeholders well is mostly about communicating early and often.

Retrospective

A retrospective is a regular team meeting to reflect on what went well, what didn't and what to change. It's how teams improve their process over time.

Metrics and analytics

Key performance indicator

A key performance indicator (KPI) is a metric that tracks progress towards an important business or product goal. A team should have few of them.

Daily active users

Daily active users (DAU) is the number of unique users who meaningfully use a product on a given day. Monthly active users (MAU) is the same over a month.

Stickiness

Stickiness is how often users return to a product, commonly measured as the ratio of daily to monthly active users (DAU/MAU). A higher ratio suggests a habit-forming product.

Retention

Retention is the share of users who keep using a product over time. It's often the clearest signal of whether a product delivers lasting value.

Cohort analysis

Cohort analysis is grouping users by a shared starting point, such as sign-up month, and tracking their behaviour over time. It shows whether retention is improving for newer users.

Churn

Churn is the rate at which customers stop using or paying for a product over a period. In subscription businesses, reducing churn is often worth more than adding sign-ups.

Activation

Activation is the moment a new user first experiences a product's core value. Defining it precisely tells you what onboarding should optimise for.

Funnel

A funnel is a sequence of steps users take towards a goal, such as sign-up to first purchase, measured by how many drop off at each step. Funnels show where to focus.

Conversion rate

Conversion rate is the percentage of users who complete a desired action out of those who could have. Always say which step you mean.

AARRR metrics

AARRR, or pirate metrics, is a framework that tracks the customer lifecycle in five stages: Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral and Revenue. It was coined by investor Dave McClure.

A/B test

An A/B test is an experiment that shows two versions of something to comparable groups of users to see which performs better on a chosen metric. It's how teams separate real effects from noise.

Statistical significance

Statistical significance is a measure of how unlikely it is that an observed difference in an experiment happened by chance. Stopping a test early because it "looks significant" is a common mistake.

Guardrail metric

A guardrail metric is a measure you watch to make sure an experiment or change doesn't harm something important, such as retention or refunds. It stops you winning one metric by breaking another.

Vanity metric

A vanity metric is a number that looks impressive but doesn't help you make decisions, such as total downloads. Prefer metrics that change when you change the product.

Net Promoter Score

Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a measure of customer loyalty based on how likely people are to recommend a product, on a scale of 0 to 10. It's calculated as the percentage of promoters (9 to 10) minus the percentage of detractors (0 to 6).

Customer satisfaction score

Customer satisfaction score (CSAT) is a measure of how satisfied customers are with a specific interaction or product, usually from a short rating question. It's narrower and more immediate than NPS.

Customer lifetime value

Customer lifetime value (LTV) is the total revenue or margin a business expects from a customer over the whole relationship. It's usually compared with CAC.

Customer acquisition cost

Customer acquisition cost (CAC) is the total cost of winning a new customer, including marketing and sales spend. A healthy business earns back more than its CAC over each customer's lifetime.

Average revenue per user

Average revenue per user (ARPU) is total revenue divided by the number of users in a period. It's a quick way to compare monetisation across segments.

Gross merchandise value

Gross merchandise value (GMV) is the total value of goods sold through a marketplace before fees, returns and discounts. It's widely quoted by Indian e-commerce and delivery companies but isn't the same as revenue.

Annual recurring revenue

Annual recurring revenue (ARR) is the yearly value of a company's subscription revenue. Monthly recurring revenue (MRR) is the monthly equivalent.

Growth and monetisation

Product-led growth

Product-led growth (PLG) is a strategy in which the product itself drives acquisition, conversion and expansion, often through free trials or freemium plans. Users try before they talk to sales.

Growth loop

A growth loop is a system in which the output of one cycle, such as new users or content, becomes the input for the next. Loops compound in a way one-off campaigns don't.

Network effects

Network effects are when a product becomes more valuable as more people use it. Marketplaces and payment networks are classic examples.

Two-sided marketplace

A two-sided marketplace is a platform that connects two distinct groups, such as buyers and sellers, and grows by balancing both. Food delivery apps like Swiggy and Zomato also add a third side: delivery partners.

Onboarding

Onboarding is the experience that takes a new user from sign-up to their first moment of value. Shorter is usually better, and every permission prompt should earn its place.

Aha moment

The aha moment is the point at which a new user first understands why a product is valuable to them. Good onboarding gets users there quickly.

Freemium

Freemium is a pricing model in which a basic version is free and advanced features or higher limits are paid. It works when free users are cheap to serve and some upgrade.

Monetisation

Monetisation is how a product turns usage into revenue, through subscriptions, transactions, ads or other models. It should be designed early, not bolted on.

Pricing strategy

Pricing strategy is the approach a company uses to set prices, such as value-based, cost-plus or competitor-based. Price is one of the strongest product levers and one of the least tested.

Unit economics

Unit economics is the revenue and cost associated with a single unit of a business, such as one customer or one order. If each unit loses money, growth makes things worse.

Burn rate

Burn rate is how much cash a company spends each month beyond what it earns. It's quoted as gross burn (total spend) or net burn (spend minus revenue).

Runway

Runway is how many months a company can operate before it runs out of cash at its current burn rate. Founders typically start fundraising well before runway gets short.

Design and user experience

User experience

User experience (UX) is the whole of how a person feels and gets things done when using a product. It includes usability, speed, clarity and trust, not just how screens look.

User interface

A user interface (UI) is the set of screens, controls and visual elements a person interacts with. UI is part of UX, not a synonym for it.

Wireframe

A wireframe is a low-fidelity layout of a screen that shows structure and content without visual design. It's a fast way to agree on what goes where.

Friction

Friction is anything that slows a user down or makes a task harder, such as extra steps, unclear copy or unnecessary prompts. Some friction is useful, for example a confirmation before a payment.

Dark pattern

A dark pattern is a design choice that tricks users into doing something they didn't intend, such as hidden subscriptions or hard-to-find cancel buttons. They may lift a metric briefly and cost trust for longer.

Accessibility

Accessibility is designing products so that people with disabilities can use them, including people using screen readers or keyboard navigation. It usually improves the experience for everyone.

Localisation

Localisation is adapting a product for a specific language, region or culture, beyond simple translation. In India, that can mean supporting several languages, scripts and payment habits.

Roles and careers

Product manager

A product manager (PM) is the person responsible for deciding what a product should do and why, and for aligning the team to deliver it. See how to become a product manager in India.

Associate product manager

An associate product manager (APM) is an entry-level PM role, often part of a structured programme for graduates or career switchers. APMs usually own a small area with close mentoring.

Senior product manager

A senior product manager is an experienced PM who owns a significant product area with less supervision and often mentors others. Expectations vary by company, as do PM salaries in India.

Group product manager

A group product manager (GPM) is a PM who leads a team of PMs across a related set of products while often still owning some product work directly. It's a common step towards director roles.

Head of product

A head of product is the leader responsible for a company's overall product direction and product team. At smaller companies it's often the first senior product hire.

Chief product officer

A chief product officer (CPO) is the executive responsible for product strategy across a company. The role usually appears once there are several product teams.

Founding product manager

A founding product manager is the first PM at an early-stage startup, often working directly with the founders before any product process exists. See what is a founding product manager.

Product owner

A product owner is a Scrum role responsible for maximising the value of a team's work, chiefly by managing and ordering the backlog. In many companies the PM also plays this role.

Product marketing manager

A product marketing manager (PMM) is responsible for positioning, messaging and launching a product to its market. PMs and PMMs work best as close partners.

Product operations

Product operations (product ops) is a function that supports product teams with tools, data, processes and feedback loops. It frees PMs to spend more time on product decisions.

Product sense

Product sense is the judgement to understand what makes a product good for its users and what to build next. It's built through practice, such as product teardowns, and tested in PM interviews.

Product teardown

A product teardown is a structured breakdown of an existing product to understand how it works and why it's built that way. See how to do a product teardown.

First 90 days

The first 90 days is the opening period in a new PM role, when you learn the product, users and team and earn the right to make bigger calls. See our guide to the first 90 days as a product manager.

Community and fundraising

AMA

An AMA ("ask me anything") is a session in which a guest takes open questions from an audience and answers them live. See how to ask good questions in an AMA.

Office hours

Office hours are short, scheduled slots in which an experienced person, such as an investor or founder, gives advice on a specific problem. See how to prepare for VC office hours.

Pre-seed round

A pre-seed round is a startup's earliest outside funding, often raised from angels or early-stage funds to build a first version and test the idea. Amounts and expectations vary widely.

Seed round

A seed round is early-stage funding used to find product-market fit and early traction. It usually follows pre-seed and comes before Series A.

Series A

A Series A is typically a startup's first major institutional funding round, raised once there's evidence of traction to scale. Investors usually look for a repeatable way to grow.

Cap table

A cap table (capitalisation table) is a record of who owns what share of a company, including founders, investors and employee stock options. Founders should understand theirs before every raise.

ESOP

An ESOP (employee stock option plan) is a scheme that gives employees the right to buy company shares at a set price in future. Early startup hires, including founding PMs, are often offered ESOPs alongside salary.

Pitch deck

A pitch deck is a short presentation founders use to explain their company to investors: problem, solution, traction, market, team and the ask. A clear story matters more than design.

Co-founder

A co-founder is one of the people who start a company together and share its early risk and ownership. Finding the right one is often harder than finding the idea. See from product manager to founder.

Networking

Networking is building relationships with people in your field that are useful to both sides over time. Done well, it looks a lot like helping people. See networking for product managers.

Learn these terms in practice

Definitions are a start; the judgement comes from using them with other people. Product Circle members practise this every week in the weekly AMA and every two weeks in product teardowns. Read more on the membership page, see the FAQ, or start your application on the how to join page.