Common language
Product terms, without fog.
Short definitions for the concepts that frameworks combine, measure, or frequently confuse.
- Assumption
- A belief that must be true for a decision or solution to succeed but is not yet sufficiently supported.
- Cost of delay
- The economic value lost while work waits, including urgency, missed opportunity, and unreduced risk.
- Discovery
- Work that reduces uncertainty about customers, problems, solutions, and product risks.
- Evidence
- Observed information that changes confidence in a claim; its strength depends on method and relevance.
- Framework
- A structured way to organize a problem or decision. It is not an automatic answer.
- Guardrail metric
- A measure monitored to prevent improvement in one outcome from causing unacceptable harm elsewhere.
- Initiative
- A body of work intended to change an outcome. In OKRs, it is distinct from a Key Result.
- Job to be done
- The progress someone seeks in a particular circumstance, including functional, social, and emotional dimensions.
- Leading indicator
- An earlier signal expected to predict a later outcome; the relationship must be tested.
- Mental model
- A compact representation used to reason about how a system behaves.
- Metric
- A defined quantitative measure with a unit, population, time window, and data source.
- Opportunity
- In continuous discovery, an unmet need, pain point, or desire that may enable a desired outcome.
- Outcome
- A change in customer, business, or system behavior—not merely a shipped artifact.
- Output
- A produced artifact or completed activity, such as a release, report, or campaign.
- Product trio
- A product manager, designer, and engineer collaborating on discovery and delivery; a pattern, not a fixed job-title rule.
- Prototype
- A representation built to learn something specific before committing to the full solution.
- Reach
- The number of people, accounts, or events affected within a defined period.
- Roadmap
- A communication of intended product direction and choices; format may be outcome-, theme-, or time-based.
- Strategy
- A coherent set of choices about where to play, how to win, and what not to pursue.
- Validation
- Evidence gathering that tests a claim; it increases or decreases confidence but rarely proves certainty.