Glossary
A short list of terms that recur in our work and across this site. Acronyms are spelled out where they're conventional. Each definition is written for a senior reader who needs the substance, not the textbook entry.
A standard visual language for documenting how a business actually works. Without it, process improvement projects spend the first month arguing about what the process is before they can argue about what it should be.
A precise definition of who a product is for. Without one, products bloat with features for everyone and nobody — and the original buyers eventually stop being the buyers, because nobody asked who the product is now serving.
The discipline of deciding who is responsible for which data, how it's defined, and how it's kept clean. Without it, dashboards can't be trusted — and senior leadership ends up running the business on instinct rather than evidence.
A structured way of designing products around the actual people who will use them, not the people who specify them. Reduces the risk of building software that nobody adopts.
Microsoft's cloud identity platform (formerly Azure Active Directory). Controls who can access what across all of an organisation's systems. Get this wrong and either the wrong people have access, or the right people can't work.
A single, agreed-upon system that holds the authoritative version of a business entity (customer, transaction, product). When you don't have one, every department reports different numbers from the same business — and leadership decisions get distorted depending on which version surfaces first.
Unconventional, low-budget marketing tactics that punch above their spend by being interesting rather than expensive. Used well, they unlock channels traditional advertising can't reach.
A one-page format for testing assumptions about a product before building it. Cheap insurance against building the wrong thing.
The card schemes' rules for how organisations handle card data. Non-compliance carries fines and reputational damage; compliance is non-trivial in legacy estates.
A structured project management method widely used in regulated industries and government. Provides governance discipline and audit trail — important for projects where failure has consequences beyond the project itself.
The discipline of deciding which products to keep, kill, or transform. Without it, portfolios accumulate over years until the company can't explain what it sells.
A Danish-originated project methodology focused on reducing time-to-impact, sustained leadership impact, and rethinking the project core. Trained widely; effective where speed of delivery matters as much as scope.
European regulation governing payment services. Requires banks and payment providers to redesign systems for transparency, security, and open access. Material compliance cost; large competitive consequences for those who get it right.
An AI pattern where the model answers questions by first retrieving relevant material from your own documents and data, then generating its response from that material. Lets you use AI on your own knowledge without exposing or training on confidential data.
A framework that separates business architecture (what the business does), logical architecture (how it's logically structured), and physical architecture (the systems and infrastructure). Lets leadership and engineering have the same conversation without translation errors.
The clear, specific reason a customer would buy this product over alternatives. When it erodes silently — because the market shifts and nobody updates the answer — sales gets harder, prices get lower, and growth quietly stops.