Английский для продакт-менеджмента: ключевые термины и фразы

"product vision"

A concise, inspiring statement that describes the long-term purpose and ultimate goal of a product, guiding all strategic decisions

"The CPO presented the product vision to the board: to become the default tool for remote team collaboration by 2027."

"north star metric"

A single key metric that best captures the core value a product delivers to customers and reflects the company's long-term growth

"After months of debate, the team aligned on weekly active projects as their north star metric, replacing daily logins."

"product-market fit"

The degree to which a product satisfies a strong market demand, often indicated by strong retention, word-of-mouth growth, and user engagement

"The startup knew it had achieved product-market fit when 60% of users said they would be very disappointed if the product disappeared."

"opportunity sizing"

The process of estimating the potential revenue or user base available if a product successfully addresses a specific problem or market segment

"Before committing the team, the PM completed an opportunity sizing exercise showing that even 5% market penetration would justify the investment."

"competitive moat"

A sustainable competitive advantage — such as network effects, switching costs, or proprietary data — that protects a product from rivals

"The team identified their growing data network as the primary competitive moat that would be difficult for new entrants to replicate."

"go-to-market strategy"

A plan that defines how a product will be launched and distributed to customers, covering pricing, channels, target segments, and messaging

"The go-to-market strategy for the enterprise tier relied on direct sales, while the self-serve tier would be driven purely by content marketing."

"adjacent market"

A market segment related to, but distinct from, a company's current core market, representing an expansion opportunity

"After dominating project management for software teams, the company began exploring adjacent markets in construction and architecture."

"strategic bet"

A significant, often high-risk investment of resources in a product direction that may not pay off for several years but is believed to be transformative

"Investing in an AI-powered writing assistant was a strategic bet that the CEO believed would redefine the product category within five years."

"product roadmap"

A high-level visual plan that communicates the direction, priorities, and planned progress of a product over time

"The quarterly product roadmap was shared with all department heads to ensure sales and engineering were aligned on upcoming releases."

"now-next-later framework"

A roadmap format that organises work into three time horizons — current focus, near-term priorities, and future considerations — without committing to fixed dates

"By switching to a now-next-later framework, the team reduced stakeholder pressure for exact dates and created more flexibility to adapt to new information."

"RICE scoring"

A prioritisation method that ranks features by multiplying Reach, Impact, and Confidence, then dividing by Effort, to compare opportunities objectively

"After applying RICE scoring to the feature backlog, the onboarding improvement rose to the top of the queue despite being less exciting than the AI feature."

"opportunity cost"

The value of the best alternative foregone when a team chooses to invest in one initiative instead of another

"The PM reminded the team that approving the new dashboard feature carried a significant opportunity cost — they would delay the mobile app launch by six weeks."

"feature freeze"

A point in the development cycle at which no new features are added to a release, allowing the team to focus on stabilisation and quality

"We entered feature freeze two weeks before launch to give QA enough time to test the full release candidate without chasing a moving target."

"scope creep"

The gradual, uncontrolled expansion of a project's scope beyond its original boundaries, typically driven by adding features without adjusting timeline or resources

"What began as a one-week UI refresh turned into a three-month rebuild due to scope creep — each stakeholder added just one more requirement."

"dependency mapping"

The process of identifying which tasks, teams, or systems must complete work before other work can proceed

"Dependency mapping revealed that the payment integration could not start until the identity verification team delivered their API — a risk the PM escalated immediately."

"kill criteria"

Pre-agreed conditions or thresholds that, if met, will trigger the cancellation of a project or feature before it is completed

"The product committee set clear kill criteria: if the beta showed fewer than 15% activation rates after four weeks, the project would be cancelled."

"jobs to be done"

A framework that focuses on understanding the underlying goal or problem a user is trying to solve, rather than the feature they are requesting

"Using a jobs-to-be-done lens, the team realised users were not asking for a calendar integration — they wanted to never miss a follow-up."

"assumption mapping"

A technique for listing and ranking the beliefs the team is relying on, then identifying which ones are most critical and least validated

"Assumption mapping before the sprint revealed that the team's entire business model depended on an untested belief about willingness to pay."

"problem statement"

A clear, concise description of a user need or pain point, framed independently of any proposed solution

"The facilitator pushed the team to rewrite their problem statement three times until it contained no mention of the proposed app feature."

"desirability testing"

Research that explores whether users actually want a product or feature, as opposed to usability testing which examines whether they can use it

"Desirability testing showed strong enthusiasm for the concept among younger users, but indifference among the enterprise segment the company was targeting."

"continuous discovery"

An ongoing practice of conducting small, frequent user research activities every week rather than large, infrequent research projects

"Since adopting continuous discovery, the PM had at least two user interviews every week and no longer needed to run big quarterly research studies."

"pain point"

A specific problem or frustration that a user consistently experiences when trying to accomplish a task or achieve a goal

"The top pain point from user interviews was not the complex interface — it was the 45-second load time on the reports page."

"customer journey map"

A visual representation of all the steps a user takes to accomplish a goal, including their actions, emotions, and friction points at each stage

"The customer journey map exposed a critical drop-off point: 40% of users abandoned the process when they were asked for a credit card before seeing the product."

"proxy metric"

A measurable signal used to infer a harder-to-measure outcome, particularly useful when the true metric takes too long to observe

"Since measuring long-term retention would take months, the team used week-one core action completion as a proxy metric for future retention."

"sprint goal"

A short, focused objective agreed at the start of a sprint that gives the team a clear purpose and guides their work for the iteration

"The sprint goal was simple: enable users to invite teammates without leaving the onboarding flow — a specific outcome that kept the team aligned."

"definition of done"

A shared checklist of criteria that every piece of work must meet before it can be considered complete and ready for release

"The definition of done included automated tests, accessibility review, and product sign-off — not just engineering completion."

"story points"

A unit used in agile estimation to express the relative complexity and effort required to complete a user story, not tied to a specific duration

"After pointing the backlog, the team realised the migration story was estimated at 21 story points — too large to complete in a single sprint without breaking it down."

"minimum viable product"

The simplest version of a product that delivers enough value to early customers and generates enough feedback to learn and iterate

"The minimum viable product had only three features, but it was enough to sign up the first 200 users and validate the core hypothesis."

"technical debt"

The accumulated cost of shortcuts, suboptimal code, or deferred improvements made during development, which must eventually be paid down

"The engineering lead warned that technical debt in the authentication system was now so severe that it was slowing every new feature by at least 30%."

"velocity"

The average amount of work — measured in story points or items — a team completes per sprint, used for planning and forecasting

"With an average velocity of 40 story points per sprint, the PM could predict with confidence that the feature set would be complete in eight weeks."

"acceptance criteria"

Specific, testable conditions that a user story must satisfy to be accepted as complete by the product owner

"The acceptance criteria for the export feature specified that all five file formats must be generated in under three seconds on a standard connection."

"two-pizza rule"

A guideline, popularised by Amazon, that a product team should be small enough to be fed by two pizzas, promoting agility and clear ownership

"When the product pod grew to fourteen people, the VP of Product invoked the two-pizza rule and split it into two focused teams with separate charters."

"activation rate"

The percentage of new users who complete a key action — such as creating their first project or inviting a teammate — that signals they have experienced the product's core value

"After redesigning the onboarding flow, the activation rate improved from 32% to 51%, the single biggest improvement in the product's history."

"retention curve"

A graph showing the percentage of users who continue to use a product over successive time periods after their first visit

"The retention curve flattened after day 14, indicating a loyal core of users — but getting new users to that point remained the primary challenge."

"A/B test"

A controlled experiment in which two versions of a product element are shown to different user segments simultaneously to determine which performs better

"The A/B test showed that the short-form registration screen increased sign-up completion by 18% compared to the original multi-step flow."

"cohort analysis"

The study of a group of users who share a common characteristic — such as sign-up month — tracked over time to understand behaviour patterns

"Cohort analysis revealed that users who joined after the new onboarding launch retained 25% better at 90 days than those who joined six months earlier."

"funnel analysis"

A method of tracking how users progress through a defined sequence of steps and identifying where the largest drop-offs occur

"Funnel analysis of the checkout flow identified that 62% of users abandoned between the cart and the payment screen — a finding that prompted an immediate redesign."

"net promoter score"

A loyalty metric based on asking users how likely they are to recommend a product on a scale of 0–10, calculated by subtracting detractors from promoters

"The quarterly net promoter score survey returned a score of 47, up from 31 a year ago — a sign that product quality improvements were resonating with users."

"churn rate"

The percentage of customers who cancel or stop using a product over a given time period, a key indicator of product-market fit and customer satisfaction

"Monthly churn rate had crept up to 8%, prompting the team to conduct exit surveys to understand why users were leaving before their second month."

"guardrail metric"

A metric that must not be harmed by an experiment, even if the primary metric improves, ensuring that wins in one area do not cause degradation elsewhere

"The team's guardrail metric for any monetisation experiment was support ticket volume — they would not accept a revenue increase if it caused a spike in complaints."

"executive alignment"

The process of ensuring that senior leaders understand, agree on, and actively support the product direction and key decisions

"Before starting the re-platforming project, the PM spent three weeks on executive alignment, securing sign-off from the CEO, CTO, and CFO."

"influence without authority"

The skill of driving outcomes and gaining buy-in from people over whom a product manager has no direct reporting relationship

"Getting the legal team to prioritise the privacy review on time required the PM to practise influence without authority — there was no escalation path available."

"RACI matrix"

A responsibility assignment chart that defines who is Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed for each decision or deliverable in a project

"After two months of confusion over who owned the pricing decision, the product lead created a RACI matrix that clarified the CFO was accountable and the PM was responsible."

"product review"

A regular meeting at which a team presents product progress, metrics, and decisions to senior leadership for visibility, feedback, and approval

"The monthly product review with the CEO was the PM's opportunity to surface blockers and align on whether to continue, pivot, or kill the initiative."

"business case"

A structured document that justifies an investment by outlining the problem, proposed solution, expected costs, benefits, risks, and return on investment

"The PM wrote a full business case for the enterprise tier, projecting $2M in incremental ARR within 18 months and securing board approval for the headcount."

"objection handling"

The practice of proactively anticipating and addressing the concerns or resistance that stakeholders are likely to raise about a product proposal

"Before the roadmap review, the PM prepared a one-page objection handling guide covering the top three concerns the CTO typically raised about infrastructure cost."

"escalation path"

The defined chain of people or processes to involve when a decision, conflict, or issue cannot be resolved at the team level

"When engineering and design could not agree on the interaction model after three sessions, the PM used the escalation path and brought it to the VP of Product for a decision."

"quarterly business review"

A cross-functional meeting held every quarter to assess performance against goals, review the product roadmap, and align on priorities for the next period

"The quarterly business review surfaced a misalignment between the sales team's Q3 commitments and the product roadmap — a gap the leadership team resolved on the spot."