The Book of Abbreviations (Lingo) for Product Managers!
Recap on the Solid 10 on the Importance of Product Management
In our previous discussion, we explored the various reasons why organizations require Product Managers. We emphasised the critical roles and responsibilities that Product Management entails, ensuring that products align with institutional standards, stakeholder requirements, and customer needs. Today, we delve into the world of Lingo’s in Product and Project Management. Let’s get started!
The field of Product Management is brimming with abbreviations and acronyms. It’s almost as if you tossed a die loaded with these abbreviations, the chances of landing on the same one twice are as slim as 0.5 in 100. Yes, it might sound a bit daunting, but it’s Halloween season! 🎃👻☠️
Much like pumpkins used during Halloween, these acronyms are ubiquitous, yet their meanings vary depending on their context and usage, just as pumpkins symbolize different things in various Halloween traditions. In Product Management, these abbreviations have become an integral part of our daily lives and career journeys. They serve different purposes, from evaluating product strategy metrics to facilitating communication in product documentation and meetings. Let’s roll the dice!
The Abbreviations (Acronyms)
GTM: Go to Market Strategy
Basically outlined strategies and techniques prepared and kept to be put in place immediately after a Product Launch.
MRR: Monthly Recurring Revenue
This is the predictable monthly revenue generated by subscription-based businesses or a Product. It’s a key metric for assessing the financial health of that particular product or business.
CAC: Customer Acquisition Cost
This is basically measuring the cost of acquiring a customer/user to a product or business. Formula (Cost of Sales plus Cost of Marketing) divided by the Number of Customers. P.S every organization has their own metric or formula.
UAT: User Assessment Testing
This is the final testing phase of a product or feature before it goes live or is launched. It can be carried out through applications, real-life evaluations, smoke clicking tests, and more. Some people also refer to it as User Application Testing.
DAU: Daily Active Users
This is a metric used to measure the interest or usage of a product, application, or feature. It is used to check the health of a product and to determine if people are actually using the product as intended.
MVP: Minimum Viable Product
This is essentially the earliest form of a Live Product with enough features to satisfy the first set or wave of users. This Phase of a Product is used to validate the Product idea, Identify the needs of customers and gather feedback to further development. It is safe to know that there is also an MVP in releasing features in a Product that is already life and has gotten to Product Market Fit.
PRD: Product Requirements Document
A document usually made after various enquiries and analysis has been made and Concluded. This is a detailed document that has concluded and agreed specifications, features, objectives and functionalities of a Product. It is also called the blueprint for all the product development teams before and after a Product is developed.
KPI: Key Performance Indicator
This Abbreviation is used by everyone in an Organisation, it is basically a quantifiable metrics or set out standards used to evaluate and rate the success and failure of the performance of a Product, employee (individual) or Business towards a goal or objective.
B2B: Business to Business
We often see this amongst organizational documents, it is basically used to refer to businesses that offer, sell and services to other businesses rather than individuals.
B2C: Business to Consumers
This is used to Identify businesses that sell or offer services and Products to Individuals (consumers) and not to businesses.
SaaS: Software as a Service
These are software related services that can be hosted and provided to users through the internet but cannot be installed on computers, it is usually developed by organizations and third party providers where users or businesses pay a recurring fee using a subscription model. Example: Salesforce, Jira, Mixpanel and Many Others.
B2G: Business to Government
These are a set of businesses solely offering services and transactions between private companies and government parastatals including procurement.
LTV or CLV: Lifetime Value or Customer Lifetime Value
This is a Metric which helps in customer acquisition and retention used to predict the total revenue a customer will generate over a stipulated period they spend with an Organisation, Product or Company.
API: Application Programming Interface
These are sets of rules, functions and Protocols that allow different sections of various software to communicate with each other, enabling interactions and data.
CRM(S): Customer Relationship Management (System)
This could be an application or a set of strategies and Practices used to manage and nurture various levels of relationships with customers (Users), track interactions and Improve customer satisfaction and retention while reducing chun rates.
CTA: Call to Action
A specific prompt, directive or design that encourages users to take an ideal action such as signing up, Subscribing, Making a Purchase or Rating an action or experience.
NPS: Net Promoter Score
These are measures and scales set in place to evaluate loyalty and satisfaction by asking how likely the customers are to recommend a product or services to others. Examples: Scale survey, Star Rating and Many Others.
PQL: Product Qualified Lead
These are a set of information obtained from users or businesses that have experienced value from using a product as a result of a free trial or limited feature in a Product. Example: Email addresses, Favoriting, Rating Star, Wish Lists, Feedbacks and many others.
GRR: Gross Revenue Retention
This is said to be the most important customer retention metrics used in subscription based companies and those in Saas. It is basically a financial metric that measures and ascertains a company’s ability to retain customers and maintain their revenue margin.
MAU:Monthly Active Users
This metric is mostly used during product strategy evaluations, it is used to measure the unique number of users/customers that communicate, interact and engage with a particular product, service within a specific period of time.
Extras 👌🏽
HEART: Happiness, Engagement, Adoption, Retention and Task-Success
This framework is popularly known as Google’s User Experience to help quantify user experience. These Metric creates a unique connection between the UX and revenue driving pointers helping designers, researchers and Product teams to ascertain great results.
JTBD: Job To Be Done
This is used popularly by Product Manager’s, it is said to be a term used to identify the main objective of various tasks identifying key reasons you are called. Example We don’t want heat maps, we need actual Product Experience.
LSD: Lean Software Development
This is an Agile framework used to optimize development cost while streamlining software development. It is often used interchangeably with the minimum viable Product strategy, It can also be said to be a recurring cycle of iterations.
Conclusion
The numerous abbreviations listed above totaling over 20, along with their explanations are exceptionally essential in Product Management. They find common usage across different phases and sessions of product development, marketing, and strategy.
References: Hotjar and Google
