Product Management Glossary
Definitions for 27 product management metrics and frameworks. Terms include examples and guidance, with links to related guides and calculators where available.
Showing 27 terms across 6 categories.
SaaS Economics6 terms
MRR multiplied by 12 - the annualised view of subscription revenue used for investor reporting, valuation, and long-range planning.
CAC Payback Period is the number of months it takes to recoup the cost of acquiring a customer from the gross-margin-adjusted revenue that customer generates.
The percentage of customer accounts or recurring revenue lost during a given period. Calculate customer churn from accounts and revenue churn from recurring revenue.
The total sales and marketing spend required to acquire one new paying customer during a given period.
The total revenue a business expects to earn from a single customer account over the entire duration of that relationship.
Revenue from active subscriptions normalized to a monthly amount, excluding one-time payments.
Prioritization Frameworks5 terms
A lightweight prioritization model scoring initiatives by Impact, Confidence, and Ease - designed for rapid backlog decisions with minimal data requirements.
A 2x2 visual framework that plots initiatives by their potential impact against implementation effort to identify quick wins, major bets, fill-ins, and time wasters.
A customer satisfaction framework that categorises product features as Must-Be, Performance, or Attractive based on functional and dysfunctional survey responses.
A prioritization framework that scores initiatives by Reach, Impact, Confidence, and Effort to produce a structured backlog ranking.
An evaluation matrix where stakeholders define criteria, assign percentage weights, and score options to produce a ranked list.
Testing & Validation4 terms
A controlled experiment that compares a target metric across randomly assigned groups exposed to different product variants.
A customer loyalty metric calculated as the percentage of Promoters (9-10 ratings) minus Detractors (0-6 ratings) on a 0-10 likelihood-to-recommend scale.
A measure of how well a product meets market demand. The Sean Ellis survey uses 40% answering "very disappointed" without the product as a PMF signal.
The number of observations in a study. Plan it before a test or survey so the results can answer the question with useful precision.
Strategy & Validation3 terms
A North Star Metric is the single measure a company chooses to represent the core value its product delivers, used to align the whole team on one outcome.
The net financial gain from an initiative expressed as a percentage of its total cost, used to justify product investments and compare competing business cases.
A market-sizing hierarchy: Total Addressable Market (full demand), Serviceable Available Market (reachable segment), and Serviceable Obtainable Market (realistic near-term capture).
Growth & Engagement5 terms
Activation Rate is the percentage of new signups who reach a defined first-value moment, the point where they experience the core benefit of the product.
The percentage of users who complete a desired action at any stage of a funnel, calculated as conversions divided by total visitors multiplied by 100.
A product stickiness metric expressing daily active users as a fraction of monthly active users - indicating how frequently the average user returns each month.
The percentage of customers active at the start of a period who are still active at the end, measured by cohort and tracked over time.
Time to Value is how long it takes a new user to reach their first real value moment after signing up, the point where they experience the core benefit of the product.
Execution & Delivery4 terms
Cycle Time measures the duration from when active work starts to completion; Lead Time measures from when work is first requested to when it is delivered to the customer.
The total elapsed time from when a work item is first requested until it is delivered to the customer, spanning both queue time and active development.
A fixed-length Scrum event of one month or less in which a team works toward a Sprint Goal.
The average number of story points a development team completes per sprint, used for capacity planning and release date forecasting in agile delivery.
Use these definitions
Most terms link to a free interactive calculator. Enter your inputs and review the result alongside its guidance.