Lexicon

  • Agile Software Development: A way of thinking about and doing software deveopment inspired by lean manufacturing. Typical concerns: minimize work in progress; work in short time-bounded iterations; measure instead of forecast; plan for change rather than being surprised by it.
  • **Crowdsourcing: When a project is funded by a large number of very small donations. A new funding model made famous by Kickstarter.
  • Getting out of the building: Term that comes up in The Lean Startup and similar methodology to emphasize that the answers to your product design and planning questions are not found in your office or conference room, but outside, with real people, users and customers.
  • IANAL: I am not a lawyer. Common discalimer given when someone who is giving quasi-legal advice.
  • **Iterations: Common term used in Agile Software Development. Short (2-4 week) planning and work periods. Each iteration has a planning, a development, and a delivery stage. The concept is that the product should always stay in a shippable state. Also called a scrum.
  • Kludge (or Kluge): An ugly, inellegant way to solve a problem, which happens to work. Pronounced klooge.
  • Leap of faith assumptions: Those assumptions and hypotheses on which the everything depends. These are usually the riskiest. They are at the core of the vision. If they are disproved then it will be time for a major pivot.
  • LTV or Life Time Value “of a customer”, is an estimate of how much revenue a certain customer will bring in over a long period. For example, if the average customer renews their newspaper subscription for 8.5 months, then the LTV for a newspaper subscriber is 8.5 * monthly subscription price.
  • Scrum: A flavor of agile software development that is quite popular right now.
  • UX: User Experience. Variant of the term User Interface, used if you want to sound cool
  • WIP: Work in Progress. In a project, any components or work products which are incomplete, waiting for further work, are a form of waste. You have invested effort into producing them but not so much that they can be delivered.
  • YMMV: Short for “Your Mileage May Vary”. You may have different results.