Acceptance Criteria
Acceptance Criteria
Conditions that must be true for a story or requirement to be accepted. Make 'done' testable and shared.
Reference
Glossary
A plain list of the short words and frameworks used across the site. Each entry already includes the full meaning, so terms are not clickable here.
ADKAR
ADKAR change model
Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, Reinforcement. Individual change journey model from Prosci, often used alongside organisational change plans.
ADR
Architecture Decision Record
Short document capturing a significant architecture decision, context and consequences so future teams know why.
Agile Manifesto
Manifesto for Agile Software Development
Four values and twelve principles that prioritise individuals, working software, customer collaboration and responding to change.
BDD
Behaviour-Driven Development
Collaborative practice using concrete examples of behaviour to drive design, development and automated checks.
Blameless Postmortem
Blameless Postmortem
Incident review focused on systemic causes and learning, not individual blame. Improves future reliability.
BPMN
Business Process Model and Notation
Standard notation for modelling business processes. Helps BAs and stakeholders share an unambiguous process picture.
CI/CD
Continuous Integration / Continuous Delivery
CI merges and tests code frequently. CD keeps software releasable and often automates deployment. Core to modern delivery performance.
COBIT
COBIT
ISACA framework for governing and managing enterprise IT. Useful in GRC for aligning controls to business objectives.
Continuous Discovery
Continuous Discovery Habits
Weekly cadence of interviewing, opportunity mapping and experimentation popularised by Teresa Torres.
Cynefin
Cynefin framework
Sense-making model (clear, complicated, complex, chaotic) that helps choose the right decision approach for the situation.
DACI
DACI decision model
Driver, Approver, Contributors, Informed. Clarifies who drives a decision and who has final approval.
DDaT
Government Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework
UK Civil Service framework describing skills and career levels for digital, data and technology roles, including Delivery Manager. Used for capability assessment, recruitment and progression.
Definition of Done
Definition of Done
Shared quality checklist that makes 'finished' objective. Includes functional, test, documentation, security and operability expectations as agreed by the team.
Design Thinking
Design Thinking
Human-centred problem-solving approach: empathise, define, ideate, prototype, test. Useful in discovery and service design.
DevOps
DevOps
Culture and practices that unite development and operations to ship changes safely and frequently through automation and shared ownership.
DORA
DORA metrics
Research-backed delivery performance measures: deployment frequency, lead time for changes, change fail rate, and failed deployment recovery time.
Double Diamond
Double Diamond
Design Council model: Discover and Define (problem space), then Develop and Deliver (solution space). Emphasises divergent and convergent thinking.
Dual-Track Agile
Dual-Track Agile
Runs discovery and delivery in parallel so learning about the right problem keeps feeding the build track.
Error Budget
Error Budget
Allowed unreliability derived from an SLO. When spent, reliability work outranks feature work until the service recovers.
FBC
Full Business Case
Final commitment case with delivery and benefits plan attached. The actual investment decision gate in many UK programmes.
Five Case Model
Five Case Model
Business case structure covering Strategic, Economic, Commercial, Financial and Management cases. Standard grammar for unlocking public funding in the UK.
GDPR
UK GDPR
UK data protection regime governing personal data processing. Emphasises lawfulness, minimisation, purpose limitation and individual rights.
GDS
Government Digital Service
The UK centre of excellence for digital government. Publishes the Service Standard, Design System, and guidance that public services are assessed against.
Gherkin
Gherkin
Given/When/Then syntax for behaviour specifications, often used in BDD to align examples across roles.
GOV.UK Design System
GOV.UK Design System
Reusable components, patterns and styles for building accessible UK government services consistently.
GovS 002
Government Functional Standard: Project Delivery
Mandated UK government standard for how portfolios, programmes and projects are governed. Uses 'shall' for mandatory and 'should' for advisory clauses.
Green Book
HM Treasury Green Book
UK central guidance on appraisal and evaluation of policies, programmes and projects. Underpins the Five Case Model for business cases.
IPA
Infrastructure and Projects Authority
The UK government's centre of expertise for infrastructure and major projects. Owns project delivery standards and assurance approaches.
ISO 27001
ISO/IEC 27001
International standard for information security management systems (ISMS). Common backbone for GRC and security assurance.
ISTQB
International Software Testing Qualifications Board
Global body for software testing certification and a shared vocabulary for test levels, types and techniques.
ITIL
ITIL
IT service management practice framework covering incident, problem, change and service value streams.
JTBD
Jobs to Be Done
Product discovery lens focused on the 'job' a user is hiring a product to do, rather than demographic feature wishlists.
Kanban
Kanban
Flow-based method that visualises work, limits work in progress, and manages flow. Strong fit for continuous or interrupt-driven teams.
Kotter
Kotter's 8-step change model
Organisational change sequence from creating urgency through to anchoring new approaches in culture. Expect an emotional dip mid-route.
Lead Time
Lead Time
Elapsed time from work being requested or started to it being delivered. A core flow and DORA-related measure.
Lean
Lean
Management philosophy focused on maximising value and minimising waste. In software, informs small batches, fast feedback and respect for people.
MoSCoW
MoSCoW prioritisation
Must, Should, Could, Won't (this time). Useful for fixed-deadline scope talks. Needs a hard arbiter or everything becomes Must.
MSP
Managing Successful Programmes
Programme management framework (5th edition) with 7 principles, 7 themes and 7 processes. Used when coordinating multiple related projects toward strategic outcomes.
MVP
Minimum Viable Product
Smallest product slice that delivers learning or value. Not a half-built product; a deliberate experiment or thin vertical.
NFR
Non-Functional Requirement
Quality attribute such as performance, accessibility, security or operability. Often under-specified until late.
Now/Next/Later
Now / Next / Later roadmap
Roadmap framing that communicates sequence without false date precision. Hold the line when stakeholders try to pin Next to a date.
OBC
Outline Business Case
Middle business case gate: which option, roughly what will it cost? Still structured with the Five Case Model.
OKR
Objectives and Key Results
Goal system pairing a qualitative Objective with measurable Key Results. Useful for aligning product and delivery outcomes.
Opportunity Solution Tree
Opportunity Solution Tree
Visual tool linking desired outcome to opportunities, solutions and experiments so discovery stays outcome-led.
OWASP
Open Worldwide Application Security Project
Community publishing the OWASP Top 10, ASVS and testing guides for application security.
Personas
Personas
Research-informed archetypes representing user groups. Useful for design decisions when grounded in evidence, harmful when invented from stereotypes.
PMBOK
PMBOK Guide
Project Management Institute body of knowledge covering principles and performance domains for project delivery.
PMO
Project / Programme Management Office
Function that sets delivery standards, reporting rhythms and assurance support across a portfolio.
Power/Interest Grid
Power / Interest Grid
Stakeholder mapping tool: Monitor, Keep Informed, Keep Satisfied, Manage Closely. Guides influence effort.
Pre-mortem
Pre-mortem
Imagine the work has failed, then list why. Surfaces risks before commitment rather than after a post-mortem.
PRINCE2
PRINCE2
Process-based project management method with principles, themes and processes. PRINCE2 Agile blends it with agile delivery practices.
PRINCE2 Agile
PRINCE2 Agile
Combines PRINCE2 governance with agile ways of working so projects keep clear control while teams deliver iteratively.
RACI
RACI matrix
Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed. Maps who does the work, who owns the outcome, and who must be involved.
RAG
Red / Amber / Green status
Traffic-light status reporting. Useful only when culture rewards honest Red early. Watermelon RAG (green outside, red inside) is a failure mode.
RAID
RAID log
Risks, Assumptions, Issues, Dependencies. Living register for programme control. Groom weekly, not the night before a board.
RAPID
RAPID decision roles
Recommend, Agree, Perform, Input, Decide. Bain-origin decision rights model for complex organisational calls.
RICE
RICE scoring
Reach × Impact × Confidence ÷ Effort. Product-style scoring for many small backlog items. Watch for inflated Confidence.
Risk Appetite
Risk Appetite
The amount and type of risk an organisation is willing to take in pursuit of objectives. Anchors GRC decisions.
Risk-Based Testing
Risk-Based Testing
Focus test effort where failure would hurt most: likelihood × impact, not equal coverage of every feature.
SAFe
Scaled Agile Framework
Enterprise scaling framework with Agile Release Trains, PI Planning and layered roles. Heavyweight; use when many teams must synchronise on a shared cadence.
Scrum
Scrum
Lightweight agile framework with roles (Product Owner, Scrum Master, Developers), events (Sprint, Daily Scrum, Planning, Review, Retro) and artefacts (Product Backlog, Sprint Backlog, Increment).
Servant Leadership
Servant Leadership
Leadership stance that prioritises removing obstacles, growing people and enabling the team over personal status.
Service Blueprint
Service Blueprint
Map of frontstage user experience, backstage processes and supporting systems. Reveals handoffs and failure points.
Service Standard
GDS Service Standard
Fourteen points grouped into meeting user needs, providing a good service, and using the right technology. Used to assess whether a government service is fit to launch and stay live.
Shift Left
Shift-left testing
Move quality activities earlier: review requirements, automate checks in pipelines, catch defects before late UAT.
SLO
Service Level Objective
Target reliability level for a service, measured by SLIs. Error budgets quantify how much unreliability is tolerable before change freezes or reliability work takes priority.
SMART
SMART objectives
Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound. Classic checklist for clearer goals and benefits statements.
SOC
Strategic Outline Case
First business case gate: is this worth exploring at all? Followed by Outline and Full Business Cases in the Green Book lifecycle.
SRE
Site Reliability Engineering
Google-originated discipline applying software engineering to operations: SLIs/SLOs, error budgets, toil reduction and blameless postmortems.
SRO
Senior Responsible Owner
UK government role accountable for a programme or project's success, including outcomes, benefits and governance.
Test Pyramid
Test Pyramid
Strategy favouring many fast unit tests, fewer integration tests, and few broad end-to-end UI tests for feedback speed and stability.
Three Lines
Three Lines Model
IIA model separating management ownership of risk (1st), risk/compliance oversight (2nd), and independent assurance (3rd).
Trunk-Based Development
Trunk-Based Development
Developers integrate small changes to a shared mainline frequently, enabling continuous delivery.
User Story
User Story
Short description of capability from a user perspective, usually with acceptance criteria. A conversation starter, not a contract.
Value Stream
Value Stream
End-to-end flow from idea or request to value in users' hands. Mapping it reveals wait time and handoff waste.
Watermelon RAG
Watermelon reporting
Status that looks green on the outside but is red inside. Usually caused by cultures that punish honest Red.
WCAG
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
W3C accessibility standard. WCAG 2.2 AA is the usual floor for UK public-facing digital services.
WIP
Work in Progress
Items started but not finished. Limiting WIP improves flow and makes bottlenecks visible.
WSJF
Weighted Shortest Job First
Prioritisation = Cost of Delay ÷ Job Size. Favours high-value, smaller work. Common in SAFe and portfolio sequencing.