Actionable Insight - An idea or recommendation that can be directly implemented to drive impact.
Agile - An iterative approach to project management and software development that emphasizes
flexibility and rapid delivery.
Agile Methodology - An approach to project management that emphasizes flexibility, collaboration, and incremental delivery.
Balanced Scorecard - A strategic performance management framework that translates an organization's mission and strategy into a comprehensive set of performance measures.
Benchmarking - The process of comparing an organization's practices, processes, or performance metrics to industry best practices.
Best Practice - A method or technique that has consistently shown superior results and is widely recognized as the most effective way to achieve a desired outcome.
Big Data - Extremely large data sets that may be analyzed computationally to reveal patterns, trends, and associations.
Blue Ocean Strategy - A business strategy that aims to create new, uncontested market spaces (blue oceans) instead of competing in existing markets (red oceans).
Bottom Line - The final profit or loss figure in a financial statement.
Bottom-up Approach - A strategy or analysis that starts from the lower levels and works upward.
Brain Trust - A group of experts or specialists who provide advice and knowledge on a particular subject.
Business Case - A justification for undertaking a project or initiative, typically outlining the expected costs, benefits, and risks.
Business Intelligence (BI) - The processes, technologies, and tools used to analyze business data to support decision-making.
Business Model - A plan for the successful operation of a business, identifying revenue sources, customer base, products, and marketing activities.
Business Process Reengineering (BPR) - The practice of rethinking and redesigning business processes to achieve improvements in efficiency, quality, and performance.
Change Management - The systematic approach to dealing with the transition or transformation of an organization's goals, processes, or technologies.
Client-centric - A focus on understanding and meeting the needs and expectations of clients or customers.
Core Competency - A specific factor that a business sees as being central to the way it operates and a key source of competitive advantage.
Cost-benefit Analysis - A systematic process for calculating and comparing the costs and benefits associated with a project or decision.
Critical Success Factor (CSF) - An element that is essential for the success of an organization or project.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) - The practices, strategies, and technologies used to manage and analyze customer interactions and data throughout the customer lifecycle.
Data Analytics - The process of examining data sets to draw conclusions about the information they contain.
Data Mining - The process of discovering patterns in large data sets using machine learning, statistics, and database systems.
Data Visualization - The graphical representation of data or information in a visual format to aid understanding and analysis.
Deliverable - A tangible or intangible product or service that is produced as a result of a project or process.
Digital Transformation - The integration of digital technologies into all areas of a business, fundamentally changing how it operates and delivers value to customers.
Disruptive Innovation - An innovation that creates a new market and value network, eventually disrupting an existing market and displacing established market-leading firms.
Due Diligence - The comprehensive investigation or audit of a potential investment or acquisition target.
Economies of Scale - Cost advantages that a business can exploit by expanding its scale of production.
Effectiveness - The degree to which something is successful in producing a desired result.
Efficiency - The ability to accomplish something with the least amount of wasted time, money, and
effort.
Emotional Intelligence (EQ) - The capability of individuals to recognize their own emotions and those of others, and to manage emotional cues and information.
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) - A process used by companies to manage and integrate important parts of their business, including product planning, development, manufacturing, sales, and marketing.
Environmental Scanning - The process of gathering and analyzing information about events, trends, and relationships in an organization's external environment.
Exit Strategy - A plan for getting out of a business arrangement, investment, or project in a practical and cost-effective way.
Feasibility Study - An evaluation and analysis of the potential impact of a proposed project or initiative.
Gap Analysis - A technique for determining the steps needed to move from a baseline (what is) to a target state (what should be).
Go-to-Market Strategy - A plan for delivering a product or service to the end customer, including positioning, pricing, and channels.
Governance - The policies, processes, and structures used to control and direct an organization.
Greenfield Project - A completely new project or initiative that is not constrained by prior work.
Horizontal Integration - A business growth strategy where a company acquires or mergers with a competitor operating at the same level of the value chain.
Ideation - The process of generating, developing, and communicating new ideas.
Incubator - An organization designed to nurture and grow new companies by providing advice, resources, and support services.
Innovation - The process of translating an idea or invention into a product or service that creates value or satisfies a need.
Intellectual Property (IP) - Creations of the mind, such as inventions, literary and artistic works, designs, and symbols, that are protected by law.
Internal Rate of Return (IRR) - A metric used to estimate the profitability of potential investments.
Key Performance Indicator (KPI) - A measurable value that demonstrates how effectively a company is achieving key business objectives.
Knowledge Management (KM) - The process of creating, sharing, using, and managing the knowledge and information of an organization.
Lean - A methodology that considers the expenditure of resources for any goal other than creating value for the end customer to be wasteful, and thus a target for elimination.
Leverage - The use of various financial instruments or borrowed capital to increase the potential return of an investment.
Lifecycle - The series of stages through which something (e.g., a product, service, or project) passes during its lifetime.
Low-hanging Fruit - A metaphor for pursuing the obvious or easy-to-implement opportunities or solutions before more challenging or involved ones.
Market Segmentation - The process of dividing a broad target market into subsets of consumers with common needs or characteristics.
Minimum Viable Product (MVP) - The most basic version of a product that can be released to early adopters for testing and feedback.
Mission Statement - A formal summary of the aims and values of a company, organization, or individual.
Net Present Value (NPV) - A measurement of the profitability of an investment or project.
Offshoring - The practice of moving business processes or services overseas to benefit from lower labor costs.
Operational Excellence - A philosophy of leadership and teamwork that integrates principles, systems, and tools toward the sustainable improvement of key performance metrics.
Opportunity Cost - The value of the best alternative given up when a choice is made.
Outsourcing - The practice of hiring an outside company to perform services or create goods that were previously performed in-house.
PEST Analysis - A framework used to scan the external environment in which an organization operates, considering Political, Economic, Social, and Technological factors.
Pipeline - A visual representation of the stages involved in the sales process, showing where each deal or opportunity currently resides.
Pivot - A strategic course correction made by a company or startup to test a new approach or business model.
Porter's Five Forces - A model that identifies and analyzes five competitive forces that shape every industry, and helps determine an industry's weaknesses and strengths.
Process Mapping - The activity of creating a visual representation of the workflow of a business process.
Product Lifecycle - The series of stages a product goes through from initial development to eventual decline or discontinuation.
Project Management - The practice of initiating, planning, executing, controlling, and closing the work of a team to achieve specific goals and meet success criteria.
Proof of Concept (PoC) - A small project designed to verify that certain concepts or theories have the potential for real-world application.
Quality Assurance (QA) - The practice of monitoring the quality of all factors involved in production.
Remote Work - A working style that allows professionals to work outside of a traditional office environment.
Request for Proposal (RFP) - A document providing detailed project requirements issued to prospective suppliers or contractors to solicit bids.
Return on Investment (ROI) - A performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency or profitability of an investment.
Risk Management - The process of identifying, assessing, and controlling threats to an organization's capital and earnings.
Root Cause Analysis - A systematic process for identifying the root causes of problems or events.
Scalability - The ability of a system or process to handle an increasing amount of work or number of users.
Scope Creep - The uncontrolled expansion of a project's deliverables beyond its original scope.
Service Level Agreement (SLA) - A contract between a service provider and customer that defines the level of service expected.
Shared Services - The consolidation of business operations supporting multiple business units, such as IT, HR, or accounting.
Six Sigma - A set of techniques and tools for process improvement that focuses on reducing the occurrence of defects and increasing quality.
Solution Architecture - The process of defining a solution, or outlining its elements, properties, and relationships, to meet the required stakeholder needs and objectives.
Spend Analysis - The process of collecting, cleansing, categorizing, and analyzing expenditure data to reduce costs, improve compliance, and increase operational efficiency.
Strategic Alignment - The process of ensuring that an organization's resources, capabilities, and investments are in line with its business strategy.
Strategic Planning - The disciplined effort to produce decisions and actions that shape and guide an organization's activities.
Subject Matter Expert (SME) - An individual with deep knowledge and expertise in a particular area.
SWOT Analysis - A framework for analyzing an organization's Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.
Target Operating Model (TOM) - A description of the future state of an organization, including all key elements and their interrelationships.
Theory of Constraints (TOC) - A methodology for identifying the most significant limiting factor (constraint) that stands in the way of achieving a goal.
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) - A holistic approach to estimating the direct and indirect costs of a product or service over its expected life cycle.
Total Quality Management (TQM) - A management philosophy that focuses on embedding awareness of quality in all organizational processes.
Use Case - A description of how a user will interact with a system or application to accomplish a specific task or goal.
User Experience (UX) - The overall experience a person has when using a particular product, system, or service.
Value Chain - A high-level model developed by Michael Porter that describes the activities within and surrounding an organization, and relates them to an analysis of the competitive strength of that organization.
Value Proposition - A statement that clearly identifies the benefits a company's products or services offer to customers.
Vertical Integration - A business growth strategy where a company expands its business operations within the same production path.
Virtual Team - A group of people who collaborate on interdependent tasks guided by a common purpose, working across boundaries of space, time, culture, and organization.
Vision Statement - A future-oriented declaration of an organization's purpose and aspirations.
Waterfall Model - A linear, sequential approach to project management where progress flows
steadily downwards through several phases.
Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) - A hierarchical decomposition of the total work to be executed by a project team to accomplish the project's objectives.
Workflow - The sequence of industrial, administrative, or other processes through which a piece of work passes from initiation to completion.
Zero-based Budgeting - An approach to planning and decision-making that reverses the working process of traditional budgeting.
