Glossary.

Ten times better, bigger or more productive.

Feedback on someone gathered from all around them: their manager, peers, people who report to them and sometimes customers.

The main workplace retirement savings plan in the US, often with the employer matching part of what you put in.

An independent US valuation of a private company's ordinary shares, used to set the strike price for employee stock options.

The idea that a small share of causes produces most of the results: 20 per cent of customers bring 80 per cent of the revenue, 20 per cent of bugs cause 80 per cent of the crashes.

A US tax filing, due within 30 days of receiving shares that will vest, choosing to be taxed on their value now rather than as they vest.

Showing two versions of something (a page, a price, a button) to different groups of users at random, to see which performs better.

Mass advertising aimed at everyone (TV, radio, posters, broad online campaigns) to build awareness of a brand.

The Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service: the free, independent UK body that gives advice on workplace rights, helps employers and staff settle disputes, and publishes the code of practice on disciplinary and grievance procedures.

A fixed-length programme for early startups that gives a small investment, mentoring and introductions, usually in exchange for a slice of shares.

The client formally agreeing that a deliverable meets what was agreed, often after acceptance testing.

The specific conditions a piece of work must meet to be accepted as done, written down before the work starts.

Designing products so disabled people can use them, including people using screen readers, keyboards or magnification.

A salesperson responsible for winning and closing deals, usually after an SDR has qualified the lead.

Looking after existing customers to keep them happy, renew their contracts and grow what they buy.

Marketing aimed at a specific list of named target companies, with campaigns tailored to each, rather than at a broad audience.

Payments made straight from one bank account to another, rather than over card networks, often started through open banking.

Being answerable for something: owning the outcome and explaining what happened, good or bad.

Costs or income recorded in the month they belong to, even though the money hasn't moved yet, such as a bill for work done this month that arrives next month.

The bank or financial company that processes card payments on behalf of a business and pays the money into its account.

One company buying another.

The specific tasks agreed in a meeting, each with someone responsible for doing it.

Annual contract value: what a customer's contract is worth per year, averaged over its length.

A UK insolvency process where an administrator takes control of a struggling company to try to rescue it, or sell it or its parts for the best price, while protecting it from creditors.

Paying other people or websites a commission for each customer or sale they send your way, tracked through special links.

The list of topics to be covered in a meeting, in order.

Artificial general intelligence: a hypothetical AI able to do almost any intellectual task a person can, rather than specific ones.

A family of ways of building software in short cycles, delivering small pieces often and adjusting as you learn, instead of planning everything up front.

Annual general meeting: the yearly meeting of a company's shareholders, to approve the accounts, elect directors and vote on resolutions.

Artificial intelligence: software that does things we used to think needed a person, such as understanding language, recognising images or making predictions.

An AI system that doesn't just answer but takes actions to complete a goal, such as searching, using other software or writing and running code, often over several steps.

When an AI system's outputs are systematically unfair to some groups, usually because of patterns in its training data or how it's used.

The rules, roles and processes an organisation uses to decide which AI it uses, how, and who's accountable for the results.

The trained program at the heart of an AI system, which takes an input (text, an image, numbers) and produces an output (an answer, a label, a prediction).

Exaggerating or inventing the use of AI in a product or company to make it sound more advanced, like greenwashing for technology.

A set of step-by-step rules a computer follows to solve a problem or make a decision, such as how a feed decides what to show you.

Everyone who matters agreeing on the goal and the plan before work starts.

A meeting for the whole company, or a whole department, usually led by senior leaders.

An early test version of software, used internally or by a small trusted group, expected to be rough and incomplete.

The same idea as depreciation, for things you can't touch: software, patents, licences.

Collecting and analysing data to understand what's happening, such as how people use a product, or how a business is performing.

A wealthy individual who invests their own money in very early companies, often before any professional investors will.

Changing data so it can no longer identify anyone, by anyone, by any reasonable means.

A grid for growth strategies: selling existing products to existing markets, new products to existing markets, existing products to new markets, or new products to new markets (diversification, the riskiest).

Rules and controls to prevent bribery, offering or accepting anything of value to improperly influence a decision.

A protection for investors that adjusts their share price downwards if the company later raises money at a lower valuation, so they get extra shares and everyone else is diluted further.

Laws and checks to stop criminals disguising illegal money as legitimate.

Any other business: the last item on a meeting agenda, for anything not already covered.

Application programming interface: a defined way for one piece of software to ask another for data or actions, without needing to know how it works inside.

A public organisation that delivers a government function but operates with some independence from ministers, such as a regulator or agency.

Average revenue per user: total revenue divided by the number of users or customers.

Annual or monthly recurring revenue: subscription income you can expect to repeat.

The document setting out a company's internal rules: how shares, directors, meetings and decisions work.

Referring back to an earlier conversation, often to put an agreement in writing so nobody can later claim otherwise.

As soon as possible.

How your investments are split between types, such as shares, bonds and cash, which mostly decides your risk and returns.

Things a company owns that have value: cash, money owed to it, equipment, buildings, and things you can't touch such as software it built or its brand.

Transferring the benefit of a contract, such as the right to be paid, to someone else.

Ultimately; when everything is considered.

The default in most of the US: either side can end employment at any time, for almost any reason, without notice.

There are benefits; they don't want to list them.

Working out which marketing activity deserves the credit for a sale, when a customer saw several ads, emails and posts before buying.

Staff leaving over time.

A formal independent check of whether an organisation is doing what it says, or what rules require: its accounts, its security or its processes.

A permanent record of who did what in a system and when, kept so actions can be checked later.

Checking who someone is, usually with a password, a code or a fingerprint.

Checking what someone is allowed to do once you know who they are.

Fraud where someone is tricked into sending a bank transfer to a criminal, such as a fake invoice or impersonation scam.

The UK law requiring employers to put most staff into a workplace pension automatically, with both sides contributing a minimum, unless the employee opts out.

A clause that renews a contract automatically for another term unless someone gives notice before a deadline.

Getting software to do a task that people used to do by hand.

Freedom to decide how you do your work.

A certification for businesses that meet independently verified standards for social and environmental performance, transparency and accountability.

Business to business: selling to other companies rather than to the public.

Business to consumer: selling directly to members of the public.

Set aside to deal with later, at low priority.

A quick, rough calculation, the kind you could do on the back of an envelope.

The part of software users don't see, running on servers: the business logic, data and connections to other systems.

Checks an employer runs before confirming a job, such as identity, employment history, qualifications, credit or criminal records, depending on the role.

Links from other websites to yours, which search engines treat as votes of confidence.

The list of work waiting to be done, in priority order: features, fixes and requests not yet started.

Regular sessions where the team goes through the backlog: clarifying, estimating and reordering items so they're ready for sprint planning.

A copy of data kept separately so it can be restored if the original is lost or damaged.

Someone who leaves in circumstances the equity scheme penalises, such as resigning early, misconduct or joining a competitor.

Build something in from the start, so it's part of the design, not an add-on.

A snapshot, on a single date, of what a company owns (its assets), what it owes (its liabilities) and the difference, which belongs to its shareholders.

A way of tracking performance that looks beyond money: financial, customer, internal process, and learning and growth measures together.

A rough estimate, close enough for now.

Someone's spare time or attention.

Licensed banks providing their infrastructure, such as accounts, cards and payments, through APIs, so other companies can build financial products without their own licence.

Authorisation from the UK regulators to take deposits from the public and operate as a bank.

A simple sales qualification checklist: budget, authority, need and timing.

Things that make it hard for new competitors to enter a market, such as high costs, regulation, network effects or established brands.

The Bank of England's main interest rate, which influences what banks charge to lend and pay on savings.

The original agreed plan (scope, timeline, budget) that progress is measured against.

The list of items a customer has chosen in an online shop before paying.

Business as usual: the day-to-day work of keeping things running, as opposed to projects and change.

A grid for sorting a company's products by market growth and market share: stars (high growth, high share), cash cows (low growth, high share), question marks (high growth, low share) and dogs (low growth, low share).

Targeted marketing aimed at specific people (email, direct mail, events, promotions, sponsorships) to get them to act.

Comparing your numbers or ways of working against other companies, competitors or industry averages to see where you stand.

A non-cash perk from your employer that's taxed as if it were income, such as a company car, private medical insurance or a loan at low interest.

The method generally accepted as the most effective way to do something.

The best available in its category.

A test version of software that's nearly finished, released to a wider group of real users to find problems before the full launch.

Big hairy audacious goal: a bold, long-term goal meant to inspire, such as putting a person on the moon.

Data too large, fast or varied for ordinary databases and tools to handle.

Treating mistakes and incidents as problems with the system to learn from, not as failures to punish individuals for.

Technology so new it's unproven and risky, beyond the cutting edge.

A market with little or no competition, created by offering something new.

Ideas generated without worrying about current limits such as budget, technology or politics.

Bottom line up front: putting the main point or request at the very start of a message.

Someone, usually from an investor, who attends board meetings without a vote.

The set of papers sent to directors before a board meeting: results, reports and proposals for decision.

Try to do too much at once, or tackle a problem so broadly that nothing gets finished.

Standard wording that appears in most contracts with little change, such as clauses on notices or governing law.

Loans to governments or companies that pay interest and return the original amount at the end of a set term.

An extra payment on top of salary, usually tied to personal performance, company results or both.

Bookings are the value of contracts signed; billings are what's been invoiced.

Building a company with its own revenue, or the founders' money, instead of outside investment.

The share of visitors who leave a website after seeing only one page.

A separate line of development in git, letting someone work on a change without affecting the main code until it's ready.

What people think and feel about a company or product: its reputation, its look and how it comes across, beyond the name and logo.

How many people in the target market know a brand exists and recognise it.

The value a brand adds because of what people think of it: why someone pays more for the brand they trust.

The rules for how a brand is presented: logo use, colours, fonts, imagery and tone of voice.

A clause letting one or both sides end a contract or lease early at a set point, without having to prove anything went wrong.

The point where income exactly covers costs, so there's neither profit nor loss.

A smaller, short-term funding round to keep a company going until its next proper round or a sale.

The app you use to visit websites, such as Chrome, Safari, Edge or Firefox.

An agreed limit on how much a team or project can spend over a period, usually a year.

The person responsible for a budget and allowed to approve spending from it.

A fault in software that makes it behave in a way it shouldn't.

The decision between building something yourselves and buying or subscribing to an existing product.

A bull market is a long period of rising share prices and optimism; a bear market is a long period of falling prices and pessimism.

Net burn divided by new annual recurring revenue added: how many pounds a startup burns to add a pound of recurring revenue.

How much more money goes out each month than comes in.

A chart showing the work completed rising over time towards the total scope, which also shows when scope has grown.

A chart showing the work left in a sprint going down day by day, so you can see whether the team is on track to finish.

A crisis or threat urgent enough to force change, from the idea of jumping off a burning oil platform.

Exhaustion from long-term stress at work, where rest stops fixing it.

The argument, usually written down, for why something is worth the money.

Planning so an organisation can keep running, or recover quickly, when something serious goes wrong, such as a major outage, a cyber attack or losing an office.

Tools and practices for turning a business's data into reports and dashboards that help people make decisions.

How a company makes money: who pays, for what, how much, and what it costs to deliver.

A part of a company run as its own business, with its own products, customers and often its own P&L.

Short-term credit at checkout that splits a purchase into instalments, often interest-free.

Genuine support from the people whose agreement you need, more than just permission.

The standard US company type for startups seeking venture capital, usually incorporated in Delaware.

The most senior executives, whose titles start with "chief": chief executive (CEO), finance (CFO), technology (CTO), operations (COO) and so on.

Customer acquisition cost: what you spend on sales and marketing to win one customer.

A store of recently used data kept close at hand so it can be served faster next time.

How often something regularly happens, such as a meeting or a release.

The rules for using and sharing patient-identifiable information in health and care, overseen in each organisation by a Caldicott Guardian.

The meeting where managers compare their teams' performance ratings and adjust them to be consistent, often to fit a set spread of scores.

The specific thing you want someone to do next, such as "Subscribe", "Book a demo" or "Start free trial", usually as a button or link.

A coordinated set of marketing activities around one goal and message, running for a set time.

When a company's new product takes sales from its own existing products rather than from competitors.

A table showing who owns what in a company: every shareholder, how many shares and options they hold, and their percentage.

Something an organisation is able to do, combining people, process and technology, such as "a data science capability".

Working out how much work a team can realistically take on, given its people, time and other commitments.

Capital expenditure: money spent on things that last for years, such as servers, buildings or a major software build.

Deciding where a company's money goes: which projects, teams, acquisitions or returns to shareholders.

Tax on the profit when you sell something that has gone up in value, such as shares.

Recording a cost as an asset on the balance sheet, spread over its useful life, instead of as an expense straight away.

The total greenhouse gas emissions caused by a person, product, organisation or activity.

The network that sets the rules and connects banks for card payments, such as Visa, Mastercard or American Express.

Time out of paid work between jobs, for caring, illness, study, travel or being made redundant.

The defined levels in a profession or company, with what's expected at each, used to guide progression and pay.

Passing information down through the layers of an organisation, from leaders to managers to teams.

A short story of how a real customer used a product to solve a problem, with results, used to persuade similar customers.

The timing of money in and money out.

Defining and leading an entirely new kind of product, so customers think of you as the category itself.

Carbon copy and blind carbon copy: copying someone into an email.

The California Consumer Privacy Act: California's privacy law, giving residents rights over their personal data, similar in spirit to GDPR.

The person who leads the board of directors and runs its meetings.

A company competing against the market leader by doing things differently, often more boldly, on a smaller budget.

A single decision or step, taken during a change journey, that moves the business towards its change goal.

An exercise for a proposed change action: listing its likely drawbacks and how each would be mitigated, ideally done first with advocates and then with detractors.

A group that reviews and approves significant changes to live systems before they're made.

Someone in the business who supports the change goal and speaks up for it, helping reduce change resistance and change fatigue.

Someone who helps a business through its change journey alongside the change leader and business leaders.

Someone in the business who is fully behind the change goal and actively helps deliver change actions, reducing change resistance and change fatigue in others.

Someone in the business who is against the change goal, either sceptical of its benefits or outright opposed to it.

Losing energy for, or interest in, change because too much has changed too quickly.

A model for guiding a business towards its change goal through a change strategy.

A period when no changes may be made to live systems, such as over a busy trading period or holidays.

What a change is meant to achieve: the destination of a change journey.

Being unwilling or unable to start a change, or the pull to keep doing things the way they've always been done.

The whole process a business goes through to change, including delivering the strategies that make the change happen.

The person responsible for overseeing the delivery of a change journey, either from inside the business or brought in from outside.

Everything involved in planning, delivering and supporting a business and its people through a change in how the business operates.

A formal request to change the agreed scope of a contract or project, usually with its own price and timeline.

Opposition to a change, either open or quiet, such as people carrying on the old way.

A plan for reaching a change goal, usually focused on one type of change and made up of one or more change actions.

A list of what changed in each version of a piece of software.

A company that sells, recommends or implements another company's product to its own customers, such as a reseller, distributor or consultancy.

A card payment reversed by the customer's bank after they dispute it, with the money taken back from the business, usually plus a fee.

Software you talk to in text or voice, which answers questions or carries out simple tasks.

A senior person who works directly with an executive, often the chief executive, to help them run the organisation: coordinating priorities, running key meetings and following through on decisions.

The share of customers, or staff, who leave in a given period.

Continuous integration and continuous delivery: automatically testing every code change and getting approved changes released quickly and safely, through a series of automated steps called a pipeline.

Talk about this again later.

The waiting period at the start of vesting, usually a year, when you earn no equity at all.

Proof, ideally from trials or real-world studies, that a health product works and is safe for its intended use.

A registered clinician, trained in clinical risk management, who is responsible for the clinical safety of a health IT product or its deployment.

Letting everyone involved know how something turned out, so nothing is left hanging.

Getting a potential customer to commit and sign: the final stage of a sale.

Computing power and storage rented over the internet from providers such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud, instead of owning your own servers.

The three main ways cloud computing is sold: infrastructure as a service (IaaS: rented servers and storage), platform as a service (PaaS: a managed platform to run your code) and software as a service (SaaS: finished applications).

Structured conversations with a trained coach that help you work through your own goals and problems, mostly through questions rather than advice.

The rules an organisation sets for how its people should behave, including ethics, conflicts of interest and treatment of others.

Another developer checking a change before it's merged, looking for bugs, risks and ways to make it clearer.

All the source code for a piece of software, taken together.

A group of customers or users who share something, usually when they signed up, tracked together over time.

Contacting potential customers who don't know you yet, by email, phone or social media.

Negotiation between an employer and a trade union, on behalf of a group of workers, over pay and conditions.

The range of situations where you feel at ease and in control.

You'll often work without clear requirements, plans or answers.

Pay based on the sales someone makes, common in sales roles, often on top of a base salary.

When a product becomes so similar to its competitors that customers choose on price alone.

The UK government body where companies are registered, and where their directors, owners and accounts are made public.

A formal decision of a company's board or shareholders, voted on and recorded.

The person responsible for a company's legal and governance paperwork: filings, board meetings, minutes and records.

The principles an organisation says guide how its people behave and make decisions, such as "customer first" or "be honest".

Time off when someone close to you dies or is seriously ill.

An interview where each question asks for a real example of when you showed a particular skill, such as "Tell me about a time you handled a conflict".

Something a company does better or differently from its rivals that makes customers choose it: lower cost, a better product, a stronger brand, a network others can't copy.

A salary they don't want to name in the advert.

Following the laws, regulations and standards that apply to an organisation, and being able to prove it.

Earning returns on your past returns as well as on the original money, so growth speeds up over time.

The UK law that makes it a crime to access computer systems or data without permission, or to impair how they work.

AI that understands images and video: recognising objects, reading text, counting things or spotting defects.

A duty not to share certain information, set by a contract clause or a standalone NDA.

A UK check that warns you, before you send a bank transfer, if the account name doesn't match the name you entered.

A situation where someone's personal interests could influence, or look as if they influence, their decisions at work.

Under GDPR, a person's freely given, specific, informed and clear agreement to their data being used, as easy to withdraw as to give.

A market shrinking to fewer, bigger players as companies merge, get bought or close.

Resigning because your employer has seriously broken your contract, for example by cutting your pay or demoting you without agreement, which the law can then treat as a dismissal.

FCA rules requiring financial firms to deliver good outcomes for retail customers: fair value, clear communication, products that meet their needs, and proper support.

A way of packaging software with everything it needs to run, so it behaves the same anywhere.

Attracting customers by publishing useful material, such as articles, videos, guides and newsletters, instead of advertising directly.

How much text (measured in tokens) an AI model can take into account at once, including the prompt, any documents and its own reply.

Extra time or money set aside for things that go wrong, and a plan for what to do if they do.

A legally binding agreement between two or more parties, setting out what each will do and what happens if they don't.

A self-employed person hired for a set period or project rather than as an employee, usually paid a day rate.

What's left from each sale after its variable costs, which then contributes towards covering fixed costs and profit.

When a visitor or user takes the step you want, such as signing up or buying.

Systematically improving the share of visitors who take a desired action, through testing changes to pages, forms and flows.

A loan to a startup that turns into shares later, usually at the next funding round, often at a discount.

A small file a website stores in your browser to remember things about you, such as that you're logged in, what's in your basket, or which pages you've seen.

The UK's Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR) set the rules for cookies, tracking and marketing emails and texts.

An AI assistant built into a tool you already use, suggesting text, code or actions as you work.

Writing the words used in marketing and products, such as adverts, web pages, emails and buttons.

The thing a company is genuinely best at and builds everything else around.

A company's voluntary efforts to have a positive effect on society and the environment, such as volunteering, charity partnerships and ethical sourcing.

Correlation means two things move together; causation means one actually causes the other.

A part of the business that costs money but doesn't bring any in directly: IT, HR, finance, internal platform teams.

A code identifying which budget a cost should be charged to, needed on purchase orders and expense claims.

What it costs a company to fund itself, from lenders and shareholders, and so the minimum return its investments need to make.

The direct costs of delivering what you sell.

What it costs to look after one customer once you've won them: hosting, support, onboarding and the time spent keeping the account happy.

Setting a price by adding a fixed margin on top of what the product costs to make or deliver.

An offer from your current employer to persuade you to stay after you've resigned or said you're leaving, usually more money.

Conditions in a loan agreement the borrower must keep to, such as a minimum cash balance or maximum debt compared with profit.

Cost per click: what an advertiser pays, on average, each time someone clicks their ad.

Cost per mille: the cost of showing an ad a thousand times, used for ads aimed at awareness rather than clicks.

The Care Quality Commission: the regulator of health and adult social care services in England, which inspects and rates providers.

In marketing, the actual adverts, images, videos and designs used in a campaign.

A rating of how reliable you've been at repaying debts, used by lenders to decide whether to lend to you and at what rate.

In change management, an unexpected event that needs dealing with before a change journey or strategy can carry on.

The chain of dependent tasks that decides the earliest a project can finish.

Customer relationship management: the system that holds a company's contacts, customers and deals, and every interaction with them, such as Salesforce or HubSpot.

Selling an existing customer a different, related product.

Raising money from many people, often online, either as investment for shares (equity crowdfunding) or pre-orders and rewards.

The UK government agency that sets up and runs procurement frameworks that public bodies can buy through.

Digital money that runs on a blockchain, a shared record maintained across many computers rather than by a bank.

Customer satisfaction score: how satisfied customers say they are with a specific interaction or product, usually asked straight afterwards.

Click-through rate: the share of people who see something (an ad, an email, a search result) who click on it.

An organisation's shared values, behaviours and unwritten rules: "how things are really done round here".

Whether someone is likely to work well within an organisation's values and ways of working.

The time a contract gives a side to fix a breach after being notified, before the other side can end the contract.

How things work today, and how they should work after a change.

Every step a customer takes with a company, from first hearing about it to buying, using it and getting support.

Keeping customers over time, and the share of customers who stay.

The team and practice of helping customers get real value from a product after they've bought, to keep them, renew them and grow them.

The planned switch from an old system to a new one, often over a weekend or overnight, following a step-by-step plan.

Curriculum vitae: the document summarising your work history, skills and achievements that you send when applying for a job.

A UK government-backed certification showing an organisation has five basic security controls in place: firewalls, secure configuration, user access control, malware protection and keeping software updated.

The Technicians MBA's model for moving a business forward: discover first, then innovate, starting from and returning to its standard operating practice.

Direct to consumer: a brand selling straight to customers, usually online, instead of through shops or other retailers.

A screen that shows the key numbers or charts about something at a glance.

The person who answers business questions with data: running queries, building reports and explaining what the numbers mean.

A security incident where personal data is lost, stolen, destroyed or seen by someone who shouldn't see it.

A building full of servers, storage and networking equipment, with the power, cooling and security to run them all the time.

The organisation that decides why and how personal data is used, and carries the main legal responsibility for it.

The engineer who builds and runs the systems that collect, move, clean and store data so others can use it.

The rules, roles and processes for how data is managed, who can use it and who's responsible for it.

Collecting and keeping only the personal data you actually need for the purpose.

The contract a data controller must have with each data processor, setting out how the processor may handle the personal data.

An organisation that handles personal data on behalf of a data controller and only on its instructions, such as a cloud provider or email service.

The UK law that sits alongside the UK GDPR, filling in the details and covering areas such as law enforcement and immigration.

How accurate, complete, consistent and up to date data is.

Where data is physically stored and processed, which some customers and laws require to be in a particular country or region.

How long an organisation keeps data, and its rules for deleting it afterwards.

Using statistics, programming and domain knowledge to find patterns and make predictions from data, often with machine learning.

The living person a piece of personal data is about.

A central database that pulls together data from many systems, organised for reporting and analysis rather than for running the business day to day.

Making decisions based on data and evidence rather than gut feel or opinion.

An organised store of data that software can search and update quickly, such as all your customers and their orders.

Daily, weekly and monthly active users: how many different people actually used the product in that day, week or month.

What a contractor or consultant charges for each day they work.

The NHS clinical risk management standards for health IT.

A potential or agreed sale, tracked through stages in the pipeline.

Money borrowed that has to be paid back, usually with interest.

Debtors are people or companies that owe you money; creditors are those you owe money to.

A private startup valued at ten billion dollars or more.

The person who makes the final buying decision.

A set of presentation slides.

A detailed, thorough look at one subject, usually in a dedicated session.

AI-generated or manipulated video, audio or images made to look real, often showing someone saying or doing something they never did.

Whether a startup will reach profitability on its current money and growth (default alive) or run out of money first unless it raises more (default dead).

Money a customer has paid for something not yet delivered, such as an annual subscription paid upfront.

The agreed checklist that work must meet before it counts as finished, such as tested, reviewed, documented and deployed.

Restructuring a non-US startup so that a new Delaware company owns it, usually because US investors require it.

The limits set for who can approve what: how much someone can spend or commit to without asking someone more senior.

Handing work and the authority to do it to someone else, usually someone you manage.

The specific things a project or person has to produce, such as a report, a feature or a design.

Marketing that creates interest in a product among people who weren't looking for it, feeding the sales pipeline over time.

Being moved to a less senior role, often with less pay.

Things a piece of work relies on before it can start or finish, such as another team's work, a decision or a supplier.

Put a new version of software into the place where it runs, so users get the change.

Marking a feature as on its way out: still working, but no longer recommended and due to be removed.

Spreading the cost of a physical thing the company owns (servers, laptops, an office fit-out) over the years it's useful, instead of counting it all at once.

How easy and pleasant it is for developers to do their work: tools, documentation, build times, processes.

A way of working, and the role, that brings software development and IT operations together, so teams build, release and run their own software, with heavy use of automation.

What makes a product meaningfully different from its competitors, in a way customers care about.

Building your own software for your own needs, with AI, vibe coding and cheap hosting, instead of paying ever-rising subscription prices for services that keep getting worse.

The Crown Commercial Service framework for buying digital projects and specialists, such as teams to build a service or individual experts.

A large programme to change how an organisation works using technology.

Your share of the company shrinking because new shares are created and sold to investors.

A way for a business to collect varying amounts from a customer's bank account, with their one-off permission, protected by the Direct Debit Guarantee.

The path a business is already on, which shapes its standard operating procedures and day-to-day decisions.

Two different things in the UK.

The legal duties every UK company director owes the company, such as promoting its success, using reasonable care and avoiding conflicts of interest.

Getting systems and data back after a serious failure.

The formal process an employer follows when it believes an employee's conduct, or sometimes performance, falls short, which can end in a warning or dismissal.

The yearly rate used to convert future money into today's value, reflecting risk and the return you could get elsewhere.

Selling below the list price to win a deal or move stock.

An early sales conversation to understand a potential customer's situation, problems and needs before pitching anything.

When a new product or business model takes over a market from established players, usually by starting cheaper or simpler and improving until it's good enough for most customers.

Spreading money across many different investments, so one going badly doesn't sink everything.

Selling or closing part of a business.

A payment of a company's profits to its shareholders, usually so much per share.

Domain name system: the internet's address book, which turns a domain name into the numeric address of the server behind it.

Written explanation of how software works and how to use it, for users, developers or the people who run it.

Depending on experience: the salary will depend on how experienced you are.

Using your own product inside your company, before or alongside customers.

The human-readable name of a website, such as thetechniciansmba.com, which a company rents yearly from a registrar.

Commit even more firmly to a strategy or position, usually by investing more in it.

A funding round at a lower valuation than the previous one.

Data protection impact assessment: a documented check of the privacy risks of a new system or use of personal data, and how they'll be reduced.

Data protection officer: the person responsible for overseeing an organisation's data protection.

A clause letting the holders of most of the shares force the rest to sell on the same terms when a buyer wants the whole company.

Directly responsible individual: the one person accountable for something getting done.

Look at something in more detail, going from the summary into the specifics.

Believe in something, such as a company's mission or a product, uncritically.

Being hit with far more information than you can take in, typical of a new job.

A series of automated emails sent on a schedule or triggered by what someone does, such as signing up.

Data Security and Protection Toolkit: the annual online self-assessment every organisation with access to NHS patient data must complete, showing it meets data security standards.

Digital Technology Assessment Criteria: the NHS's baseline checklist for digital health products, covering clinical safety, data protection, technical security, interoperability, and usability and accessibility.

Everything organised and ready before you start.

The detailed checking an investor or buyer does before committing: finances, contracts, legal risks, technology and people.

The step you must normally take before making an employment tribunal claim: notifying Acas, who then try to help both sides settle without a hearing.

The three kinds of publicity: earned (coverage you don't pay for, such as press and shares), owned (your own channels, such as your site and newsletter) and paid (advertising).

What a listed company tells investors it expects its future results to be.

Earnings before interest and tax: profit from the business's operations, after depreciation and amortisation.

Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation.

The person who controls the budget and can actually approve the purchase.

Costs per unit falling as a business gets bigger, because fixed costs are spread over more output and bulk buying is cheaper.

The network of products, partners, developers and customers around a platform, each adding value to the others.

Equity, diversity and inclusion: the policies and practices that aim to make an organisation fair, representative and welcoming to everyone.

Enterprise Investment Scheme: UK tax relief for people who invest in small, young companies that aren't listed on a stock exchange.

A firm authorised by the FCA to issue electronic money (balances held in an account or card) and make payments, without being a bank.

The digital record of a patient's health and care, used by clinicians.

An obvious problem everyone knows about but nobody is mentioning.

Using email to reach and keep customers: newsletters, promotions, onboarding and announcements.

Financial services built into a non-financial product, such as paying later at checkout or buying insurance while booking.

Numbers that represent the meaning of a piece of text or an image, so a computer can find things that mean similar things even when the words differ.

Savings kept in easy-access cash to cover unexpected costs or a gap in income, often three to six months of essential spending.

Enterprise Management Incentives: a UK government-approved share option scheme for smaller companies.

A free, confidential service some employers provide for staff, offering counselling and advice on personal or work problems.

Everything an employee goes through at a company, from hiring and onboarding to daily work and leaving.

The document setting out an organisation's policies and rules for staff, such as leave, conduct, expenses and IT use.

What an employer offers in return for people's work and commitment: pay, benefits, culture, development and purpose.

An organisation's reputation as a place to work.

The independent UK tribunal that hears disputes between workers and employers, such as unfair dismissal, discrimination and unpaid wages.

Giving people the authority and resources to make decisions themselves, without needing approval for everything.

Scrambling data so only someone with the right key can read it.

The point after which a product or version is no longer sold, updated or supported.

How much people interact with content: likes, comments, shares, clicks, time spent.

A survey asking employees how motivated, satisfied and committed they feel, often yearly.

The person who manages an engineering team's people: hiring, growth, performance and how the team works.

The way online platforms get worse over time.

Large organisations as customers.

What a whole business is worth to a buyer: its market value plus its debt, minus its cash.

The Technicians MBA's name for the frustration you feel when a situation or process is so bad it makes you angry, which, harnessed properly, drives you to build something better, sometimes a business.

A separate setup where software runs for a particular purpose, such as development, testing, staging or production.

End of day: by the end of today's working day, usually around 5 or 6pm in the sender's time zone.

End of week: by the end of the last working day of this week, usually Friday afternoon.

A large piece of work too big for one sprint, broken down into smaller user stories.

The UK law protecting people from discrimination at work and in services because of protected characteristics such as age, disability, race, sex, religion and sexual orientation.

A share of ownership in the company, usually given as shares or share options as part of your pay.

To pass a problem up to someone more senior, or to a specialist team, because it can't be solved at the current level.

Holding something, such as money or source code, with an independent third party, released only when agreed conditions are met.

Environmental, social and governance: a set of factors used to judge how responsibly a company operates, beyond its finances.

Employee stock purchase plan: a scheme letting employees buy their company's shares, often at a discount, through deductions from pay.

A best guess at how long something will take or how much it will cost.

Estimated time of arrival: when something is expected to arrive or be finished.

Exchange-traded fund: a fund, often an index fund, that's bought and sold on a stock exchange like a single share.

Extract, transform, load: copying data out of source systems, cleaning and reshaping it, and loading it into somewhere like a data warehouse.

The European Union's law regulating AI by level of risk: some uses are banned outright, high-risk uses (such as in hiring, credit or critical infrastructure) face strict requirements, and others mainly need transparency.

Tests of how well an AI system performs on a set of example tasks, used to compare models and catch problems before release.

A contract term stopping one side from working with others, for example a supplier agreeing not to serve your competitors.

How senior and credible someone comes across: confidence, clarity and composure, especially under pressure.

A short summary at the start of a document giving the key points, conclusions and recommendations, for people who won't read the rest.

US employment categories.

When founders and investors turn their shares into money, usually by selling the company or listing it on a stock exchange.

A conversation with someone leaving an organisation about why they're going and what could be better.

Costs you pay for while working (travel, hotels, meals, equipment) and then claim back from your employer or client, usually with receipts and within an expenses policy.

How well people can understand why an AI system produced a particular output or decision.

Testing ideas quickly and cheaply so the ones that won't work are found and dropped early.

The work is busy and priorities change often.

The UK system for near-instant bank transfers between accounts, available all day, every day.

The Financial Conduct Authority: the UK regulator for financial services firms such as banks, lenders, insurers and payment companies.

A switch in software that turns a feature on or off without releasing new code, often for some users only.

Information about how someone's work or behaviour is landing, given to help them improve or keep doing what works.

Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources: the modern standard for exchanging health data between systems through APIs.

A legal duty to act in someone else's best interests, such as a director's duty to their company or a trustee's to their beneficiaries.

A regulated professional who gives personalised recommendations about investments, pensions and financial planning, for a fee.

A spreadsheet that represents a business's finances, so you can test what happens to profit, cash or valuation if assumptions change.

The UK government's central website where public sector contract opportunities and awards are published.

Training an existing AI model further on your own examples, so it gets better at a particular task or style.

The benefit of being first into a market, such as brand recognition and early customers.

The company's twelve-month accounting year, which often doesn't match the calendar.

A diagram for finding the causes of a problem, with the problem at the head and possible causes branching off like fish bones, grouped by category.

The structure UK government uses for business cases: strategic, economic, commercial, financial and management cases.

Finding a root cause by asking "why?" repeatedly, usually about five times, until you reach something worth fixing.

Costs that stay the same however much you sell, such as rent, salaries and most software subscriptions.

A contract where the supplier delivers an agreed scope for an agreed total, whatever it actually costs them.

A formal request to change how, when or where you work, such as different hours, compressed hours or working from home.

A self-reinforcing loop where each part of the business speeds up the next: more users bring more data, which makes the product better, which brings more users.

Copying someone in so they know something is happening, not because they need to act.

A clause excusing either side from their obligations when something extraordinary and outside their control happens, such as war, natural disaster or a pandemic.

A prediction of future numbers, such as revenue, costs or headcount, usually updated through the year as reality comes in.

Converting one currency into another, and the market where that happens.

A person who started a company.

Working four days instead of five, ideally for the same pay, with the aim of keeping productivity up.

Financial planning and analysis: the finance team that builds budgets, forecasts and models, and explains the numbers to leadership.

A ready-made structure for building software, providing common parts so developers don't start from scratch.

Full or partial access to a paid product for a limited time, so people can try it before buying.

The UK law giving anyone the right to request information held by public bodies, with some exemptions.

Giving a basic version of a product away free, and charging for more features, capacity or support.

The part of software people see and interact with: the screens, buttons and forms in a website or app.

The Financial Services Compensation Scheme: the UK scheme that protects customers' deposits, up to a set limit per person per bank, if an authorised bank or building society fails.

Full-time equivalent: a way of counting staff where two half-time people add up to one FTE.

Working on both the frontend and the backend of software.

The true cost of employing someone: salary plus employer's National Insurance, pension, benefits, equipment, office space and overheads.

What you pay to hold an investment fund, usually a yearly percentage, plus any platform fee for the account it's held in.

When a startup raises money from investors in exchange for shares.

The stages a potential customer goes through from first noticing a product to buying it, drawn as a funnel because fewer people make it through each stage.

For your information: you don't need to act on this, just be aware of it.

The Crown Commercial Service framework for buying cloud hosting, cloud software and cloud support, reopened for new suppliers every year or two.

Something that significantly changes how things are done.

A chart showing project tasks as bars along a timeline, with their dates and dependencies.

Comparing where an organisation is now with where it wants to be, and listing what's needed to close the gap.

Being paid to stay away from work during your notice period, so you can't take anything to a competitor in the meantime.

Content you can only get after giving your details, such as an email address, usually a report or guide.

Someone who controls access to a decision maker, such as an assistant or a procurement team.

The General Data Protection Regulation: the law on how organisations collect, use and protect personal data.

The Government Digital Service: the part of UK government that sets standards for digital services and runs shared platforms such as GOV.UK.

The difference between the average pay of men and women across an organisation.

AI that creates new content (text, images, audio, video or code) in response to a prompt.

A polite chase.

The most widely used version control system: it tracks every change to code, who made it and when, and lets many people work on the same code at once.

The moment a new system or change is switched on for real users.

The plan for selling something: who to, at what price, and through which channels.

The formal decision, at a set point, on whether a project or launch goes ahead.

Accounting's assumption that a business will keep operating for the foreseeable future.

From now on.

A polite way of saying no: you didn't get the job, the project was cancelled, or your idea wasn't chosen.

Pay or benefits designed to make leaving expensive, such as unvested equity, retention bonuses or deferred pay.

Someone who leaves in circumstances the equity scheme treats kindly, such as illness, redundancy or after an agreed time.

In accounting, the amount paid for a business above the value of its identifiable assets: what was paid for its reputation, customers and people.

Google's free tool for adding and managing tracking tags (analytics, advertising pixels, conversion tracking) on a website without changing the site's code each time.

The rules, roles and processes that decide how decisions are made and checked, and who's accountable.

The country's (or state's) law that applies to a contract if there's a dispute, and so where it would be argued in court.

The stages UK government digital projects move through: discovery (understanding the problem), alpha (testing solutions), beta (building it for real and opening it up) and live.

How UK government marks information by sensitivity: OFFICIAL (most information, including OFFICIAL-SENSITIVE as a handling marking), SECRET and TOP SECRET.

Graphics processing unit: a chip originally designed for graphics, now the main hardware used to train and run AI models.

Detailed, broken into small parts.

HM Treasury's guidance on how to appraise and evaluate spending proposals in government, using the five case model.

A new project starting from scratch, with no existing systems to work around.

Making a company or product look more environmentally friendly than it really is.

A formal complaint by an employee to their employer about something at work, such as how they've been treated, their pay or their working conditions.

Gross burn is everything a company spends in a month; net burn is that spending minus the money coming in.

Behaviour serious enough to justify dismissal without notice, even for a first offence, such as theft, violence, fraud or a serious breach of data or safety rules.

Revenue minus the cost of goods sold.

Everything customers paid, before refunds, discounts or anyone else's cut comes off.

Fast, experimental, often low-cost marketing focused purely on growth, mixing product, data and marketing.

Believing abilities can be developed through effort and learning, rather than being fixed.

There's room to progress.

Grand thanks for your time: The Technicians MBA's sign-off, used at the end of posts to thank readers for reading.

Rules and checks around an AI system that stop it doing or saying things it shouldn't, such as leaking data, giving harmful advice or going off-topic.

The first and second halves of a year (calendar or fiscal).

When an AI model states something false or invented as if it were fact, such as a made-up reference or number.

Passing work, knowledge or responsibility from one person or team to another.

A fixed time someone must leave a meeting, whatever's happening.

A senior job title for the person leading a function or department, such as head of engineering.

The number of people a team is allowed to employ.

A recruiter who approaches people who aren't actively looking, usually for senior or hard-to-fill roles.

A short document setting out the main agreed points of a deal before the full contract is drafted.

Advance warning about something.

Outside conditions that make things harder (headwinds) or easier (tailwinds): the economy, regulation, technology shifts, competitors.

In the US, health care is mostly paid for through insurance, usually provided as an employment benefit.

A broad, high-level overview without the detail.

Trying to coordinate people who all want to go their own way.

An employee judged to be capable of rising to much more senior roles, often given extra development.

The US law protecting health information handled by healthcare providers, insurers and their suppliers.

The person who'll manage whoever gets the job, and who usually makes the final decision.

Be productive immediately, with little onboarding.

HM Revenue and Customs: the UK government department that collects taxes.

Growth that's flat for a while and then shoots upwards, like the shape of a hockey stick on a chart.

Looking at the whole thing rather than its parts separately.

Running software on computers that are always on and connected to the internet, so people can use it.

An urgent fix released outside the normal schedule, because a problem in production can't wait.

Human resources: the team that handles everything about employing people, from hiring and pay to policies, performance and leaving.

An HR specialist assigned to support a particular part of the business and its managers.

Keeping a person involved in an AI system's decisions, to review, approve or correct its outputs before they take effect.

Splitting working time between the office and somewhere else, usually home.

The pattern new technologies tend to follow: inflated expectations, then disappointment, then gradual, realistic adoption.

A period of extra support straight after go-live, when the project team stays on hand to fix problems fast before handing over to normal support.

Starting from a best guess at the answer and then testing it, rather than gathering all the data first.

The Information Commissioner's Office: the UK regulator for data protection and freedom of information.

Ideal customer profile: a description of the type of company (or person) most likely to buy, succeed with and stay with your product.

Coming up with ideas, usually in a structured session.

Feeling like a fraud who's about to be found out, despite evidence that you're capable.

The number of times something, such as an ad or a post, was shown, whether or not anyone noticed it.

Inbound sales or marketing is when customers come to you (searching, signing up, asking for a demo); outbound is when you go to them (cold emails, calls, events).

An unplanned event that disrupts a service or puts it at risk, such as an outage or a security problem, handled by a defined response process.

Tax on what you earn: wages, self-employed profits, some investment income.

The established company that already leads a market.

A promise in a contract to cover the other side's losses if a particular thing happens, such as a claim that your software infringes someone else's rights.

A fund that tracks a whole market index, such as all large companies worldwide, rather than having managers pick shares.

Someone who does the work themselves rather than managing people.

Running a trained AI model to get an answer, as opposed to training it.

Prices in general rising over time, so the same money buys less.

Getting people to act when you have no power to make them, through relationships, credibility and clear reasoning.

Paying or partnering with people who have large, trusted audiences on social media to promote a product.

The underlying systems software runs on: servers, networks, storage, databases and the cloud services that provide them.

A business carrying on as it always has until something forces it to change, like an object at rest staying at rest until a force acts on it.

Being unable to pay debts when they're due, or owing more than you own.

Assets you can't touch but that have value, such as software, patents, brands, customer lists and goodwill.

The NHS body that plans and pays for health services for a local area in England, working with councils and providers as an integrated care system.

A connection that lets two systems share data or work together, usually through an API.

Creations of the mind that the law treats as property: code, designs, written work, inventions, brands and trade secrets.

The fee paid on each card payment from the business's acquirer to the customer's card issuer.

What you pay to borrow money, or earn by lending it, usually a percentage per year.

Moving to a different role, team or location within the same organisation.

Sending personal data to another country.

Different systems being able to exchange and use each other's data.

The full set of interviews a candidate goes through for a role, often on one day or over a couple of weeks.

A person or firm that puts money into a company in exchange for shares, hoping the shares will be worth more later.

A list of decisions the company can't make without its investors' agreement, such as raising more money, selling the company, changing the share scheme or big spending.

A regular email or report to investors on progress, numbers, problems and what help the company needs.

The formal document inviting suppliers to bid for a contract, setting out what's needed and how bids will be judged.

A bill: the document a supplier sends asking to be paid for what it delivered, with the amount, the due date and how to pay.

Borrowing against unpaid invoices, so a business gets most of the money now instead of waiting for customers to pay.

The numeric address that identifies a device or server on a network or the internet, such as 192.0.2.1.

A contract clause transferring ownership of intellectual property from the person who created it to someone else, typically from an employee or contractor to the company paying them.

Initial public offering: the first time a company's shares go on sale on a stock exchange.

The UK's off-payroll working rules.

Individual retirement account: a personal US retirement account with tax advantages, outside an employer's plan.

Internal rate of return: the yearly return an investment is expected to make, used to compare investments of different sizes and lengths.

Individual savings account: a UK account where savings and investments grow free of income tax and capital gains tax, up to a yearly allowance.

The International Organization for Standardization, which publishes agreed standards for how things should be done, from screw threads to security.

The international standard for managing information security.

The international standard for quality management: how an organisation makes sure what it delivers is consistently good and keeps improving.

The two types of US employee stock options.

The bank that gives a customer their card and approves or declines each payment.

How an organisation runs IT as a set of services for its users: handling requests, incidents, problems and changes in a consistent way.

The most widely used tool for tracking tickets and running agile teams.

The document describing a role: its purpose, responsibilities, who it reports to, and the skills and experience needed.

Changing employers often, every year or two.

A business arrangement where two or more companies combine resources for a specific project or a new shared company, sharing control, costs and profits.

Have a quick phone or video call instead of going back and forth in writing.

A polite chase for a reply that hasn't come.

Japanese for "improvement": the habit of making small, continuous improvements, involving everyone, rather than occasional big changes.

An agile method without sprints.

A customer important enough to get special attention, usually because of its size or strategic value.

The main points someone should remember from a meeting, talk or document.

The words and phrases people type into search engines, which pages are optimised for in SEO and bid on in PPC.

The first meeting of a project, where the team agrees the goals, scope, roles and plan.

The checks financial and other regulated businesses must do to verify customers' identities and assess risk.

Key performance indicator: a number someone has decided matters.

Knowledge transfer: passing what someone knows to others, usually before they leave or hand over a system.

Learning and development: the training, courses and support an organisation offers to help people grow, often with a budget per person.

Winning a small first deal with a customer, often one team, then growing it across the organisation over time.

A web page built for one purpose, usually where people arrive from an advert or email, designed to get them to take one action.

The kind of AI behind ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini: software trained on huge amounts of text to predict and write language.

The delay between asking a system for something and getting a response, usually measured in milliseconds.

Making a product or feature publicly available for the first time, usually with announcements and marketing around it.

The principle that any change will have effects nobody planned for, some harmful and some beneficial.

One of six legal reasons an organisation must have to use personal data under GDPR: consent, contract, legal obligation, vital interests, public task or legitimate interests.

The investor who sets the terms of a funding round, usually puts in the most money and often takes a board seat; others follow.

Something useful given away free in exchange for contact details, such as a guide, checklist or tool.

Keeping in touch with potential customers who aren't ready to buy yet, with useful content, until they are.

The way a person leads: how they make decisions, communicate, delegate and support their team.

An approach to running work that focuses on delivering value to the customer with as little waste as possible: of time, effort, inventory or waiting.

Engage fully and confidently with something, rather than holding back.

Lessons learned.

The record of every financial transaction, showing what moved, when and where.

An old system that's still in use, often hard to change, poorly understood and running something important.

A lawful basis for using personal data where an organisation has a genuine reason and the use is fair to the people involved, weighed in a short assessment.

A softer way of saying someone has been dismissed or made redundant.

Improve or move to a higher level, of skill or performance.

Make sure everyone starts from the same understanding before a discussion.

Deciding what level a person or role sits at on the career ladder, which usually sets the pay range.

To use something to get more out of it.

What a company owes: loans, unpaid supplier invoices, tax due, money taken in advance for work not yet done.

Legal responsibility for something, especially for paying for loss or damage you caused.

A collection of ready-written code that developers can reuse in their own software.

Permission to use something, such as software, a patent or a brand, under agreed terms and usually for a fee.

A UK ISA for people aged 18 to 39 to save for a first home or retirement, with a government bonus added to what you put in.

A contract clause capping how much one side can be made to pay the other if things go wrong, often to the value of the contract.

A company that's a legal person in its own right, separate from its owners, whose shareholders are only liable for its debts up to what they invested.

The person you report to directly, who manages your day-to-day work and your reviews.

Closing a company down, selling its assets, paying creditors as far as possible and removing it from the register.

An investor's right to get their money back, or a multiple of it, before ordinary shareholders receive anything when the company is sold or wound up.

The standard published price, before any discount.

How big a mortgage is compared with the property's value, as a percentage.

A set period after an IPO or acquisition when staff and early investors aren't allowed to sell their shares.

Timestamped records that systems write of what they're doing, used to investigate problems.

Include someone in a conversation or email thread so they're aware.

Tools that let people build apps and automations by dragging, dropping and configuring, with little or no programming.

The easiest tasks or opportunities, which give results for little effort.

Lifetime value: what a typical customer pays in total before they leave.

A scheduled time when a system can be taken down or changed, usually when few people are using it.

Being pushed to leave gradually, through poor reviews, removed responsibilities or an unworkable plan, rather than being dismissed outright.

Internal financial reports, usually monthly, that show managers how the business is doing against budget.

Managing your relationship with your own manager: keeping them informed, understanding their pressures and making it easy for them to support you.

The share of each pound of sales that's left after paying for what it cost to make.

The extra cost of producing one more unit.

The total value of a listed company's shares: the share price times the number of shares.

Dividing a market into groups of customers with similar needs or characteristics, such as by size, industry or location, so you can target them differently.

The percentage of all sales in a market that one company has.

Software that runs repetitive marketing tasks automatically, such as sending emails, scoring leads and updating the CRM.

The main levers a business can pull in marketing, classically the four Ps: product, price, place (where it's sold) and promotion.

A platform that connects buyers and sellers and takes a cut of each transaction, such as eBay, Airbnb or Uber.

The core, shared records a business depends on, such as customers, products and suppliers, kept consistent across systems.

The overarching contract between a client and a supplier that sets the general terms (liability, payment, confidentiality) once, so each new piece of work only needs a short statement of work.

A serious breach of contract that goes to the heart of the agreement, usually giving the other side the right to end it.

A structure where people report to more than one manager, typically a functional manager (such as head of engineering) and a project or product manager.

A scale describing how developed an organisation's practices are in an area, from basic to advanced, used to assess where it is and what comes next.

Model Context Protocol: an open standard for connecting AI assistants to tools and data, such as files, databases or business systems, in a consistent way.

Mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive: consultants' rule for breaking a problem into parts that don't overlap and together cover everything.

A detailed sales qualification framework for complex deals: metrics, economic buyer, decision criteria, decision process, identify pain, champion.

The official written record of a meeting: who attended, what was discussed and what was decided.

An experienced person who gives you advice and guidance on your career and development, usually informally.

Combining a change from one branch into another, usually into the main code once it's been reviewed.

Two companies combining into one.

The agreed key points a company wants to communicate about itself or a product, and how it phrases them.

A number that measures something, such as sign-ups, response time or revenue.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency: the UK regulator for medicines and medical devices, including software that counts as a medical device.

Managing too closely: controlling the details of how people work and checking everything they do.

Building software as many small, independent services that talk to each other, instead of one large application.

The managers between frontline staff and senior leadership, such as team leads and heads of department.

Moving data, users or software from one system or platform to another.

A defined point in a project, often linked to a payment, when something specific should be delivered.

A short statement of what an organisation does and for whom, right now, on the way to its vision.

Essential to the operation of the business: if it fails, the business can't function.

Machine learning: the part of AI where software learns patterns from examples instead of following rules someone wrote.

A competitive advantage that's hard for rivals to copy, so it protects the business over time, like a moat round a castle.

An annual statement UK organisations with turnover above a set threshold must publish, setting out what they do to prevent slavery and human trafficking in their business and supply chains.

Turning something into money, such as charging for a product or feature that was free, or adding ads.

Continuously checking that systems are healthy and working, and raising alerts when something looks wrong.

Software built as one large, single application, with everything deployed together.

A loan to buy property, secured on the property itself, so the lender can repossess it if you don't repay.

A lender's early indication of how much it might lend you, based on a quick check, before you've found a property.

A way to prioritise requirements: must have, should have, could have, won't have this time.

A clause promising a customer they'll get prices or terms at least as good as any other customer gets.

The old Facebook motto: ship quickly and accept mistakes.

Changing the targets or rules after work has started, usually unfairly.

Make a noticeable difference to an important number or outcome.

The many components, people or dependencies in a project, all of which have to work together.

Marketing qualified lead: someone who has shown enough interest, such as downloading a guide or attending a webinar, for marketing to consider them worth passing to sales.

An AI model that can work with more than one kind of input or output, such as text, images, audio and video.

Minimum viable product: the smallest version that tests whether anyone wants it.

The service letting patients in England choose to stop their confidential health information being used for research and planning.

A UK tax on earnings, paid by employees and employers, that funds the state pension and some benefits.

An app built for a specific operating system and installed from an app store, such as an iPhone or Android app.

Nota bene, Latin for "note well": pay particular attention to this.

Non-disclosure agreement: a contract promising to keep certain information confidential.

A bank that operates entirely through apps and websites, without branches, such as Monzo or Starling.

Genuinely new, as opposed to existing: net new customers, net new revenue, net new features.

What's left after every cost has come off: salaries, office, marketing, interest and tax.

What's left of gross revenue once refunds, discounts and other people's cuts (app store fees, resellers, partners) come off.

How much revenue you keep from last year's customers, including upgrades and minus downgrades and cancellations.

Everything you own (savings, investments, property, pensions) minus everything you owe.

Cutting greenhouse gas emissions as far as possible and balancing the rest by removing an equal amount from the atmosphere, so the net total is zero.

The bottom line, after everything is taken into account.

Computers and devices connected so they can share data, from an office's Wi-Fi to the internet as a whole.

When a product gets more valuable as more people use it, as with a phone network or a marketplace.

The unique number that identifies each patient in the NHS in England, Wales and the Isle of Man, used to match records across services.

An organisation within the NHS in England that runs services, such as a hospital, mental health or ambulance service.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence: the body that assesses whether treatments and technologies are clinically and cost-effective for the NHS.

A small, specialised part of a market, often with particular needs that bigger competitors ignore.

A grid used in talent reviews that rates people on current performance and future potential, three levels each, giving nine boxes.

A board member who isn't part of the day-to-day management team, bringing independent oversight and experience.

The one number a company agrees best captures the value it delivers, and organises around.

The time between resigning, or being let go, and your last day, as set in your contract.

Replacing one party to a contract with another, so the new party takes on both the rights and the obligations.

Net promoter score: a measure of customer loyalty from one question, "How likely are you to recommend us?" on a scale of 0 to 10.

Net present value: today's value of future money, after allowing for the fact that money now is worth more than money later.

Responding to the reasons a potential customer gives for not buying, such as price, timing or a competitor.

Everything that happens when someone leaves: handing over work, returning equipment, removing access and the exit interview.

The written job offer setting out the role, salary, start date and main terms, usually before the full employment contract.

A meeting or event held away from the normal workplace, often for planning or team building.

Objectives and key results: a goal, plus two to five measurable signs that you've hit it.

Aware of something, without having acted on it yet.

Being the person responsible for responding if a system breaks outside normal hours, usually on a rota.

Getting someone started: a new customer set up with a product, or a new employee settled into a job.

A single-page document summarising a proposal, project or product.

A regular private meeting between a manager and one member of their team.

The UK law requiring online services where users can share content or interact to protect users, especially children, from illegal and harmful content.

Out of office: away from work and not checking messages.

The UK system that lets customers securely share their bank data, or start payments from their bank account, with authorised third-party apps, through standard APIs.

The share of people who opened an email out of those it was delivered to.

Software whose code is published for anyone to use, change and share, under a licence that sets the conditions.

An old phrase for sharing information openly, especially with partners or investors.

A manager's promise that anyone can come to them at any time with questions or concerns.

An AI model whose trained parameters (its weights) are published, so anyone can download it and run it on their own hardware.

How an organisation is set up to deliver its strategy: its structure, processes, people, technology and governance.

Profit from the day-to-day business, after running costs but before interest and tax.

The core software that runs a computer or phone and everything on it, such as Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS or Android.

Turn an idea or plan into a working, routine part of how the business runs.

Operating expenditure: the ongoing costs of running the business, such as salaries, rent, software subscriptions and cloud bills.

What you give up by choosing one thing over another: the value of the best option you didn't take.

How something looks to others, regardless of the reality.

The shares set aside for employee share options.

The standard type of share, carrying normal voting rights and a share of profits and sale proceeds after anyone with preferential rights has been paid.

A diagram showing how an organisation is structured: who reports to whom, and which teams sit where.

Results that come without paying for them directly, such as search traffic, word of mouth or unpaid social posts, as opposed to paid advertising.

A period when a system or service isn't working for its users.

Paying another company to do work you used to do yourselves, often in a cheaper country, which is called offshoring.

A borrowing limit on a bank account, letting a business spend more than it has for short periods.

The running costs of a business that aren't tied to producing any particular product, such as rent, management, HR, finance and IT.

Hours worked beyond your contracted hours, sometimes paid extra, sometimes given back as TOIL, and in many salaried technical jobs neither.

Taking responsibility for something and seeing it through, without being chased.

The profit and loss statement: money in, money out, over a period, and what's left.

The form an employer sends HMRC, with a copy for you, listing the benefits in kind and certain expenses you received in the tax year that weren't taxed through payroll.

The form you get when you leave a job, showing your pay and tax so far in the tax year.

The yearly summary your employer gives you of your pay and the tax deducted over the tax year.

A specific problem or frustration a customer has, which a product could solve.

A fundamental change in how something is done or thought about.

The internal numbers an AI model adjusts during training, which hold what it has learned.

Time off work to care for a child, including maternity leave, paternity leave and shared parental leave, with statutory minimum pay and often more under company policy.

Set a topic aside to deal with later, so a meeting can move on.

Working fewer hours than a full-time role, with pay and holiday usually in proportion.

A business arrangement between two companies to work together, such as selling each other's products, integrating them or jointly serving customers.

The company wants people who care a lot about the work.

An increase in salary, usually given at an annual pay review or with a promotion.

Being open about pay, such as publishing salary ranges in job adverts, pay bands, or how pay decisions are made.

How long it takes for something to earn back what it cost.

Pay As You Earn: the UK system where your employer takes income tax and National Insurance out of your pay before you receive it, and passes it to HMRC.

The technology that securely passes payment details from a checkout to the payment processor and returns the result.

A company that processes payments for businesses, handling cards, wallets and bank payments, such as Stripe or Adyen.

How and when an invoice must be paid.

The statement with each payment of salary, showing what you earned, what was taken off (tax, National Insurance, pension) and what you were actually paid.

The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard: the security rules any organisation that stores, processes or transmits card details must follow.

Examine a problem layer by layer to understand it fully.

An authorised, simulated attack on a system by security specialists, to find weaknesses before real attackers do.

Money saved for retirement.

Tax the government gives back on money you pay into a pension, so contributions effectively cost you less than they add.

A polite-sounding way of saying "I've already told you this".

Pricing charged for each user who has access, such as £10 per seat per month.

A formal plan setting out where an employee's work is falling short, what must improve and by when, with regular check-ins.

Marketing paid for and judged by measurable results, such as clicks, sign-ups or sales, rather than awareness.

A regular, usually yearly, formal assessment of how well someone is doing, often tied to pay rises and promotions.

An employment contract with no fixed end date.

The part of a job advert listing the skills, experience and qualities the ideal candidate has, often split into essential and desirable.

A profile of a typical customer or user, based on research, describing their role, goals and frustrations, used to guide design and marketing.

The amount you can earn in a tax year before paying any income tax.

What people think of you professionally before you've said a word: your reputation, your public work, how you come across.

Any information about an identifiable living person: names, emails, IP addresses, location, photos, even opinions about them.

A written plan of what someone wants to learn and achieve in their career, and how.

Tailoring content, offers or a product's experience to each person, based on what's known about them.

The UK register of people who ultimately own or control a company, usually anyone with more than 25 per cent of shares or votes.

A checklist for outside factors that could affect a business: political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental.

Fake emails, texts or calls pretending to be from someone trusted, to trick people into giving away passwords, money or access.

Pay in lieu of notice: being paid for your notice period instead of working it, so you leave straight away.

A small, limited trial of a new product, process or change before rolling it out fully.

Send someone a quick message.

In sales, the list of potential deals at each stage, from first conversation to signed contract, with how likely each is to close.

A presentation or conversation trying to persuade someone to buy, invest or agree.

A big change of direction for a business (a different product, customer or way of making money) because the first plan isn't working.

A team estimating game: everyone picks a story-point card in secret and reveals it at the same time, so the loudest voice doesn't set the estimate.

In business, a product others build on or trade through, such as an app store, a marketplace or an API many products use, rather than a product used on its own.

Building internal tools and infrastructure that other engineering teams use to build, deploy and run their software, so each team doesn't reinvent them.

A documented set of plays, approaches or steps for handling a type of situation, broader than a runbook, such as a sales or incident playbook.

Project management office: the team that sets how projects are run and tracked across an organisation, and collects their reports.

Purchase order: the official document a company raises to approve buying something, which the supplier quotes on their invoice.

A framework for assessing how competitive an industry is, looking at five pressures: rivalry between competitors, the threat of new entrants, the threat of substitutes, and the bargaining power of buyers and of suppliers.

All of an organisation's projects and programmes, managed together to decide which get funded and in what order.

How a company wants customers to see its product compared with the alternatives: who it's for, what it's best at, and why it's different.

Combining two companies after a merger or acquisition: their teams, systems, processes and cultures.

The pre-money valuation plus the new money.

A review after something went wrong, such as an outage or a failed launch, to understand what happened and stop it happening again.

Investing a fixed amount regularly, such as monthly, so you buy more when prices are low and less when they're high, rather than trying to time the market.

Pay per click: online advertising where you pay each time someone clicks your ad, most commonly on search engines.

Existing shareholders' right to buy new shares before they're offered to anyone else, so they can keep their percentage.

What the company is agreed to be worth just before new money goes in.

Imagining, before a project starts, that it has failed, and working out why, so you can prevent it.

A document sent before a meeting for attendees to read in advance, so the meeting can be spent deciding rather than presenting.

The very first outside money, raised on little more than an idea, the founders and perhaps a prototype.

Using historical data and statistical models to predict what's likely to happen, such as which customers will churn.

Shares with extra rights over ordinary shares, usually to be paid back first if the company is sold or wound up, and sometimes a fixed dividend.

UK government savings where, instead of interest, your money is entered into a monthly prize draw.

Money paid in advance for something you'll receive later, such as a year's software subscription paid upfront, spread across the months it covers.

An official written announcement sent to journalists about company news.

Showing a higher price first, such as an expensive plan, so the next price looks reasonable by comparison.

How a product's price is structured: per user (per seat), by usage, by tier, flat fee, or a mix.

A structured, widely used project management method, popular with the UK government and large organisations, with defined stages, roles and documents.

Deciding what to do first, and what not to do at all, when there's more to do than time allows.

Building data protection into systems and processes from the start, not adding it afterwards.

The public statement explaining what personal data an organisation collects, why, how long it keeps it and people's rights.

A company whose shares aren't publicly traded.

Firms that buy or invest in established companies, usually aiming to make them more profitable and sell them on within a few years.

The first few months in a new job, often three to six, when performance is reviewed more closely and the notice period is usually shorter.

Finding and fixing the underlying causes of repeated incidents, rather than just the incidents themselves.

The process, and usually the team, that buys goods and services for an organisation: choosing suppliers, negotiating and managing contracts.

The law governing how public bodies in the UK (excluding Scotland for devolved bodies) buy goods and services, which replaced the old EU-derived rules in 2025.

A pre-approved list of suppliers and terms that public bodies can buy from without running a full tender each time.

Showing a potential customer the product working, usually tailored to their needs.

The person responsible for deciding what a product should do and why: understanding customers, setting priorities and working with engineering and design to deliver.

The marketing role that sits between product and sales: positioning products, writing messaging, planning launches and arming sales with what they need.

The person in scrum who decides what the team works on and in what order, by owning and prioritising the backlog.

All the products a company offers, managed together to balance growth, profit and risk.

Growing mainly through the product itself, with people signing up, getting value and upgrading without talking to sales.

When enough of the right customers want the product badly enough that they keep using it and paying for it without being chased.

The live environment real users use.

Insurance that pays out if a client claims your advice or work caused them a loss.

A part of the business that earns its own revenue and is judged on the profit it makes, such as a product line or a sales region.

A listed company telling the market its profits will be lower than expected.

A group of related projects managed together towards a bigger goal, such as a company's move to the cloud.

A piece of work with a defined goal, start and end, such as launching a feature or moving offices.

The person responsible for delivering a project on time, on budget and to scope: planning, tracking progress, managing risks and keeping people informed.

Moving up to a more senior role, usually with more pay and responsibility.

The instructions or question you give to an AI model.

Crafting and testing prompts carefully to get better, more reliable results from an AI model.

Proof of concept: a small test to show that an idea can work technically, before committing to build it properly.

A short trial with a potential customer to show that a product delivers the promised results in their situation, often before they sign.

A formal document offering to do work or supply a product, setting out what, how, when and for how much.

Searching for and making first contact with potential customers who haven't come to you yet, through research, cold emails, calls or events.

An off-the-record discussion, under UK employment law, between an employer and employee about ending employment on agreed terms, usually leading to a settlement agreement.

An early, rough version of something, built to test an idea or show how it would work, not to be used for real.

Replacing identifying details with codes, so data can't be linked to a person without extra information kept separately.

A team climate where people feel safe to speak up, ask questions, admit mistakes and disagree without fear of embarrassment or punishment.

Paid time off: American for holiday.

A company whose shares can be bought by the public, usually listed on a stock exchange, with strict disclosure rules.

Managing a company's reputation and getting positive coverage in the media.

Organisations owned or funded by the government, such as central government departments, councils, the NHS, schools and the police.

A request to merge a change from a branch into the main code, where others review it first.

The phrase in a leaving announcement that says nothing about why someone left.

Go beyond the usual limits of what's been done.

Resistance or disagreement with a plan or request.

Quality assurance: checking that software works properly before it's released, through testing.

Quarterly business review: a meeting each quarter that checks results against the plan and agrees what happens next, held internally or with a big client.

Checking whether a potential customer is worth pursuing: do they have the need, budget, authority and timing?

Done fast and roughly, good enough for now.

An early, visible success that builds confidence and momentum for a bigger effort.

The minimum number of people who must be present for a meeting, such as a board meeting, to make valid decisions.

The sales target a salesperson must hit in a period, often tied to their commission.

UK tax relief for companies spending on qualifying research and development, which can include software work that solves genuine technical uncertainties.

A table of who is Responsible, Accountable, Consulted and Informed for each piece of work.

Giving direct, honest feedback while showing you genuinely care about the person.

A red, amber or green rating on a project's health: green is on track, amber is at risk, red is in trouble.

A project log of risks, assumptions, issues and dependencies, kept in one place and reviewed regularly.

Contact someone.

An AI model designed to work through a problem step by step before answering, usually slower and more expensive but better at maths, logic and complex tasks.

Changing a company's or product's name, look, messaging or positioning.

A significant, widespread fall in economic activity, often defined as two quarters in a row of the economy shrinking.

Charging another department for a service or cost, so the cost lands in the budget of the team that used it.

Checking that two sets of records agree, such as a company's ledger against its bank statement, and investigating any differences.

The record organisations must keep under GDPR of what personal data they process, why, who it's shared with and how long it's kept.

Someone whose job is finding and screening candidates for roles, either in-house at the hiring company or at an agency paid a fee when they fill a role.

Changes one side proposes to a contract draft, traditionally marked in red, so the other side can see exactly what's changed.

Losing your job because the role is no longer needed, not because of anything you did.

Restructuring existing code to make it cleaner or easier to change, without changing what it does.

Statements from previous employers or colleagues about you, requested before an offer becomes final.

Rewarding existing customers for recommending new ones, such as a discount for both.

A company's official address, on public record at Companies House, where legal letters are sent.

A government-backed body that sets and enforces rules for an industry or activity, such as the ICO for data or the FCA for financial services.

A scheme letting firms test innovative products with real customers under a regulator's supervision, with some safeguards in place.

A version of software made available to users, and the act of making it available.

Help from an employer with the costs of moving for a job, such as removals, travel and temporary housing.

Tracking patients' health outside hospital, such as at home, using devices and apps that send readings to clinicians.

A customer signing up for another contract period when their current one ends.

Replying to everyone on an email, not just the sender.

Who you formally answer to.

Where a project's code and its full history of changes are stored, usually managed with git.

What a product or project must do, agreed before or during building it.

A company that sells another company's product to its own customers, taking a cut.

Deciding who works on what, and finding the people, money or tools a piece of work needs.

Building and using AI in ways that are fair, safe, transparent and accountable, such as checking for bias, explaining decisions and keeping people in control.

Designing websites so the layout adapts to the screen, from a phone to a large monitor.

Clauses limiting what you can do after leaving a job: working for a competitor (a non-compete), approaching your old clients or colleagues (non-solicitation), or poaching staff.

Reorganising who does what and who reports to whom: merging teams, removing layers, changing roles.

A regular fee paid to keep a supplier, consultant or lawyer available for an agreed amount of work or time.

Showing adverts to people who have already visited your website or used your app, usually using cookies or tracking pixels.

Getting an AI model to answer using your own documents: the system first finds the relevant passages, then gives them to the model with the question.

Short for retrospective: the meeting at the end of a sprint or project where the team discusses what went well, what didn't and what to change.

Employers requiring staff to spend more days working in the office after a period of remote or hybrid working.

All the money coming in from selling things, before any costs come off.

The specific way a business earns its revenue, such as subscriptions, one-off sales, transaction fees, advertising or licensing.

The team that runs the systems, data and processes behind sales, marketing and customer success, so they work as one.

Funding repaid as a share of future revenue, instead of fixed instalments or giving up shares.

A flexible loan arrangement letting a company borrow, repay and borrow again up to an agreed limit.

Request for proposal: a formal invitation for suppliers to bid for a piece of work.

A person's right, in many circumstances, to have their personal data deleted.

The legal check UK employers must make that a new employee is allowed to work in the UK.

A euphemism for cutting jobs.

A list of a project's risks, how likely and serious each one is, who owns it and what's being done about it.

The planned order of what gets built, and roughly when.

Return on ad spend: the revenue earned for each pound spent on advertising.

Cause trouble or disrupt things, especially by questioning how they're done.

Job-advert slang for an excellent candidate, along with ninja, guru and wizard.

Return on investment: what you get back compared with what you put in.

Buying many small companies in the same market and combining them into one bigger business, a common private equity strategy.

Undoing a release and going back to the previous version, usually because the new one caused problems.

Working out the underlying reason a problem happened, rather than just fixing the symptoms.

A payment to the owner of something, such as a patent, music or a brand, for the right to use it, usually a percentage of sales.

Restricted stock units: a promise of company shares that become yours as they vest, common at large and listed tech companies, including in the UK.

A rule of thumb for software companies: growth rate plus profit margin should add up to at least 40 per cent.

The Technicians MBA's four rules for making a change work.

Try out an idea to see how people react before committing to it.

A yearly figure worked out from a recent shorter period, usually last month times twelve.

Step-by-step instructions for running a system or handling a specific situation, such as restarting a service or responding to an alert.

How long the company can keep going before the money runs out, if nothing changes.

Software as a service: software you rent by subscription and use over the internet, instead of buying and installing it.

An extended period of leave, paid or unpaid, after a set number of years' service, for rest, study or travel.

Keeping customers' money separate from a firm's own money, so it can be returned if the firm fails.

The pay range a company has set for a job level.

Giving up part of your salary in exchange for a non-cash benefit, such as extra pension contributions, an electric car or a bike, usually saving income tax and National Insurance.

Someone inside the customer's organisation who wants your product to win and helps you sell it internally.

How long it typically takes from first contact with a potential customer to a signed deal.

Giving salespeople what they need to sell well: training, content, tools and product knowledge.

A person or company that might become a customer, usually because they've shown some interest, such as filling in a form.

The US equivalent of VAT, but charged only once, on the final sale to the customer, at rates that vary by state and even by city.

Serviceable available market: the part of the TAM your product can actually serve, given what it does, where you sell and who it's built for.

Government restrictions on doing business with particular countries, organisations or people, such as freezing their assets or banning trade.

A safe, separate environment for trying things out without affecting real data or users.

How well a system copes as demand grows, whether by adding more resources or without needing to.

A company past the startup stage that is growing fast, typically with proven product-market fit and a growing team.

Working out what would happen under several possible futures (best case, base case, worst case) and planning for each.

The structure of a database: what tables exist, what fields each has, and how they relate.

What a piece of work includes and, just as importantly, what it doesn't.

The three categories of a company's emissions.

A project slowly growing beyond what was agreed, one small extra at a time, without the deadline or budget moving to match.

A short program that automates a task, usually run on demand or on a schedule.

The most common agile method.

The person in scrum who keeps the process running: runs the meetings, removes blockers and protects the team from distractions.

Software development kit: a set of tools, libraries and documentation for building software on a particular platform or service.

Sales development representative: a salesperson whose job is to find and qualify new leads, often by cold outreach, and book meetings for the account executives.

Existing shareholders selling their shares to someone else, rather than the company issuing new ones.

Temporarily working in a different team, organisation or role, then returning to your original job.

The special ingredient that makes a product or company better than the rest.

The vetting someone needs to work with sensitive government information or sites, at levels from basic checks (BPSS) up to security check (SC) and developed vetting (DV).

A long list of questions a customer sends a supplier about its security and data protection before buying, often hundreds of them.

The first proper round, raised once there's a product and some early users or revenue.

Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme: the version of EIS for the very youngest companies, with bigger relief.

The early stage of a public tender checking a supplier is eligible and capable (finances, experience, insurance) before the full bid.

The UK system for reporting income that isn't taxed through PAYE, such as self-employed earnings, rental income or untaxed investment income, by filing a tax return.

Someone who works without being told what to do.

FCA and PRA rules making named senior people in financial firms personally accountable for their areas.

The named senior person accountable for a government programme or project delivering its benefits.

A quick check that something seems reasonable, before it's used or sent.

Testing how much an answer changes when one assumption changes, to see which assumptions matter most.

Search engine optimisation: making web pages more likely to appear high in search results such as Google, without paying for ads.

Usually the first round led by a venture capital firm, raised once there's evidence of product-market fit: revenue that's growing in a repeatable way, and a believable plan to scale it.

Money to scale what's already working: bigger teams, new markets, more sales.

Late-stage money for a company that's already big: expansion, buying other companies, sometimes moving abroad.

Any rounds after Series C.

A leadership style focused on serving and supporting the team, removing obstacles and helping people grow, rather than commanding.

A computer that provides a service to other computers over a network, such as running a website or storing files.

Running code in the cloud without managing servers yourself: the provider runs it when it's needed and charges only for the time it runs.

The single point of contact for users who need IT help or want to request something.

The UK government's 14-point standard for building good digital services, covering user needs, accessibility, security and more.

The actual movement of money between banks to complete a payment, which can happen hours or days after the payment is approved.

A legally binding agreement, usually when leaving a job, where you receive a payment in exchange for giving up the right to bring claims against your employer.

Pay given to employees when their employment ends, usually in a layoff, often in exchange for signing a release of legal claims.

Technology used inside an organisation without IT's knowledge or approval, such as a team signing up to a tool on a credit card.

A company buying back its own shares, reducing the number in circulation and usually raising the value of each remaining share.

How much of the conversation or advertising in a market belongs to one brand, compared with its competitors.

How much of a customer's total spending in a category goes to one company.

The right to buy shares later at a price fixed today, called the exercise or strike price.

Functions such as HR, finance or IT provided centrally to the whole organisation, instead of each business unit having its own.

Someone who owns shares in a company, and so owns part of it.

The value a company delivers to its shareholders, through a rising share price and dividends.

Equal units of ownership in a company.

Pay while you're off work ill.

Work done for money alongside a main job, such as freelancing, a small business or selling products.

Formal approval from the person with the authority to give it.

A one-off payment for joining a company, often to make up for a bonus or equity you're giving up by leaving your old job.

A team or department that works in isolation, not sharing information or cooperating with others.

A single, simple solution expected to fix a complex problem.

One complete, joined-up record of everything known about each customer, pulled together from every system.

Logging in once with one account, often your work account, to get into many systems, instead of a separate password for each.

One agreed place where a piece of information lives, so everyone works from the same version.

Self-invested personal pension: a pension you open and manage yourself, choosing your own investments.

A data-driven method for reducing errors and variation in processes, with trained practitioners ranked by belts (green, black).

Having something to lose personally if a decision goes badly, such as your own money or reputation.

A meeting with your manager's manager, skipping a level of the hierarchy.

A small team working semi-secretly, outside the normal rules and processes, on an innovative project.

Service level agreement: a promise, usually in a contract, about how a service will perform (uptime, response times, fix times) and what the customer gets back if it doesn't.

A project falling behind its planned dates.

Service level objective: an internal target for how well a system should perform, such as 99.95 per cent uptime.

Customer size bands.

Two meanings.

A US-originated audit report in which an independent auditor tests a service company's controls for security, and optionally availability, processing integrity, confidentiality and privacy.

Evidence that other people use and like something, such as reviews, testimonials, customer logos or user counts, used to persuade.

In UK public sector buying, the wider benefits a supplier brings to society, such as local jobs, apprenticeships or environmental improvements, which are scored in tenders.

Share an idea informally with the right people before a formal decision, so there are no surprises and less resistance.

The skills of working with people rather than tools: communicating, persuading, negotiating, leading.

Software that is itself a medical device because its intended purpose is medical, such as diagnosing, monitoring or treating a condition.

The person who designs how a technical solution fits together, often across several systems, to meet business needs.

Business speak for working out a solution.

Serviceable obtainable market: the part of the SAM you can realistically win in the next few years, given the competition and the size of your team.

Standard operating procedure: the documented, agreed way a routine task is done.

Statement of work: the document that sets out exactly what a contractor or supplier will deliver, by when, and for how much.

How many people report directly to one manager.

Short for specification: a written description of what something should do, detailed enough for someone to build it.

Personal data the law treats as especially sensitive: health, race or ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, political views, trade union membership, genetic data and biometric data used to identify someone.

Central rules requiring UK government departments to get approval before spending above set limits on digital and technology.

A short-term bonus for salespeople for selling a particular product or hitting a target quickly.

A short, timeboxed piece of investigation to answer a question or reduce uncertainty before committing to build something.

A senior person who actively uses their influence to advance your career: recommending you, putting you forward, speaking up for you in rooms you're not in.

A fixed stretch of time, usually two weeks, in which a team commits to finishing a set amount of work from the backlog.

The meeting at the start of a sprint where the team picks what it will commit to from the backlog.

The meeting at the end of a sprint where the team shows what it finished to stakeholders.

Structured query language: the standard language for asking questions of, and changing data in, most databases.

Sales qualified lead: a lead that sales has checked and agreed is a genuine opportunity worth pursuing.

Site reliability engineering: applying software engineering to keeping systems reliable, using targets such as SLOs, automation and careful incident response.

A senior individual-contributor engineering level above senior engineer, focused on technical direction across teams rather than managing people.

A checkpoint between project stages where it's reviewed and approved before more money or time is committed.

An environment set up to match production as closely as possible, used for final checks before release.

Anyone affected by a decision, or able to block it.

Listing everyone affected by a piece of work and plotting them by how much influence they have and how much they care, so you know who to manage closely and who to keep informed.

A short daily meeting, often held standing to keep it short, where each person says what they did, what they're doing and what's blocking them.

A way to structure answers in a competency-based interview: Situation, Task, Action, Result.

Willing to work flexibly, scrappily and fast, as in a startup, even if the company isn't one.

The regular payment from the UK government once you reach state pension age, based on your National Insurance record.

The three states every change action and change strategy goes through: planned (not started), active (being delivered) and completed or terminated (finished, or dropped because of what was learned).

A regular update on how a project is going: progress, risks, issues and what's next, often with a RAG status.

The formal yearly accounts a UK company must file with Companies House, in a set legal format.

Guidance or direction from someone more senior.

Steering committee: the group of senior people who oversee a project and make its big decisions.

A marketplace where shares in public companies are bought and sold, such as the London Stock Exchange.

An ISA that holds investments such as funds and shares rather than cash, so any growth and income are tax-free.

A rough, relative estimate of how much effort a user story will take, using numbers rather than hours.

The handful of big themes a strategy is organised around, each with its own goals and projects.

A plan for how an organisation will reach its long-term goals, including what it will and won't do.

A target set deliberately beyond what's expected, to aim for if things go well.

Rules requiring many online payments to be confirmed with two separate checks, such as a password plus a phone code or fingerprint.

Repayments on UK student loans, taken from your pay through PAYE once you earn above a threshold that depends on your plan.

A supplier passing some of its contracted work to another company or freelancer.

A person's legal right to ask an organisation for a copy of the personal data it holds about them.

Paying a regular fee, usually monthly or yearly, to keep using a product or service, instead of buying it once.

Identifying and developing people to step into key roles when the current holders leave or move up.

Money or time already spent that you can't get back.

Retiring a product or feature, usually with notice to customers before it's switched off.

A company that provides goods or services to another.

Operating in a way that can continue long term without harming the environment or society.

A row or column in a diagram or board that groups work by who does it or what stage it's at.

The time, money and hassle of moving from one product or supplier to another.

A simple planning grid: strengths and weaknesses inside the business, opportunities and threats outside it.

A short meeting to get people aligned, as in "let's sync".

The extra value supposedly created when two teams, products or companies combine, so the whole is worth more than the parts.

Artificially generated data that mimics the patterns of real data, used for testing or training without exposing real people's information.

Estimating work roughly by size category (XS, S, M, L, XL) instead of in hours or points, usually early, before the detail is known.

Confusingly opposite: in British English, to put a topic forward for discussion now; in American English, to postpone it.

The specific actions taken to carry out a strategy.

A clause letting smaller shareholders join a sale on the same terms if the majority sell their shares, so they aren't left behind with a new owner.

Discuss this separately, with fewer people.

What actually reaches your bank account after income tax, National Insurance, pension contributions and any other deductions.

Business speak for people, especially skilled people the company wants to hire or keep.

The agreed key messages someone should make in a conversation, interview or meeting.

Total addressable market: everyone who could possibly buy this kind of product, anywhere, usually given as money per year.

The specific group of customers a product is aimed at.

The code your employer uses to work out how much income tax to take from your pay, such as 1257L.

The UK's year for income tax, which runs from 6 April to 5 April the next year.

To be announced: decided, or about to be, but not yet made public.

To be confirmed: probably decided, but not certain yet.

To be decided, or to be determined: not decided yet at all.

Activities meant to help a team work together better and get to know each other.

The future cost of shortcuts taken in software today: quick fixes, skipped tests, outdated parts left in place.

The engineer who leads the technical direction of a team, while still writing code.

The set of technologies a product is built with, such as its languages, frameworks, database and cloud provider.

An exercise to check a candidate's technical skills, such as a timed coding test, a live exercise or a take-home task.

A setting on many AI models that controls how predictable or varied the output is: low is consistent and focused, high is more creative and random.

An offer to buy shares from many shareholders at a set price, used by private companies to let staff sell some shares.

Ending a contract.

The standard rules a company sets for anyone who buys from it or uses its product.

Proper preparation and planning prevents piss-poor performance: the reminder that time spent planning is never wasted, and that plans need revisiting, not just making once.

Business speak for the request: what someone wants from you.

The board of directors: the small group that oversees the company for its shareholders.

Think creatively, beyond the usual approaches.

Content intended to establish a person or company as an expert, such as articles, talks and opinion pieces.

A campaign that does both: mass advertising that sends people into targeted follow-up, such as a TV advert that drives sign-ups to an email offer.

Handing work to another team without context or help, and leaving them to deal with it.

Blaming someone else, or letting them take the blame, to protect yourself.

One recorded piece of work or request in a tracking system such as Jira: a feature, a bug, a task.

How big a ticket is: the estimated effort to complete it, in story points, t-shirt sizes or days.

Offering several packages at different prices, each with more features or capacity, such as basic, pro and enterprise.

A small group of specialists pulled together temporarily to solve a specific urgent problem.

A contract where the client pays for the time actually spent, usually at a day rate, plus costs.

A fixed amount of time set aside for an activity, which ends when the time runs out, whether or not it's finished.

Too long; didn't read: a one-line summary at the top of a long message, or a sarcastic reply to one.

Three-letter acronym.

Time off in lieu: time off given instead of overtime pay, for extra hours worked.

The small chunks of text, roughly three-quarters of a word on average, that AI models read and write.

Target obtainable market, or total obtainable market.

The consistent personality a brand writes and speaks in: formal or casual, playful or serious.

Everything you're paid for a job: salary plus bonus, equity, pension, benefits and anything else of value.

Everything something will cost over its life, not just the price: setting up, running, maintaining, supporting, training and eventually replacing it.

Have a quick conversation to catch up.

An organisation of workers that negotiates with employers on pay and conditions, and supports members in disputes.

A UK allowance letting you earn a small amount from self-employment or a side business each tax year without paying tax or registering for Self Assessment.

The examples an AI model learns from.

Openness about what's happening, how decisions are made and why.

Deciding quickly what gets attention first when there's more to do than time or people allow, borrowed from emergency medicine.

The UK rules (Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment)) that move employees to a new employer, on their existing terms, when a business or a service changes hands.

Rescuing a struggling business, usually through cost cuts, a change of leadership and a sharper focus.

Logging in with two different kinds of proof, usually a password plus a code from your phone.

The Technicians MBA describes a change on three dimensions.

User interface: what people see and interact with on screen, such as layouts, buttons, forms and menus.

The mark showing a product, including a medical device, meets UK regulatory requirements.

Being dismissed without a fair reason, or without a fair process.

A privately owned startup valued at a billion dollars or more.

What it costs to produce or deliver one unit of something: one order, one customer, one API call.

Whether one sale makes money once you count what it cost to win and serve.

A small automated test that checks one piece of code works as expected.

A policy with no fixed annual leave allowance: take what you need.

Explain or examine something in more detail.

Persuading an existing customer to buy a bigger or more expensive version of what they already have.

Learning new skills to do your current job better or move into a new one.

The share of time a system is working and available, usually given as a percentage.

A web address, such as https://thetechniciansmba.com/glossary.

Charging according to how much of a product a customer uses, such as per message, per gigabyte or per API call.

A specific situation where someone uses a product to get something done.

A short description of a feature from the user's point of view, often written as "As a [type of user], I want [something] so that [reason]."

Content created by customers or users rather than the company, such as reviews, photos, videos and posts.

Tags added to the end of a link that tell analytics where a visitor came from, such as which email or campaign.

User experience: how easy, useful and pleasant something is to use, from the first visit to getting the job done.

What investors agree the company is worth, usually set when it raises money.

In a convertible note or similar, the maximum valuation at which the investment converts into shares, protecting early investors if the company's value rises fast.

A valuation expressed as a multiple of a financial figure, such as ten times revenue or eight times EBITDA, used to compare companies.

The extra benefit something brings.

All the steps a business takes to turn inputs into something a customer pays for, from sourcing to delivery and support, and where each step adds value.

The test public bodies use for spending: the best mix of cost, quality and outcomes, not just the cheapest price.

The plain statement of why a customer should buy: what problem it solves, and what that's worth to them.

Setting a price based on how much the product is worth to the customer, rather than what it costs to make.

Costs that rise and fall with how much you sell or how much the product is used, such as hosting, payment fees and materials.

Value added tax: the UK tax added to the price of most goods and services, at a standard rate set by the government, with lower rates or none on some things.

How many story points a team usually finishes in a sprint, used to plan how much to take on next time.

Firms that invest other people's money in young, fast-growing companies, expecting most to fail and a few to return many times what they put in.

Loans to venture-backed startups, usually alongside equity rounds, to extend runway without as much dilution.

A specific release of a piece of software, usually numbered, such as 2.4.1.

A specific industry or market a business focuses on, such as healthcare, legal or retail.

A company owning more of the steps in making and selling its product, instead of relying on suppliers or partners.

Earning your equity gradually.

Building software by describing what you want to an AI and accepting what it writes, with little reading or understanding of the code yourself.

Spreading rapidly from person to person, such as content shared widely or a product whose users bring in more users.

An employer supporting someone's application for a work visa, such as the UK Skilled Worker visa or a US H-1B.

A short statement of the future an organisation wants to create, usually ambitious and long term.

Vice president: a senior leadership title, usually above director and below the C-suite.

A weakness in software or a system that an attacker could use.

US tax forms that also describe two kinds of worker.

A room, physical or virtual, where people gather to deal with a crisis or a critical deadline together.

A potential customer who already knows you or has shown interest, such as through a referral or a download.

A promise in a contract that something is true, or will work as described, for a set time.

Building software in fixed stages, one after another: gather all the requirements, design, build, test, then release.

Meant warmly.

You'll do several jobs at once, often because the company can't afford specialists yet.

Software that runs in a browser, like a website you can do things in, such as Gmail or online banking, with nothing to install.

A way for one system to tell another automatically when something happens, by sending a message to an agreed web address.

An online seminar or presentation, often used to educate and generate leads.

The number of visits to a website, usually broken down into sessions (visits), unique visitors (different people) and page views.

How people feel physically and mentally, and what an organisation does to support it.

Working from home.

Someone's area of expertise or comfort.

Reporting wrongdoing at work that's in the public interest, such as a crime, a danger to health and safety, or a breach of the law.

A detailed, authoritative report on a topic, used to show expertise and generate leads.

An unmet need or untapped part of a market where nobody is competing yet.

The share of qualified deals a sales team actually wins.

An outcome that benefits both sides.

Work in progress: started, but not finished.

A label on letters, emails or conversations made to try to settle a dispute, so that what's said generally can't be used as evidence in court if the talks fail.

Customers recommending a product to others without being paid to.

Breaking a project into smaller and smaller pieces of work until each is small enough to estimate and assign.

Long hours and a strong social scene.

A series of steps that gets a piece of work from start to finish, often partly or fully automated in software.

The money a business has available for day-to-day running: roughly what it's owed and holds in cash, minus what it owes in the short term.

A structured, interactive session where a group works together on a problem, rather than one person presenting.

A distinct strand of work within a larger project or programme, usually with its own owner.

Formally accepting that something has lost its value, or that money owed won't be paid, and taking it off the books as a loss.

Being dismissed in a way that breaks your contract, most often without the notice or notice pay you're entitled to.

Year on year: compared with the same period last year.

Year to date: from the start of the year (calendar or fiscal) up to today.

An employment contract with no guaranteed minimum hours: the employer offers work when it's needed.

A company that earns just enough to service its debts or keep going, but can't grow or invest.