Delivery Glossary
150+ terms from across the software delivery lifecycle — testing, project management, business analysis, architecture, development, agile, waterfall, and business. Tap the ? next to any term to ask the AI Guru for a deeper explanation.
Testing / QA
Project Management
Business Analysis
Architecture
Software Design
Developer
Agile Delivery
Waterfall
Business
General SDLC
A
Acceptance Criteria Business Analysis
Specific, measurable conditions that a user story or feature must satisfy before it is considered complete and accepted by stakeholders.
Agentic AI Testing / QA
Autonomous AI agents capable of performing multi-step tasks, reasoning about context, and interacting with tools (like browsers or APIs) to achieve a goal without constant human intervention.
AI Governance Business
The framework of policies and practices designed to ensure AI systems are developed and used ethically, safely, and transparently, managing risks like bias and data privacy.
Acceptance Testing Testing / QA
Formal testing conducted to determine whether a system satisfies its acceptance criteria and is ready for delivery to end users. Usually the final gate before go-live.
Agile Agile Delivery
An iterative approach to project management and software development that emphasizes flexibility, collaboration, and customer feedback over rigid upfront planning.
Alpha Testing Testing / QA
The first stage of user testing, typically performed internally by the organization before releasing software to external users.
API (Application Programming Interface) Architecture
A set of rules and protocols that allows different software applications to communicate and exchange data with each other.
API Gateway Architecture
A server that acts as a single entry point for clients to access multiple backend microservices, handling routing, security, and rate limiting.
Artifact General SDLC
Any tangible by-product of the software development process — source code, compiled binaries, documentation, test reports, or deployment packages.
B
Backlog Agile Delivery
A prioritized list of features, user stories, bugs, and technical tasks that a team plans to work on in the future.
Backlog Refinement Agile Delivery
An ongoing activity where the team reviews and revises upcoming backlog items to ensure they are well understood and ready for sprint planning.
BDD (Behavior-Driven Development) Testing / QA
A development approach that defines software behavior using natural language scenarios, bridging communication between technical and non-technical stakeholders.
Beta Testing Testing / QA
Testing performed by a limited group of external real-world users to gather feedback and identify issues before a full public release.
BDUF (Big Design Up Front) Waterfall
An approach where extensive planning, requirements analysis, and system design are completed before any coding begins. Common in traditional waterfall projects.
Black Box Testing Testing / QA
A testing method where the internal structure of the application is unknown to the tester; functionality is validated based solely on inputs and outputs.
Blocker Project Management
An impediment or obstacle that prevents a task from progressing until it is resolved.
Branch Developer
A parallel version of a codebase in version control that allows developers to work on features or fixes in isolation before merging.
BRD (Business Requirements Document) Business Analysis
A document that outlines the high-level business objectives, scope, and strategic goals that a project aims to achieve.
Build General SDLC
A compiled, packaged version of software that is ready for testing or deployment after source code changes.
Burn-down Chart Agile Delivery
A visual chart that tracks the amount of work remaining in a sprint or project over time, helping teams monitor progress toward completion.
Burn-up Chart Agile Delivery
A visual chart that tracks the amount of work completed over time, often shown alongside total scope to illustrate progress.
Business Case Business
A justification for a proposed project that evaluates expected benefits, costs, risks, and ROI to support decision-making.
C
CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) Business
The total cost of acquiring a new customer, including marketing and sales expenses divided by the number of customers gained.
Canary Deployment Developer
A deployment strategy where a new version is gradually rolled out to a small subset of users to test stability before full release.
Change Control Board (CCB) Waterfall
A group of stakeholders responsible for reviewing, approving, or rejecting proposed changes to a project's scope, schedule, or budget.
Change Request Project Management
A formal proposal to modify any aspect of a project — scope, requirements, timeline, or budget — that must be assessed and approved.
Churn Rate Business
The percentage of customers who stop using a product or service during a specific time period.
CI/CD (Continuous Integration / Continuous Delivery) Developer
Practices that automate the building, testing, and deployment of code changes to enable frequent, reliable software releases.
Continuous Quality Testing / QA
A strategic shift where quality is integrated at every stage of the lifecycle, from initial discovery to production monitoring, replacing traditional "gatekeeper" testing.
Class Diagram Software Design
A type of UML diagram that represents the static structure of a system by showing its classes, attributes, methods, and relationships.
Client-Server Architecture
A computing model where client devices request resources or services from centralized servers over a network.
CLV (Customer Lifetime Value) Business
The predicted total revenue a business expects to earn from a single customer account over the entire duration of their relationship.
Code Review Developer
A systematic examination of source code by peers to catch defects, share knowledge, and ensure adherence to team standards.
Cohesion Software Design
The degree to which elements within a module or class belong together and focus on a single, well-defined purpose.
Commit Developer
The action of saving a snapshot of code changes to a version control repository, creating a permanent record in project history.
Composition Software Design
A design technique where a class contains instances of other classes to reuse functionality, preferred over inheritance for greater flexibility.
Container Developer
A lightweight, standalone software package that bundles code with its dependencies so it runs consistently across different environments.
Continuous Delivery Developer
A practice where code changes are automatically built, tested, and prepared for release to production, requiring only a manual approval to deploy.
Continuous Deployment Developer
An extension of continuous delivery where every validated code change is automatically released to production without human intervention.
Continuous Integration Developer
A practice where developers merge code changes into a shared repository frequently, triggering automated builds and tests to detect issues early.
Coupling Software Design
The degree of interdependence between software modules; loose coupling is preferred because it makes systems easier to maintain and modify.
CQRS (Command Query Responsibility Segregation) Architecture
A pattern that separates read operations (queries) from write operations (commands) to optimise performance, security, and scalability.
CRUD Architecture
An acronym for Create, Read, Update, Delete — the four basic operations that most data storage applications must support.
D
Daily Standup Agile Delivery
A brief, time-boxed daily meeting where team members share what they did yesterday, what they will do today, and any blockers they face.
Data Migration General SDLC
The process of transferring data between storage types, formats, or systems, often required when launching a new application or upgrading infrastructure.
Definition of Done (DoD) Agile Delivery
A shared checklist of criteria that must be met before a user story or increment is considered complete and potentially shippable.
Definition of Ready (DoR) Agile Delivery
A checklist that ensures a user story has sufficient detail and clarity before the team accepts it into a sprint for development.
Dependency Project Management
A relationship between tasks where one task relies on the completion of another before it can begin or finish.
Deployment General SDLC
The process of releasing software to a target environment — such as staging or production — so it becomes available for use.
Design Document Waterfall
A formal specification that describes the system architecture, data structures, interfaces, and component designs for developers to implement.
Design Pattern Software Design
A reusable, general solution to a commonly occurring problem in software design, such as Singleton, Observer, or Factory.
DevOps Developer
A cultural and technical practice that bridges software development and IT operations to shorten the development lifecycle and deliver continuous value.
DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself) Software Design
A principle that encourages eliminating code duplication by ensuring every piece of knowledge has a single, unambiguous representation.
E
E2E (End-to-End) Testing Testing / QA
Testing that simulates real user workflows through the entire application stack from start to finish to verify integrated functionality.
Encapsulation Software Design
An object-oriented principle that bundles data and the methods that operate on that data within a single unit, hiding internal details from the outside.
Endpoint Architecture
A specific URL in an API where a client can send requests to access or manipulate a particular resource.
Environment General SDLC
A configured infrastructure setup — such as development, testing, staging, or production — where software runs.
Epic Agile Delivery
A large user story or body of work that is too big for a single sprint and must be broken down into smaller stories over multiple iterations.
Estimation Agile Delivery
The process of predicting the effort, time, or complexity required to complete a task or user story, often using story points or hours.
Event-Driven Architecture Architecture
A design pattern where system components communicate by producing and consuming events, enabling loose coupling and real-time responsiveness.
Exploratory Testing Testing / QA
An informal testing approach where testers actively explore the application without predefined scripts to discover unexpected defects.
F
Feature Flag Developer
A mechanism to enable or disable specific functionality in production without deploying new code, supporting gradual rollouts and safe testing.
Functional Requirement Business Analysis
A specification that describes what a system should do, defining specific behaviors, functions, or features it must perform.
G
Gate Review Waterfall
A formal checkpoint at the end of a project phase where stakeholders evaluate deliverables and approve progression to the next phase.
Git Developer
A distributed version control system that tracks code changes, facilitates collaboration, and manages project history through commits and branches.
Go-Live General SDLC
The moment when a new system or feature is launched into the production environment and made available to real users.
GraphQL Architecture
A query language for APIs that allows clients to request exactly the data they need in a single call, offering flexibility over traditional REST.
gRPC Architecture
A high-performance, open-source RPC framework developed by Google that uses Protocol Buffers for efficient binary communication over HTTP/2.
H
Happy Path Testing / QA
The default, error-free flow through a system using valid inputs. The first and most important scenario to verify.
Hotfix General SDLC
An urgent patch released to production to resolve a critical bug or security vulnerability that cannot wait for the next scheduled release.
Hybrid Model Project Management
A project delivery approach that blends elements from multiple methodologies — commonly combining waterfall phases with agile sprints.
I
IaC (Infrastructure as Code) Developer
The practice of managing and provisioning computing infrastructure through machine-readable configuration files rather than manual processes.
Impediment Agile Delivery
Any obstacle that slows down or blocks a team's progress, often discussed during daily standups for resolution by the Scrum Master.
INVEST Business Analysis
An acronym for Independent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimable, Small, Testable — qualities that define a well-written user story.
Integration Testing Testing / QA
Testing that verifies multiple components or systems work together correctly when connected, focusing on interfaces and data flow between them.
Iteration Agile Delivery
A time-boxed cycle of development work — commonly a sprint — in which a team designs, builds, and tests a small increment of product value.
J
JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) Architecture
A lightweight, human-readable data interchange format used to transmit data objects between systems, commonly in API requests and responses.
JWT (JSON Web Token) Architecture
A compact, URL-safe token used to securely transmit authenticated user information between parties as a JSON object.
K
Kanban Agile Delivery
A visual workflow management method that limits work in progress and uses a board with columns to track tasks from start to finish.
KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) Software Design
A principle that encourages designing systems to be as simple as possible, avoiding unnecessary complexity to improve maintainability.
KPI (Key Performance Indicator) Business
A measurable metric that demonstrates how effectively an organization, team, or project is achieving its key business objectives.
L
Layered Architecture Architecture
A design pattern that organizes software into horizontal layers — such as presentation, business logic, and data access — each with distinct responsibilities.
Legacy System General SDLC
An older software system that is still in use but built on outdated technology, often difficult to maintain or integrate with modern platforms.
Load Testing Testing / QA
Performance testing that simulates expected user traffic to measure how a system behaves under normal and anticipated peak load conditions.
M
Maintenance General SDLC
The phase after deployment where software is updated with bug fixes, performance improvements, security patches, and new features.
Māori Data Sovereignty Business
The right of Māori (New Zealand's indigenous people) to access, use, care for, and control data that reflects them, their communities, and their resources. A critical consideration for ethical tech in Aotearoa.
Merge Developer
The process of combining code changes from one branch into another, typically to integrate a completed feature into the main codebase.
Merge Conflict Developer
An error that occurs when Git cannot automatically reconcile differences between two branches being merged, requiring manual intervention.
Microservices Architecture
An architectural style that structures an application as a collection of small, independent services that communicate via APIs and can be deployed separately.
Milestone Project Management
A significant point or event in a project timeline that marks the completion of a major deliverable or phase.
Mock Testing / QA
A simulated object that mimics the behavior of a real dependency in a controlled way, used in unit testing to isolate the component under test.
Mock Server Testing / QA
A simulated server that mimics the behavior of a real API, allowing developers and testers to work in parallel before the actual backend is ready.
Monolith Architecture
A traditional software architecture where all components are tightly integrated into a single, unified codebase and deployed as one unit.
MoSCoW Business Analysis
A prioritization technique that categorizes requirements as Must have, Should have, Could have, or Won't have to manage scope and stakeholder expectations.
MVP (Minimum Viable Product) Business
The simplest version of a product that can be released to early customers to validate a concept, gather feedback, and learn with minimal resources.
MVC (Model-View-Controller) Architecture
A design pattern that separates an application into three components: Model (data), View (UI), and Controller (logic), improving code organization.
MVVM (Model-View-ViewModel) Architecture
A design pattern that separates an application's UI (View) from its business logic (ViewModel) and data (Model), commonly used in modern front-end development.
N
Non-Functional Requirement Business Analysis
A quality attribute that specifies how a system should behave, covering performance, security, reliability, scalability, and usability.
O
OAuth 2.0 Architecture
An industry-standard authorization framework that enables third-party applications to obtain limited, secure access to user resources without exposing credentials.
OKR (Objectives and Key Results) Business
A goal-setting framework where qualitative objectives are paired with measurable key results to track progress and align teams toward strategic outcomes.
P
Pair Programming Developer
An agile practice where two developers work together at one workstation, with one writing code and the other reviewing each line in real time.
Patch General SDLC
A small update released to fix specific bugs, security vulnerabilities, or minor issues in deployed software.
Performance Testing Testing / QA
Testing that evaluates system responsiveness, stability, speed, and resource usage under various workload conditions.
Phase Waterfall
A distinct stage in a sequential project lifecycle — such as requirements, design, implementation, testing, and maintenance — that must be completed before the next begins.
Planning Poker Agile Delivery
A consensus-based estimation technique where team members use numbered cards to privately vote on the effort required for a user story, then discuss differences.
Polymorphism Software Design
An object-oriented principle that allows objects of different classes to be treated as instances of a common parent class, enabling flexible, reusable code.
Product Backlog Agile Delivery
An ordered list of everything that is known to be needed in the product, maintained and prioritized by the Product Owner.
Product Owner Business
The person accountable for maximizing product value by managing the backlog, prioritizing features, and clearly communicating requirements to the development team.
Production General SDLC
The live environment where software is deployed and made available to real end users for everyday use.
PRD (Product Requirements Document) Business Analysis
A document that details the features, functionality, and user experience of a product to guide design and development teams.
Prompt Injection Testing / QA
A security vulnerability where an attacker provides crafted input to a Large Language Model (LLM) to bypass its safety filters or force it to execute unintended commands.
Project Charter Project Management
A formal document that authorizes a project, defines its objectives, scope, stakeholders, and high-level requirements, and grants the project manager authority.
Prototype General SDLC
An early, working model of a product used to demonstrate concepts, test designs, and gather stakeholder feedback before full development.
Pull Request Developer
A mechanism for submitting code changes to a repository that notifies team members to review, discuss, and approve the changes before merging.
Q
QA (Quality Assurance) Testing / QA
Proactive activities focused on preventing defects by improving development and testing processes to ensure quality standards are met.
QC (Quality Control) Testing / QA
Reactive activities focused on identifying defects in the finished product through inspection, testing, and verification.
Quality Intelligence Testing / QA
The use of AI and data analytics to gain deep insights into software quality, predict potential failure points, and optimise testing effectiveness.
Quality Observability Testing / QA
The ability to monitor and understand a system's quality state in production by analysing logs, traces, and metrics to identify and debug complex issues.
R
RACI Matrix Project Management
A responsibility assignment chart that defines who is Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed for each task or deliverable.
Risk-Based Prioritisation Testing / QA
A strategy that focuses testing efforts on the areas of the application with the highest business impact and the highest likelihood of failure.
Refactoring Developer
The process of restructuring existing code without changing its external behavior to improve readability, reduce complexity, and eliminate technical debt.
Regression Testing Testing / QA
Re-executing existing test cases after code changes to ensure that new modifications have not inadvertently broken previously working functionality.
Release General SDLC
A deployable version of software that is made available to users, often accompanied by release notes documenting changes and known issues.
Release Candidate General SDLC
A beta version of software that is potentially ready for final release, pending the discovery of any critical last-minute bugs.
Repository Developer
A central storage location — local or remote — where code, files, and version history for a project are managed and tracked.
Requirement Business Analysis
A documented need, condition, or capability that a software system must satisfy to solve a problem or achieve an objective.
REST (Representational State Transfer) Architecture
An architectural style for designing networked applications that uses standard HTTP methods and stateless client-server communication.
Retrospective Agile Delivery
A regular team meeting held at the end of a sprint to reflect on what went well, what could improve, and to identify actionable changes.
ROI (Return on Investment) Business
A financial metric that measures the profitability of an investment by comparing the net gain to its cost, usually expressed as a percentage.
S
Sandbox General SDLC
An isolated testing environment where developers can experiment, build, and test features without affecting production or other stable systems.
Sanity Testing Testing / QA
A focused subset of regression testing that quickly verifies whether a specific section of an application works correctly after a minor change or bug fix.
Scalability Architecture
The ability of a system to handle growing amounts of work or users by adding resources without degrading performance.
Scrum Agile Delivery
An agile framework for managing complex work through iterative sprints, with defined roles, events, and artifacts to deliver incremental value.
Scrum Master Agile Delivery
A facilitator responsible for ensuring the team follows Scrum practices, removing impediments, and helping the team improve its processes.
Security Testing Testing / QA
Testing that evaluates an application for vulnerabilities, threats, and risks to ensure data and resources are protected from unauthorized access.
Sequential Waterfall
A characteristic of the Waterfall model where project phases are executed in a strict linear order, with each phase beginning only after the previous one ends.
SLA (Service Level Agreement) Project Management
A formal contract between a service provider and client that defines expected service standards, availability, and responsibilities.
Shift Left Testing Testing / QA
An approach that moves testing activities earlier in the development lifecycle to find and fix defects as soon as possible, reducing cost and risk.
Shift-Smart Testing / QA
An evolution of 'Shift-Left' that focuses on applying the most effective quality checks at the right time, rather than just doing all testing earlier.
Sign-off Waterfall
Formal approval from stakeholders — often documented — that confirms a phase or deliverable meets requirements and authorizes progression to the next step.
Smoke Testing Testing / QA
A preliminary set of tests run on a new build to verify that critical functions work and the build is stable enough for further testing.
SOA (Service-Oriented Architecture) Architecture
An architectural pattern where independent, reusable services perform specific business functions and communicate over a network, often via an Enterprise Service Bus.
SOAP Architecture
A protocol for exchanging structured information in web services using XML, offering built-in security and transaction standards.
SOLID Software Design
An acronym for five object-oriented design principles — Single Responsibility, Open/Closed, Liskov Substitution, Interface Segregation, Dependency Inversion — that promote maintainable code.
Spike Agile Delivery
A time-boxed research activity used in agile to explore a technical or functional question, reduce uncertainty, and inform future story estimation.
Sprint Agile Delivery
A fixed, time-boxed period — usually 1–4 weeks — during which a Scrum team works to complete a set of committed backlog items.
Sprint Backlog Agile Delivery
The subset of product backlog items selected for a sprint, plus a plan for delivering them to achieve the sprint goal.
Sprint Goal Agile Delivery
A short, shared objective that describes what the team intends to accomplish during a sprint, guiding decision-making and scope trade-offs.
Sprint Planning Agile Delivery
A collaborative meeting at the start of a sprint where the team decides what work to commit to and how it will be accomplished.
Sprint Review Agile Delivery
A meeting held at the end of a sprint where the team demonstrates completed work to stakeholders and gathers feedback for future prioritization.
SRS (Software Requirements Specification) Business Analysis
A comprehensive document that fully defines what a software system will do, including functional and non-functional requirements.
Staging General SDLC
A pre-production environment that closely mirrors production, used for final testing, user acceptance testing, and deployment rehearsal.
Stakeholder Project Management
Any individual, group, or organization with an interest in or influence over a project's outcome, including customers, sponsors, and team members.
Story Points Agile Delivery
A relative unit of measure used in agile teams to estimate the effort, complexity, and risk required to complete a user story.
Stress Testing Testing / QA
Performance testing that pushes a system beyond normal operational capacity to identify its breaking point and evaluate recovery behavior.
Swagger / OpenAPI Architecture
A specification and set of tools for describing REST API endpoints, request/response formats, and authentication — making APIs easier to understand and consume.
SWOT Analysis Business
A strategic planning technique that evaluates Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats related to a project, product, or business decision.
System Testing Testing / QA
Testing the complete, integrated software system as a whole to verify that it meets specified requirements and functions correctly end-to-end.
T
TAM (Total Addressable Market) Business
The total revenue opportunity available for a product or service if 100% market share were achieved, used to assess business potential.
TDD (Test-Driven Development) Testing / QA
A development practice where automated tests are written before the actual code, driving design and ensuring immediate feedback on correctness.
Technical Debt Developer
The implied cost of additional rework caused by choosing an easy, short-term solution instead of using a better, longer-term approach.
Test Automation Testing / QA
The use of specialized software tools and scripts to execute tests automatically, compare actual outcomes with predicted outcomes, and report results.
Test Case Testing / QA
A documented set of preconditions, inputs, actions, and expected results developed to verify that a specific feature behaves correctly.
Test Coverage Testing / QA
A metric that measures the amount of testing performed by quantifying how much of the codebase is exercised by the test suite.
Test Plan Testing / QA
A formal document that defines the testing strategy, objectives, scope, resources, schedule, and deliverables for a project.
Test Suite Testing / QA
A collection of test cases grouped together to test a specific feature, module, or functionality of an application.
Traceability Matrix Business Analysis
A document that maps requirements to their corresponding design, code, and test artifacts to ensure full coverage and track changes.
Trunk-Based Development Developer
A branching strategy where developers work on short-lived branches or directly on the main branch, integrating small, frequent changes to reduce merge conflicts.
U
UAT (User Acceptance Testing) Testing / QA
The final phase of testing where end users or clients validate that the software meets business needs and is ready for production use.
UML (Unified Modeling Language) Software Design
A standardized visual notation used to specify, visualize, construct, and document the artifacts of software systems through diagrams.
Unit Testing Testing / QA
Testing individual functions, methods, or components in isolation to verify they behave correctly, forming the foundation of the test pyramid.
Use Case Business Analysis
A description of how a user interacts with a system to achieve a specific goal, capturing functional requirements from the user's perspective.
User Journey Business Analysis
A visual or narrative representation of the steps a user takes to accomplish a goal across multiple touchpoints with a product or service.
User Story Business Analysis
A concise, informal description of a feature written from an end user's perspective, typically following the format: "As a [user], I want [goal], so that [benefit]."
UX (User Experience) Business Analysis
The overall experience a person has when using a product, especially in terms of how easy or pleasing it is to use.
V
Value Proposition Business
A clear statement that explains the unique benefits a product offers, why customers should choose it, and how it solves their problems.
Version Control Developer
A system that records changes to files over time so specific versions can be recalled later, enabling collaboration and history tracking.
Velocity Agile Delivery
A metric that measures the average amount of work a team completes during a sprint, typically expressed in story points, used for forecasting future capacity.
V-Model Testing / QA
A development lifecycle model where each development phase has a corresponding test phase. Requirements → Acceptance testing; System design → System testing; Coding → Unit testing.
W
Waterfall Waterfall
A linear, sequential project management methodology where each phase must be fully completed and approved before the next phase begins.
WebSocket Architecture
A communication protocol that provides full-duplex, real-time data exchange between a client and server over a single, persistent connection.
WCAG 2.2 Testing / QA
The latest version of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, including nine new success criteria for focus appearance, dragging movements, and target size.
White Box Testing Testing / QA
A testing method where the tester has full visibility into the internal code structure, logic, and implementation to design test cases.
WIP (Work in Progress) Agile Delivery
Tasks that have been started but not yet completed; Kanban teams often set WIP limits to prevent overload and improve flow efficiency.
Wireframe Business Analysis
A low-fidelity visual guide that represents the skeletal framework of a user interface, used to plan layout and functionality before design.
WBS (Work Breakdown Structure) Project Management
A hierarchical decomposition of a project into smaller, manageable deliverables and tasks, forming the foundation for scheduling and estimating.
Y
YAGNI (You Aren't Gonna Need It) Software Design
A principle that advises developers not to implement functionality until it is actually needed, avoiding unnecessary complexity and wasted effort.
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