Glossary
Key terms in codebase intelligence, product management, technical debt, and software engineering — defined clearly.
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What Is Agile Estimation?
Agile estimation is the process of predicting work effort using iterative, team-based methods like story points and velocity.
What Is AI Competitive Analysis?
AI competitive analysis uses artificial intelligence to automate competitor monitoring, feature tracking, and gap identification.
What Is an AI Product Roadmap?
An AI product roadmap plans the development and iteration of AI-powered features and products over time.
What Is AI Feature Prioritization?
AI feature prioritization uses machine learning to score and rank features based on impact, effort, and strategic alignment.
What Is Automated Code Insights?
Automated code insights use AI and static analysis to surface patterns, risks, and opportunities from codebases without manual review.
What Is an AI Product Manager?
An AI product manager specializes in building and managing AI-powered products. Gartner calls it a 'critical missing role.'
What Is a Developer Experience Platform?
A DevEx platform improves how developers interact with their tools, codebases, and infrastructure.
What Is AI for Product Strategy?
AI for product strategy uses artificial intelligence to inform product decisions, from roadmapping to competitive positioning.
What Is a Competitive Battlecard?
A competitive battlecard is a one-page reference document that helps sales reps compete against specific competitors.
What Is a Feature Inventory?
A feature inventory is a complete catalog of all features in your product, mapped to code, usage, and ownership.
What Is a Knowledge Silo?
Knowledge silos form when information is trapped in individuals or teams and not shared across the organization.
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What Is Code Quality Metrics?
Code quality metrics quantify how maintainable, reliable, and efficient a codebase is. Essential for engineering management.
What Is Codebase Search?
Codebase search tools help developers and product teams find specific code, patterns, and features across repositories.
What Are Code Dependencies?
Code dependencies are the relationships between different parts of your codebase that determine what breaks when something changes.
What Is Code Coverage?
Code coverage measures the percentage of code that's tested by automated tests. 80%+ is a common target.
What Is Code Complexity?
Code complexity measures how difficult code is to understand, test, and maintain. Higher complexity = higher risk.
What Is Codebase Intelligence?
Codebase intelligence uses AI to make codebases understandable to everyone on the product team, not just developers.
What Is Codebase Documentation?
Codebase documentation explains how code works, why it was built that way, and how to navigate it.
What Is Competitive Gap Analysis?
Competitive gap analysis identifies differences between your product and competitors to find strategic opportunities.
What Is Code Intelligence?
Code intelligence uses AI to understand, analyze, and surface insights from codebases for technical and non-technical users.
What Is Code Health?
Code health measures the quality, maintainability, and sustainability of a codebase. Learn the key metrics.
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What Is Estimation Best Practices?
A collection of proven approaches to making software estimates more accurate, from evidence-based methods to reference class forecasting.
What Is Effort Estimation?
Effort estimation predicts the time and resources needed to complete a software project. Mean overrun: 30%.
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What Is Measure Technical Debt?
Measuring technical debt requires combining static analysis, developer surveys, and business impact data.
What Is Machine Learning for Product Managers?
Machine learning for product managers is the set of ML concepts PMs need to understand to build and manage AI products.
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What Is Story Point Estimation?
Story points estimate the relative effort of work items. Controversy: many teams find them useless.
What Is Software Project Estimation?
Software project estimation predicts the time, cost, and resources needed. Mean cost overrun: 1.8x.
What Is Scope Creep?
Scope creep is the uncontrolled expansion of project scope without corresponding increases in time, budget, or resources.
What Is Sprint Estimation?
Sprint estimation is the process of predicting how much work a team can complete in a sprint cycle.
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What Is Technical Debt Assessment?
Technical debt assessment is a structured review of a codebase to identify, quantify, and prioritize accumulated debt.
What Is Technical Product Documentation?
Technical product documentation describes how a product works, how it's built, and how to use it — for both users and developers.
What Is Technical Debt Reporting?
Technical debt reporting communicates the state and impact of tech debt to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
What Is Technical Debt Prioritization?
Technical debt prioritization is the process of deciding which debt items to fix first based on impact and effort.
What Is Technical Debt Tracking?
Technical debt tracking is the systematic monitoring of accumulated debt in a codebase using metrics and dashboards.
What Is Technical Debt?
Technical debt is the implied cost of future rework caused by choosing quick solutions over better approaches.
What Is Tribal Knowledge in Software Development?
Tribal knowledge is undocumented institutional know-how that exists only in people's heads. Learn why it's dangerous.