Agile is an empirical process where metrics and decisions are based on observation and demonstrated results rather than just planning.

Humans are required for navigating difficult stakeholder politics, ensuring ethical alignment, and understanding unique company culture.

A Pilot Launch is a high-cost, high-confidence validation technique that involves a full rollout to a specific restricted group.

Sentiment analysis helps a BA proactively identify frustration or needs in stakeholder feedback before they become formal complaints.

AI offloads administrative refinement, allowing the Product Owner to focus on strategic alignment and insight mining.

As AI handles administrative metrics, the Scrum Master focuses more on interpersonal conflict, coaching, and team dynamics.

The BA must move from managing manual translation to owning the rigorous specification and judger and specifier intent.

A landing page or video tests initial interest and messaging without building any backend functionality.

The core goal of the Hypothesis-Build-Measure-Learn cycle is to minimize the total time it takes to learn from an experiment.

Product Discovery acknowledges risks related to whether customers will use it (Value), can use it (Usability), and if it can be built (Feasibility).

A high Customer Effort Score (meaning it was hard to solve an issue) is strongly correlated with reduced loyalty.

CSAT measures sentiment, which can be fleeting, mood-dependent, and culturally varied.

Integrated (or in-app) surveys catch the customer while they are engaged, leading to higher response rates.

RTF measures the amount of working, tested software delivered for deployment per dollar of investment.

Escaped defects are those not discovered during internal validation that instead reach the end customer.

Histograms divide sample values into intervals called 'bins' to examine the shape, spread, and frequency of data.

Bar charts are used to visually compare category measures, such as quantities or frequencies, across different groups.

DPMO is a quality performance measure used to track non-conformities per million opportunities.

A product is 'defective' if it fails to meet specifications; it may contain one or multiple individual 'defects.'

A check sheet (or tally sheet) is used to collect data manually and real-time at the source before entering it into a system.

A scatter plot is called a correlation chart because it studies the potential relationship or correlation between two continuous variables.

Lead time is the average time between the initiation of a new order and its final completion.

Cycle time is the speed of the process, representing the time between the completion of two operation steps.

Efficiency refers to the resource utilization required to achieve a specific result.

Effectiveness is the comparison between the theoretical capacity of a process and its actual output.

Street lights are used as a visual indicator for Schedule, Budget, and Scope health using RAG colors.

A sign that a process is out of control is if seven consecutive measurements lie on one side of the mean.

A Risk Burndown chart helps stakeholders see if the overall project risk severity is being reduced.

A burn up or burn down chart shows when work has been added or removed or completed in the project.

Velocity is used to forecast completion: 300 total points / 30 points per sprint = 10 sprints.

Individual anonymous input is collected to avoid groupthink before moving to group discussion to reach a consensus.

The gaps between Fibonacci numbers (e.g., 8 vs 13) make it easier to decide a general size without arguing over small increments.

Triangulating refers to verifying an estimate by comparing a story's size relative to other already estimated stories.

Ideal time is the duration required to complete a task if no interruptions or overhead activities were present.

Story point sizing is created and owned by the team, as they are the ones performing the work.

Planning Poker (or Estimation Poker) uses a deck of numbered cards to reach consensus on story size.

In this method, stakeholders are given exactly 100 points to distribute as they see fit among the features.

Bubble Sort is a process for comparing the importance of every task to every other task on a horizontal grid.

Monopoly Money involves giving stakeholders a fixed budget to distribute among features to gauge financial priority.

Excitement attributes are delighters; customers don't expect them but are delighted when they find them.

UI Flow diagrams offer a high-level view of how a user navigates through a system's interface.

A pie chart represents categories as slices, allowing users to compare their relative magnitude as proportions of a whole.

Role cards (often post-its) are used to brainstorm and describe the specific tasks or problems a user type wants to complete.

Decision Tables translate convoluted logic into a scannable matrix of conditions and outcomes, ensuring all permutations are covered.

A data dictionary is a tabular format showing names, types, lengths, and validation rules for specific data fields.

The Context Diagram is the highest level DFD, showing system boundaries and information flow with external components.

An ERD (or business data diagram) shows conceptual pieces of data and the cardinality relationships between them.

Decision trees are graphical models used to depict a series of binary choices and the outcomes they lead to.

A swimlane flowchart uses lanes to distinguish responsibilities for sub-processes within an overall workflow.

Exception flows are branch points that handle errors or disruptions and usually result in the failure to achieve the goal.

A Use Case describes a set of scenarios where an actor interacts with a system to achieve a specific goal.

Time series plots help observe changes and trends over time that might not be visible in static charts like histograms.

A spike is a research story used to prove a concept or gain familiarity with a technical approach before implementation.

Confirmation represents the acceptance criteria used to validate that the story has been successfully completed.

The components are Card (physical limit), Conversation (starting point for details), and Confirmation (acceptance criteria).

The A3 report is a structured one-page summary tool from the Toyota production system used for sharing thinking and results.

The backbone represents the high-level activities or the narrative flow of the user's journey across the top of the map.

User Proxies are people (like sales or domain experts) who act as stand-ins for real users when they cannot be reached.

Extreme personas represent archetypes of users with specific, rare characteristics to ensure inclusive design and empathy.

The outer branches represent new functionality that has not yet been built or designed.

In 'Remember the Future', stakeholders work backward from a mental state of success to identify the requirements that led there.

Three fingers indicates a neutral position or uncertainty where the voter is willing to yield to the group consensus.

In a Round-Robin session, a token or turn is passed around the group to ensure everyone contributes ideas individually.

SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-based.

The correct sequence for an Impact Map is Goal (Why), Actor (Who), Impact (How), and Deliverable (What).

Developed by Kurt Lewin, Force Field Analysis maps Driving Forces (Pros) and Restraining Forces (Cons) affecting a proposed change.

RTM address forward traceability by ensuring all customer needs are addressed and Backward Traceability ensures that every delivered feature maps back to an original requested business need, preventing "gold plating."

SIPOC stands for Supplier, Input, Process, Output, and Customer.

Value Stream Mapping is used to analyze and design the flow of materials and information required to deliver a product or service.

Opportunities and Threats come from the external environment or market, whereas strengths and weaknesses are internal.

State tables model the valid states of an object and the allowed transitions between those states.

KPOVs represent the variables/requirements the customer expects or the responses produced by the process.

In this technique, a human manually performs tasks behind the scenes that appear automated to the end user.

Idea/Mind mapping consolidates individual brainstorming sessions into a single map to visualize commonality and generate new ideas.

NPS measures customer loyalty by asking how likely they are to recommend the product to someone else.

Modern BAs must provide high-quality business logic and data strategy to ensure AI tools function with precision.

The Pareto chart highlights the most significant factors (like most common defects) among many sources using the 80/20 principle.

A Release Burndown chart tracks the amount of work remaining to reach zero by the end of the release.

A box plot (box-and-whisker) provides a graphical summary of the distribution, including its shape, central tendency, and variability.

Anchors are placed below the waterline to represent the threats or risks that slow down the project.

Control Charts help establish control limits (UCL and LCL) to monitor if a project element is within acceptable bounds.

Spaghetti diagrams track the physical routing of a product or document to identify wasted movement and streamlining needs.

The Kano Model prioritizes requirements based on their impact on customer satisfaction and their degree of implementation.

Process Efficiency is determined by dividing Value-Added Cycle Time by Total Cycle Time.

A Fake Door Test uses a button for a feature that doesn't exist yet to gauge real user demand via click-through rates.

A spike involves writing samples to prove a concept, establish feasibility, and gain a better understanding.

Takt time is the rhythm at which products are requested by the customer or market.

Planning poker facilitates independent thinking during Estimations and resolves misunderstandings through interaction.

The "so that" clause provides the context of the benefit or value, explaining why the requirement exists.

The Ishikawa diagram is also known as the Fishbone or Cause & Effect diagram.

Velocity is a measure of the accepted work (often in story points) completed by a team in a given timeframe.

The Owner is the person or entity with the power to start or stop the system.

Cumulative Flow Diagrams (CFD) are tools used to see trends and find bottlenecks in the delivery process.

An MVP is the fastest way to get through the Build-Measure-Learn feedback loop with minimum effort.

An affinity diagram is a tool used to organize and classify a large number of ideas or causes into logical groups.

The 5-why is an iterative technique used to determine the root cause of a defect or problem.

INVEST is the acronym for Independent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimable, Small, and Testable attributes of a user story.

The BA must move from managing manual translation to owning the specification and architectural intent.

The Product Owner is responsible for maximizing the value of the product for stakeholders and customers.

"Won’t have (for now)" items are those not essential or important enough for the current timebox.