1,103terms
16topics
Choose your job to see what each term means in your work.
A to Z
- Reading charts and reports100% stacked bar chartBars of equal length that show each category’s mix as percentages.
- Evidence and reasoningA/B testAn experiment that compares two versions of something to see which performs better.
- People and HRAbsenteeism rateThe percentage of planned working time lost to unplanned absence.
- Business, finance and operationsAcceptance criteriaThe specific conditions that must be met before a piece of work can be accepted as finished.
- Data protection and securityAccess controlRules and tools that decide who can see or change systems and data.
- Data protection and securityAccess reviewA periodic check of who can see what, and whether they still should.
- Marketing, sales and customersAccount managementLooking after existing customer relationships after the initial sale, with a focus on retention, satisfaction, and further growth.
- Ethics and judgementAccountabilityBeing answerable for a decision or an outcome, including who is expected to explain and take responsibility for it if it goes wrong.
- Business, finance and operationsAccounts payableMoney a business owes to its suppliers for goods or services already received.
- Business, finance and operationsAccounts receivableMoney owed to a business by customers who have bought on credit.
- Business, finance and operationsAccrualRecording income or a cost in the period it was earned or incurred, rather than the period the cash actually moved.
- AI and machine learningAccuracyHow often a model's predictions are correct, shown as a percentage of all predictions.
- Evidence and reasoningActionable insightA finding from data that points clearly to a decision or next step, rather than just describing what happened.
- Business, finance and operationsActivationThe point at which a new user experiences the core value of a product for the first time, seen as a key early milestone.
- Marketing, sales and customersActive usersThe number of unique people using a product in a set period, often measured daily (DAU) or monthly (MAU).
- Data basicsActivity dataRecords of activities that cause emissions, such as fuel used, electricity consumed or distance travelled.
- Marketing, sales and customersActivity metricsMeasures of the actions a salesperson takes, such as calls made or emails sent, as opposed to the outcomes those actions produce.
- Data basicsActual figureThe real result recorded for a period, such as money actually spent or earned, compared with a budget or forecast.
- Reading charts and reportsActual versus budget combination chartA chart that shows actual results as columns and the budget or target as a line on the same axis, so the gap in each period is easy to see.
- Reading charts and reportsAd hoc analysisA one-off piece of analysis created to answer a specific question as it comes up.
- Marketing, sales and customersAd spendThe total amount spent on advertising over a period.
- Business, finance and operationsAdjustmentA correction made to a financial record to fix an error or to reflect something not yet captured.
- Business, finance and operationsAdoptionThe extent to which people actually start and keep using something new, such as a tool, feature, or process.
- Business, finance and operationsAged debtMoney owed to a business, grouped by how long it has been outstanding.
- Business, finance and operationsAgeing reportA report grouping unpaid invoices by how long they have been outstanding, such as 0–30, 31–60 and over 60 days.
- AI and machine learningAgentAn AI system that can plan steps, use tools and take actions to complete a goal, instead of only answering a single question.
- Data layoutAggregationCombining many rows of data into a single summary value, such as a total, average or count.
- Business, finance and operationsAgileA way of working that delivers value in small, frequent steps and adapts based on feedback.
- AI and machine learningAI evaluationTesting how well an AI system performs against a set of known questions, tasks or quality standards.
- AI and machine learningAI governanceThe policies and checks that make sure AI is used safely, fairly and in line with the law.
- Data engineering and ITAirflowAn open-source tool for scheduling and monitoring data pipelines as a series of connected tasks.
- AI and machine learningAlgorithmA set of step-by-step rules a computer follows to solve a problem or make a calculation.
- Ethics and judgementAmbiguityWhen a question, requirement, or piece of information can reasonably be understood in more than one way.
- Business, finance and operationsAmortisationSpreading the cost of an intangible asset, such as software or a patent, across the years it is used.
- Marketing, sales and customersAnnual recurring revenue (ARR)The predictable revenue a subscription business earns each year.
- Business, finance and operationsAnnual reportA yearly document, often required by law for listed companies, summarising financial performance and other results to shareholders and the public.
- Evidence and reasoningAnomaly detectionFinding data points that behave very differently from what is expected.
- Data protection and securityAnonymisationChanging personal data so that no one can be identified from it, even by combining it with other information.
- Data protection and securityAnonymity thresholdThe minimum number of people a figure must represent before it can be reported, so that no individual could be identified from it.
- Data engineering and ITAnti-joinFinding rows in one table that have no match in another, such as customers who have never ordered.
- Risk and complianceAnti-money laundering (AML)Rules and processes that detect and prevent criminals disguising illegally obtained money as legitimate income.
- Data engineering and ITAPIShort for application programming interface.
- Data engineering and ITAPI gatewayA single entry point that manages, secures and routes requests to different APIs.
- Risk and complianceApprovalFormal sign-off from an authorised person before an action, such as a payment or a change, can go ahead.
- Risk and complianceApproval thresholdThe value above which a decision, such as a spend or a discount, requires sign-off from someone more senior.
- Data engineering and ITArchitecture decision recordA short document that records a significant architecture decision, the context behind it, and why it was made, for future reference.
- Reading charts and reportsArea chartA line chart with the space below the line filled in.
- AI and machine learningArtificial intelligence (AI)Computer systems that perform tasks usually associated with human thinking, such as recognising patterns, understanding language or making predictions.
- Business, finance and operationsAs-is processA description of how a process actually works today, before any proposed changes, used as the baseline for improvement.
- People and HRAssessmentA structured way of checking whether someone has learned or can apply a given skill or piece of knowledge.
- Business, finance and operationsAsset costThe original price paid for an asset, including costs to get it ready for use, such as delivery and installation.
- Business, finance and operationsAsset registerA record of the physical and intangible assets a business owns, including their cost and depreciation.
- Business, finance and operationsAssetsEverything a business owns that has value, such as cash, equipment, stock and money owed by customers.
- Evidence and reasoningAssumptionSomething taken as true in an analysis without being directly proven, usually because it can't be measured yet.
- Marketing, sales and customersAttributionWorking out which marketing activities helped lead to a sale or conversion.
- Marketing, sales and customersAttribution windowThe period after someone sees or clicks an advert during which a sale still counts towards it.
- People and HRAttrition rateThe percentage of employees who leave an organisation over a period, for any reason, compared with the average number employed.
- Marketing, sales and customersAudience segmentA defined group of people a campaign targets, based on behaviour, needs or profile.
- Risk and complianceAuditAn independent check of whether records, processes or controls are accurate and working as intended.
- Risk and complianceAudit trailA record showing who did what, and when, in a system or process.
- Data engineering and ITAutomationUsing software to carry out repetitive tasks without manual effort.
- Data engineering and ITAvailabilityThe proportion of time a system is actually up and working as expected.
- Business, finance and operationsAvailability, performance and qualityThe three parts of OEE: how often equipment runs when planned, how fast it runs, and how much good output it makes.
- Data engineering and ITAvailable timeThe time a system or piece of equipment is working and ready to use.
- Marketing, sales and customersAverage deal sizeThe average value of each deal a sales team wins.
- Marketing, sales and customersAverage handle time (AHT)The average time spent dealing with one customer contact, including hold time and follow-up work.
- Marketing, sales and customersAverage order value (AOV)The average amount spent each time a customer places an order.
- People and HRAverage payThe typical hourly or annual pay for a group of employees, calculated as the mean.
- Marketing, sales and customersAverage response timeThe average time it takes to reply to a customer’s first message.
- Marketing, sales and customersAverage revenue per user (ARPU)The average revenue earned from each user or customer over a period.
- Business, finance and operationsAvoidable costA cost that would go away if a particular decision, such as discontinuing a product, were made.
- Reading charts and reportsAxisThe scale along the side or bottom of a chart that you read values against.
- Business, finance and operationsBacklogA prioritised list of work waiting to be done, such as features, fixes or data requests.
- Business, finance and operationsBacklog refinementRegularly reviewing, clarifying and prioritising items in the backlog so they are ready to work on.
- Business, finance and operationsBackorderAn order a customer has placed that cannot be fulfilled yet because stock is unavailable.
- Data protection and securityBackupA copy of data kept separately so it can be restored if the original is lost or damaged.
- Business, finance and operationsBad debtMoney owed to a business that's judged unlikely ever to be paid, and so is written off.
- Business, finance and operationsBalance sheetA snapshot of what a business owns, what it owes and the value left for its owners at a point in time.
- Numbers and measuresBalanced scorecardA way of tracking performance across four areas: financial, customer, internal processes, and learning and growth.
- Marketing, sales and customersBANTA sales qualification framework that checks a prospect's Budget, Authority, Need, and Timeline before treating them as a serious opportunity.
- Reading charts and reportsBar chartValues for different categories shown as horizontal bars.
- Business, finance and operationsBarriers to entryObstacles that make it hard for a new competitor to enter a market, such as high costs, regulation, or brand loyalty.
- Business, finance and operationsBase demandThe normal, underlying level of demand for something, excluding temporary spikes or promotions.
- Numbers and measuresBaselineThe starting value used to measure change, such as performance before a project began.
- Data engineering and ITBatch processingProcessing data in large groups at scheduled times instead of the moment it arrives.
- Evidence and reasoningBefore and afterA comparison of a measure's value before and after a change, used as simple (if imperfect) evidence of that change's effect.
- People and HRBehaviour changeA lasting shift in how someone actually acts, the ultimate goal of most training, as distinct from simply gaining new knowledge.
- Numbers and measuresBenchmarkA reference point used to compare performance, such as an industry average or last year's result.
- Numbers and measuresBenchmarkingComparing your figures with an external standard or with peers.
- Business, finance and operationsBenefits realisationChecking, after a project or change is delivered, whether the benefits it was supposed to bring actually happened.
- AI and machine learningBiasA systematic error that pushes results in one direction, often because the data does not represent everyone fairly.
- Business, finance and operationsBid/no-bidThe decision of whether to submit a proposal for a piece of work, made by weighing the likely chances of winning against the cost of bidding.
- Data basicsBig dataData that is too large, fast-moving or varied to handle with traditional tools, often needing specialist platforms to store and process.
- Data engineering and ITBigQueryGoogle Cloud's data warehouse, built to run fast queries over very large datasets.
- Data engineering and ITBlameless reviewA review of an incident or failure that focuses on what happened in the process or system, rather than blaming an individual, so people report problems honestly.
- Business, finance and operationsBoardThe group of directors responsible for overseeing an organisation’s strategy, performance and risks.
- Business, finance and operationsBoard packThe set of papers, reports, and data prepared for a board meeting, summarising performance and key decisions needed.
- Business, finance and operationsBooking paceHow quickly reservations or bookings are being made for a future date, compared to the same point in previous periods.
- Reading charts and reportsBookmarkA saved state of a report, used to return users to a particular view.
- Business, finance and operationsBottleneckThe slowest step in a process, which limits how much the whole process can produce.
- Business, finance and operationsBottom-upAn estimate or forecast built by adding up detailed, granular figures, as opposed to starting from a high-level total and working down.
- Marketing, sales and customersBounce rateThe percentage of sessions that were not engaged in Google Analytics 4 (GA4). Traditionally, bounce rate often meant single-page sessions.
- Reading charts and reportsBox plotA chart that shows the median, spread and outliers of a set of values.
- Marketing, sales and customersBrand marketingMarketing activity aimed at building long-term awareness and perception of a brand, rather than driving an immediate, measurable response.
- Business, finance and operationsBreak-even pointThe level of sales at which total revenue equals total costs, so there is neither profit nor loss.
- Reading charts and reportsBubble chartA scatter plot where the size of each bubble shows a third value.
- Reading charts and reportsBubble mapA map with circles sized by value, used to compare scale across locations.
- Business, finance and operationsBudgetA financial plan setting out expected income and spending for a future period.
- Marketing, sales and customersBudget allocationHow available spend is divided across channels, campaigns, or activities.
- Business, finance and operationsBudget holderThe person accountable for how a specific budget is spent.
- Business, finance and operationsBudget varianceThe difference between an actual result and the budget set for the same item and period.
- Reading charts and reportsBullet chartA compact bar that shows one actual value against a target marker, on a background of shaded ranges such as poor, satisfactory and good.
- Business, finance and operationsBullwhip effectSmall changes in customer demand causing much larger swings in orders further up the supply chain.
- Reading charts and reportsBump chartA line chart that tracks each category's rank over time rather than its value.
- Business, finance and operationsBurn rateHow quickly a business spends its cash, usually measured per month.
- Business, finance and operationsBurndown chartA chart of the work remaining in a sprint or project over time, usually with an ideal line from the starting total down to zero for comparison.
- Business, finance and operationsBusiness capabilitySomething an organisation needs to be able to do to deliver its strategy, such as pricing, forecasting or recruiting.
- Business, finance and operationsBusiness caseA document that explains why a project is worth doing, what it will cost and what benefits it should bring.
- Risk and complianceBusiness continuityPlans that keep essential operations running during and after a disruption, such as a cyber attack or outage.
- Data basicsBusiness glossaryAn agreed list of business terms and their definitions, owned by the business rather than IT.
- Reading charts and reportsBusiness intelligence (BI)The tools and practices used to turn data into reports and dashboards that help people make business decisions.
- Business, finance and operationsBusiness modelHow an organisation creates value for customers and earns money from it.
- Business, finance and operationsBusiness partneringA way of working where a specialist function, such as finance or HR, sits close to a business area to advise on decisions rather than just report on results after the fact.
- Data basicsBusiness questionThe real underlying question a stakeholder needs answered, which analysis should be built around rather than just the data request as literally worded.
- Time and trendsCadenceThe regular rhythm at which something, such as a report or a meeting, happens.
- Data engineering and ITCalculated columnA new column in a data model created with a formula, calculated for every row.
- People and HRCalibrationA meeting where managers compare and align their individual assessments, such as performance ratings, to keep them consistent across the team.
- Marketing, sales and customersCampaignA planned set of marketing activity with a goal, audience, budget and time frame.
- Marketing, sales and customersCampaign analysisReviewing how a marketing campaign performed against its goals, and what drove or held back that performance.
- Marketing, sales and customersCampaign optimisationAdjusting a live marketing campaign's targeting, creative, or spend based on how it's performing, to improve its results.
- People and HRCandidate experienceHow a job applicant experiences the recruitment process, from application through to the final decision.
- Business, finance and operationsCapacityThe maximum amount a process, team, vehicle or site can handle in a period.
- Business, finance and operationsCapacity planningWorking out how much resource, such as staff or equipment, is needed to meet expected demand.
- Business, finance and operationsCapacity utilisationHow much of the available capacity is actually being used.
- Business, finance and operationsCapital expenditure (CAPEX)Money spent on acquiring or improving long-term assets, such as equipment, property, buildings, machinery or major software, rather than day-to-day running costs, typically used over several years.
- Business, finance and operationsCarbon footprintThe total greenhouse gas emissions caused by an organisation, product or activity, measured in tonnes of CO₂ equivalent.
- Business, finance and operationsCarbon intensityEmissions measured relative to an output, so organisations of different sizes can be compared.
- Business, finance and operationsCarbon offsetA credit representing a reduction or removal of emissions elsewhere, bought to compensate for an organisation’s own emissions.
- Data engineering and ITCardinalityThe number of unique values in a field, or the type of relationship between two tables, such as one-to-many.
- Business, finance and operationsCase studyA detailed look at a single real example, used to illustrate how something worked in practice.
- Business, finance and operationsCash flowThe money moving into and out of a business over a period of time.
- Business, finance and operationsCash inflowMoney coming into a business, such as payments from customers.
- Data basicsCategorical dataData made up of groups or labels instead of numbers you can calculate with.
- Data layoutCategoryA label that puts rows into groups, such as region, product line or customer type.
- Evidence and reasoningCausationWhen a change in one thing actually produces a change in another.
- Data quality and governanceCertified datasetA dataset formally approved as trusted and ready to use for reporting.
- Data engineering and ITChange controlThe process for approving and recording a change, so a break can be traced to its cause.
- Data engineering and ITChange data capture (CDC)A method that detects and copies only the changes made in a source system, instead of reloading everything.
- Business, finance and operationsChange managementHelping people understand, accept and adopt changes, such as new systems or ways of working.
- Data engineering and ITChange requestA formal proposal to change a system, reviewed and approved before it goes live.
- Marketing, sales and customersChannelA route through which a business reaches or sells to customers, such as paid search, social media, or a direct sales team.
- Marketing, sales and customersChannel mixThe combination of different marketing or sales channels used to reach customers, and how spend or effort is split between them.
- Reading charts and reportsChartA visual representation of data, such as a bar, line or pie chart.
- Business, finance and operationsChart of accountsThe structured list of codes finance uses to record every type of income, cost, asset and liability.
- Reading charts and reportsChart selectionChoosing the right chart type for what you're trying to show, since the wrong chart can make accurate data look misleading.
- Data engineering and ITChasm trapWhen two unrelated tables are joined through a shared dimension, producing every combination of rows rather than the intended result.
- Marketing, sales and customersChurnCustomers who stop buying from or using a business over a period.
- Data engineering and ITCI/CDContinuous integration and continuous delivery: automatically testing and releasing changes so they reach users safely and often.
- Business, finance and operationsCircular economyAn approach that keeps products and materials in use for as long as possible through reuse, repair and recycling.
- AI and machine learningClass imbalanceWhen one outcome in a dataset is much more common than another, which can make a model biased toward predicting the majority case.
- AI and machine learningClassificationA model that sorts things into categories, such as whether an email is spam.
- Marketing, sales and customersClick-through rate (CTR)The percentage of people who click on an ad, email or link after seeing it.
- Marketing, sales and customersClicksThe number of times people click on an ad, link or button.
- Data engineering and ITCloud computingUsing storage, processing power and software over the internet instead of on your own computers or servers.
- Evidence and reasoningCluster analysisA technique for grouping records that are similar to each other, used to find natural segments in data.
- AI and machine learningClusteringGrouping similar records together without being told the groups in advance.
- Data engineering and ITClustering keyThe column a large table is organised by, so queries filtering on it read less data.
- People and HRCoachingOngoing, individualised support from a manager or specialist to help someone develop their skills and performance.
- Data engineering and ITCode libraryA collection of ready-made code that coders reuse instead of writing everything from scratch, such as pandas for Python.
- Data engineering and ITCode reviewAnother person checking a change before it is merged, for correctness, clarity and risk.
- Evidence and reasoningCohortA group of people who share a starting point, such as signing up in the same month, tracked over time.
- Evidence and reasoningCohort analysisGrouping customers or users by a shared starting point, such as the month of their first order, and comparing how each group behaves over the same periods afterwards.
- Business, finance and operationsCollection rateThe proportion of money owed to a business that it successfully collects.
- Data layoutColumnA vertical set of values in a table that all describe the same attribute, also called a field.
- Reading charts and reportsColumn chartValues for categories or periods shown as vertical columns.
- Reading charts and reportsCombo chartA chart that combines columns and a line, often on two scales.
- Reading charts and reportsCommentaryThe written explanation accompanying a set of numbers, describing what changed, why, and what it means.
- Marketing, sales and customersCommitA deal a salesperson is confident enough will close in the current period to include in their forecast.
- Business, finance and operationsCommitment accountingRecording planned spending, such as an approved purchase order, against a budget as soon as it's committed, rather than waiting until it's actually paid.
- Data engineering and ITCommon table expression (CTE)How much revenue advertising brings in for every euro spent on it.
- Business, finance and operationsCommunicationHow information, decisions, and updates are shared between people, whether inside a team or with the wider organisation.
- Evidence and reasoningComparabilityWhether two figures can be meaningfully compared, which requires them to be calculated the same way over the same kind of period.
- People and HRCompetencyA defined skill, behaviour, or capability that an organisation expects people in a role to demonstrate.
- Business, finance and operationsCompetitive advantageSomething that lets an organisation outperform its competitors, such as lower costs or a stronger brand.
- Business, finance and operationsCompetitive analysisA structured comparison of an organisation against its competitors, covering things like pricing, positioning, and performance.
- Business, finance and operationsCompetitive responseThe action a competitor takes in reaction to a move a business makes, such as matching a price cut.
- Marketing, sales and customersComplaint rateThe number of complaints compared with the number of orders or customers.
- Marketing, sales and customersComplaintsFormal expressions of dissatisfaction from customers about a product, service or experience.
- Data quality and governanceCompletenessWhether all the data that should be present in a dataset actually is, with no missing records or fields.
- People and HRCompletion rateThe share of people who start a course, path, or task who actually finish it.
- Risk and complianceComplianceMeeting the requirements set by laws, regulations, or internal policies that apply to an organisation.
- Time and trendsCompound annual growth rate (CAGR)The steady yearly growth rate that would take a value from its starting point to its end point over several years.
- Reading charts and reportsComprehensionWhether the people reading a report or chart actually understand what it's telling them, not just whether the numbers are correct.
- Data engineering and ITCompute creditThe unit a cloud data platform bills you in.
- Reading charts and reportsConditional formattingAutomatically changing colours or icons in a table or chart based on the values shown.
- Numbers and measuresConfidence intervalA range of values that is likely to contain the true result, given the uncertainty in your data.
- AI and machine learningConfidence scoreA number a model outputs alongside a prediction, indicating how certain it is that the prediction is correct.
- Ethics and judgementConflict of interestA situation where someone in a position of trust has a personal or professional interest that could stop them acting impartially.
- Evidence and reasoningConfoundingWhen a third factor affects both of the things you are comparing.
- AI and machine learningConfusion matrixA table that compares a model’s predictions with the real outcomes, showing correct and incorrect results.
- Data protection and securityConsentPermission someone gives for their data to be used in a specific way, freely given and easy to withdraw.
- Marketing, sales and customersContact centreA team that handles customer calls, emails and chats, usually with specialist tools to manage and measure contacts.
- Data engineering and ITContainerisationPackaging software with everything it needs to run, so it behaves the same on any machine.
- AI and machine learningContext windowThe maximum amount of text, measured in tokens, that an AI model can consider at one time.
- Business, finance and operationsContingencyA backup plan or reserve set aside in case things don't go as expected.
- Business, finance and operationsContinuous improvementAn ongoing effort to make small, incremental improvements to a process, rather than relying on occasional large overhauls.
- Risk and complianceContract managementTracking and administering an organisation's contracts, including key dates, obligations, and renewal terms.
- Risk and complianceContract termA specific condition or clause within a contract that both parties have agreed to.
- Business, finance and operationsContribution marginRevenue minus variable costs.
- Reading charts and reportsControl chartA time series chart with a centre line at the process average and upper and lower control limits, usually three standard deviations away, used to tell normal variation from unusual events.
- Evidence and reasoningControl groupThe group that does not receive the change, used as the comparison in an experiment.
- Risk and complianceControl testingChecking whether internal controls work as designed.
- Evidence and reasoningControlled testAn experiment that compares a group exposed to a change against a similar group that isn't, so any difference can be attributed to the change.
- Marketing, sales and customersConversion rateThe percentage of people or leads at one stage who go on to complete a chosen next action, such as placing an order.
- Marketing, sales and customersConversion trackingRecording when a specific desired action, such as a purchase or sign-up, happens, so it can be tied back to the marketing that drove it.
- Marketing, sales and customersConversionsThe number of times people complete a desired action, such as buying, signing up or downloading.
- Data protection and securityCookiesSmall files a website stores on your device to remember things like settings, or to track how the site is used.
- AI and machine learningCopilotMicrosoft's assistant built into Office and Power BI, which drafts and explains using your content.
- Business, finance and operationsCorporate governanceThe rules, practices and structures that control how a company is directed and held accountable.
- Evidence and reasoningCorrelationA pattern where two measures tend to move together.
- Business, finance and operationsCost allocationAssigning a shared cost, such as overhead, across different departments, products, or projects in a consistent way.
- Business, finance and operationsCost centreA part of an organisation, such as a team or department, that costs are recorded against.
- Business, finance and operationsCost driverThe activity or factor that causes a cost to be incurred, and so what a cost changes in proportion to.
- Business, finance and operationsCost modelA structured way of calculating what something costs, by breaking it down into its component drivers.
- Business, finance and operationsCost of capitalThe return an organisation must earn to cover what its funding costs, whether borrowed or from investors.
- Data quality and governanceCost of dataThe total ongoing expense of storing, processing, and maintaining a piece of data, weighed against how much value it actually provides.
- People and HRCost of employmentThe full cost of employing someone, including salary plus additional costs like employer taxes and benefits.
- Business, finance and operationsCost of goods sold (COGS)The direct costs of making or buying the products a business sold, such as materials and production labour.
- People and HRCost of trainingThe total expense of delivering training, including materials, facilitator time, and the trainees' own time.
- Marketing, sales and customersCost per acquisition (CPA)How much profit a company makes for every euro invested by its shareholders.
- Marketing, sales and customersCost per click (CPC)The average amount paid each time someone clicks on an online ad.
- People and HRCost per hireThe average cost of filling one vacancy, including advertising, agency fees, recruiter time and assessment costs.
- Marketing, sales and customersCost per leadThe average amount spent to generate one new lead, calculated as total spend divided by the number of leads generated.
- Business, finance and operationsCost to serveThe total cost of supporting a particular customer or segment, which can reveal that some customers are less profitable than their revenue suggests.
- Data basicsCountThe number of records or occurrences in a dataset, one of the most basic building blocks of a report.
- Data protection and securityCredentialSomething that proves who you are to a system, such as a password, a key or a security token.
- Business, finance and operationsCredit controlThe process of making sure customers pay what they owe on time.
- Business, finance and operationsCredit limitThe maximum amount a business will allow a customer to owe at any one time before requiring payment.
- Business, finance and operationsCredit noteA document issued to reduce or cancel an amount owed, usually after a return, overcharge, or dispute.
- Business, finance and operationsCredit riskThe risk that a customer or counterparty won't pay what they owe.
- Business, finance and operationsCrisis communicationsThe planned approach an organisation takes to communicate during an event that threatens its reputation or operations.
- Data quality and governanceCritical data elementA specific data field considered important enough to an organisation's operations or reporting that it's given extra quality checks and oversight.
- Numbers and measuresCritical valueA number from statistical tables, such as 1.96 for 95% confidence, used to set how wide a confidence interval is.
- Marketing, sales and customersCRMShort for customer relationship management.
- Data protection and securityCross-border transferSending personal data outside the country or region where it was collected.
- AI and machine learningCross-validationTesting a model several times on different slices of the data to see how stable its performance is.
- Business, finance and operationsCSRDShort for corporate sustainability reporting directive.
- Data basicsCSVShort for comma-separated values.
- Business, finance and operationsCurrent assetsAssets expected to be turned into cash within a year, such as cash, stock and accounts receivable.
- Business, finance and operationsCurrent liabilitiesDebts due within a year, such as supplier bills, short-term loans and tax payments.
- Business, finance and operationsCurrent ratioA measure of whether a business can pay its short-term debts with its short-term assets.
- People and HRCurriculumThe structured set of topics and content that makes up a course of learning.
- Marketing, sales and customersCustomer acquisition cost (CAC)The average cost of winning one new customer, found by dividing sales and marketing costs for a period by the number of new customers won in that period.
- Risk and complianceCustomer concentrationHow much of a business's revenue depends on a small number of customers, which increases risk if one of them leaves.
- Marketing, sales and customersCustomer effort score (CES)A measure of how easy customers find it to get something done, such as solving a problem.
- Marketing, sales and customersCustomer health scoreA combined score that estimates how likely a customer is to stay, grow or leave.
- Data quality and governanceCustomer historyThe stored record of a customer's past interactions, purchases, and communications with an organisation.
- Marketing, sales and customersCustomer journeyThe full set of steps and experiences a customer goes through with a business, from first contact onwards.
- Marketing, sales and customersCustomer lifespanHow long, on average, a customer keeps buying from a business.
- Marketing, sales and customersCustomer lifetime value (CLV)An estimate of the total value a customer brings to a business over the whole relationship, measured in revenue or, better, in profit.
- Marketing, sales and customersCustomer satisfaction score (CSAT)The percentage of customers who say they are satisfied with a product, service or interaction.
- Marketing, sales and customersCustomer segmentationGrouping customers by shared characteristics, such as value, behaviour or needs.
- Marketing, sales and customersCustomer successA team or approach focused on helping customers get value from a product so they stay and grow.
- Marketing, sales and customersCustomersPeople or organisations who buy from a business.
- Business, finance and operationsCut-offThe point in time used to decide which transactions belong to one reporting period versus the next.
- Data protection and securityCybersecurityProtecting systems, networks and data from attacks, damage and unauthorised access.
- Business, finance and operationsCycle timeThe time it takes to complete one run of a process from start to finish.
- Marketing, sales and customersDaily and monthly active users (DAU and MAU)The number of unique people using a product each day (DAU) or each month (MAU).
- Business, finance and operationsDaily usageThe quantity of an item used or sold each day, often tracked as an average and a maximum.
- Reading charts and reportsDashboardA single screen of charts and figures that shows the most important measures at a glance.
- Data quality and governanceData accuracyHow closely data matches reality, such as a customer’s address being their real, current address.
- Data protection and securityData breachAn incident where personal or confidential data is accessed, lost or shared without permission.
- Data quality and governanceData catalogueAn organised inventory of an organisation's data, describing what exists, where it lives and who owns it.
- Data protection and securityData classificationSorting data into levels by how sensitive it is, so each level gets the right protection.
- Data quality and governanceData cleansingFixing or removing incorrect, duplicate or incomplete data so it can be trusted.
- Data quality and governanceData completenessWhether all the data that should be there is present, with no missing records or empty fields.
- Data quality and governanceData consistencyWhether the same data matches across different systems and reports, such as a customer’s name being spelled the same everywhere.
- Data quality and governanceData contractAn agreement between data producers and users that defines a dataset’s structure, quality and update schedule.
- Data protection and securityData controllerThe organisation that decides why and how personal data is used.
- Data basicsData definitionThe documented, agreed meaning of a specific field or term within a dataset.
- Data basicsData dictionaryA document that lists the fields in a dataset and what each one means.
- Data quality and governanceData domainA grouping of related data owned by one part of the business, such as customer or product data.
- Data basicsData formatThe way data is structured and stored in a file or system, such as CSV, JSON or a database table.
- Data quality and governanceData freshnessHow recently a dataset was last updated relative to when it's being used.
- Data engineering and ITData gatewaySoftware that securely connects cloud BI tools to data held on an organisation’s own servers.
- Data quality and governanceData governanceThe rules, roles and processes that decide how data is managed, protected and used across an organisation.
- Data engineering and ITData lakeA central store that holds large amounts of raw data in its original format until it is needed.
- Data engineering and ITData landscapeThe overall picture of what data an organisation has, where it lives, and how the different systems holding it relate to each other.
- Data protection and securityData leakageWhen information that would not be available in real use sneaks into training, making results look better than they are.
- Data quality and governanceData lineageA record of where data came from and every step it went through to reach a report.
- Data basicsData literacyThe ability to read, understand, question and communicate with data.
- Data quality and governanceData mappingDocumenting where specific pieces of data live, where they came from, and where they flow to across an organisation's systems.
- Data engineering and ITData martA smaller, focused part of a data warehouse built for one team or subject area.
- Data engineering and ITData meshAn approach where individual business teams own and share their data as products, instead of one central team owning everything.
- Data protection and securityData minimisationCollecting and keeping only the personal data you actually need for a specific purpose.
- Data engineering and ITData modelA structured map of how data is organised, including the tables, the fields in them and how they connect.
- Data engineering and ITData modellingDesigning how data is structured and related within a system, so it can be stored, queried, and understood consistently.
- Data quality and governanceData observabilityMonitoring the health of data, such as freshness, volume and schema changes, to spot problems before users do.
- Data quality and governanceData ownerThe person accountable for a set of data, including its quality and who can access it.
- Data quality and governanceData ownershipFormally assigning who is accountable for the accuracy, quality, and appropriate use of a particular dataset.
- Data engineering and ITData pipelineA series of automated steps that moves data from where it is created to where it is used, cleaning and reshaping it along the way.
- Data engineering and ITData platformThe combined set of technologies an organisation uses to store, process and share data.
- Data quality and governanceData policyA formal, documented rule that governs how an organisation collects, stores, uses, or shares data.
- Data protection and securityData processorAn organisation that handles personal data on behalf of a controller, following its instructions.
- Business, finance and operationsData productA reusable, trusted set of data or insight designed to meet the needs of its users, with a clear owner.
- Data protection and securityData protection impact assessment (DPIA)An assessment carried out before a new activity that's likely to pose a high risk to people's personal data, to identify and reduce that risk.
- Data quality and governanceData qualityHow accurate, complete, consistent and up to date data is, and therefore how far it can be trusted.
- Reading charts and reportsData refreshThe process that reloads a report or dashboard with the latest data from its sources.
- Data protection and securityData retentionHow long data is kept before it is deleted or anonymised.
- Data protection and securityData retention policyRules for how long different types of data are kept and when they must be deleted.
- Data protection and securityData roomA secure, controlled repository of documents made available to a limited set of people, typically during due diligence for a deal.
- Data quality and governanceData stewardThe person who looks after the day-to-day quality, definitions and correct use of a set of data.
- Data protection and securityData subjectThe person whose personal data is being used.
- Data protection and securityData subject rightsThe legal rights individuals have over their own personal data, such as the right to access, correct, or delete it.
- Data quality and governanceData testingAutomated checks run against data to confirm it meets expected rules, such as no missing values or values within an expected range.
- Data quality and governanceData timelinessWhether data is up to date and available when people need it.
- Data basicsData typeThe kind of value a field can hold.
- Reading charts and reportsData visualisationShort for General Data Protection Regulation.
- Data engineering and ITData warehouseA central store of cleaned, structured data brought together from many source systems and organised for reporting and analysis.
- Data engineering and ITDatabaseAn organised collection of data stored so it can be easily searched, updated and managed.
- Data engineering and ITDatabricksA cloud platform for data engineering, analytics and machine learning, built around Apache Spark.
- Data basicsDatasetA collection of related data, such as a table of sales or a set of survey results, used for analysis.
- Data engineering and ITDate tableA table with one row per date, used so that time calculations work.
- Data engineering and ITDAXShort for data analysis expressions.
- Business, finance and operationsDays inventory outstanding (DIO)The average number of days stock is held before it is sold.
- Business, finance and operationsDays sales outstanding (DSO)The average number of days a business takes to collect payment after making a credit sale.
- Data engineering and ITdbtShort for data build tool.
- Business, finance and operationsDeal thesisThe core argument for why a deal, such as an acquisition, makes sense and is expected to create value.
- Marketing, sales and customersDealsSales opportunities that reach a final outcome.
- Business, finance and operationsDebriefA structured discussion held after an event, project, or deal to capture what happened and what can be learned from it.
- Business, finance and operationsDebtMoney a business has borrowed and must repay, usually with interest.
- Business, finance and operationsDebt-to-equity ratioHow much a business relies on borrowing compared with money from its owners.
- Business, finance and operationsDebtor daysHow long customers take to pay, on average.
- Business, finance and operationsDecision logA record of significant decisions, including what was decided, why, and by whom, kept so the reasoning can be revisited later.
- Marketing, sales and customersDecision makerThe person within a prospective customer's organisation who has the authority to approve or sign off a purchase.
- Ethics and judgementDecision makingThe process of choosing between options, ideally informed by evidence, clear criteria, and an understanding of the trade-offs involved.
- Evidence and reasoningDecision qualityHow sound a decision was based on the information and reasoning available at the time, judged separately from whether the outcome turned out well.
- Reading charts and reportsDecomposition treeAn interactive visual that breaks a total down step by step into the factors that make it up.
- Data quality and governanceDeduplicationFinding records that describe the same real thing more than once and keeping only one, using rules about which fields must match.
- AI and machine learningDeep learningMachine learning using neural networks with many layers, which powers most modern AI.
- Business, finance and operationsDefault riskThe risk that a borrower or customer will fail to make a payment they're obligated to make.
- Business, finance and operationsDefect rateThe percentage of products or services that fail to meet quality standards.
- Business, finance and operationsDefinition of doneA shared checklist a piece of work must meet before a team calls it finished.
- Data protection and securityDeletionPermanently removing data from a system, usually because it's no longer needed or a retention period has expired.
- Marketing, sales and customersDeliverabilityThe likelihood that an email actually reaches the recipient's inbox rather than being blocked or filtered as spam.
- Marketing, sales and customersDemand curveA representation of how the quantity demanded for something changes as its price changes.
- Time and trendsDemand forecastingEstimating how much of a product or service customers will want in future periods, using past demand, known events and judgement.
- Business, finance and operationsDemand planningForecasting what customers will buy so stock, staffing and capacity can be planned.
- Data engineering and ITDenormalisationDeliberately duplicating data across tables to make queries simpler or faster, at the cost of some redundancy.
- Reading charts and reportsDensity plotA smooth curve showing where values are most concentrated.
- Business, finance and operationsDependencyA task, system or team that something else relies on before it can go ahead.
- Data engineering and ITDeploymentThe process of putting new software or changes into the live production environment.
- Data engineering and ITDeprecationMarking a piece of data, a field, or a system as no longer supported and due to be retired, usually with a transition period before it's removed.
- Business, finance and operationsDepreciationSpreading the cost of a physical asset, such as a machine or vehicle, across the years it is used.
- Evidence and reasoningDescriptive analyticsAnalysis that explains what has already happened.
- Evidence and reasoningDiagnostic analyticsAnalysis that explains why something happened.
- Business, finance and operationsDigital transformationUsing digital technology and data to change how an organisation works and serves customers.
- Data layoutDimensionA field used to group or filter data, such as date, region or product.
- Data layoutDimension tableA table in a star schema that describes the things involved in events, such as customers, products or dates, and is used to filter and group the facts.
- Marketing, sales and customersDiminishing returnsThe point at which putting more resource into an activity, such as ad spend, starts producing smaller and smaller additional benefit.
- People and HRDirect reportsThe people who report straight to a particular manager.
- Data engineering and ITDirectQueryA Power BI connection mode that reads data straight from the source each time a report is used, instead of importing a copy.
- Data protection and securityDisaster recoveryThe plans and tools for restoring IT systems and data after a major failure or attack.
- Marketing, sales and customersDiscountA reduction from the standard price, offered to encourage a sale or reward a customer.
- Business, finance and operationsDiscount rateThe rate used to convert future money into today’s value, reflecting risk and the cost of waiting.
- Business, finance and operationsDiscoveryThe early stage of a project spent understanding the problem and the user's needs, before committing to build a specific solution.
- Marketing, sales and customersDisplacementWhen a new sale substitutes for one that would have happened anyway, rather than adding genuinely new revenue.
- Business, finance and operationsDisputeA disagreement between a business and a customer or supplier over an invoice or payment, which puts it on hold until resolved.
- Data basicsDistinct countCounting each unique value only once, such as counting customers rather than orders.
- Numbers and measuresDistributionThe pattern of how values are spread out, showing which values are common and which are rare.
- Reading charts and reportsDiverging bar chartBars that extend left or right from a centre line to show positive and negative values or opposing opinions.
- People and HRDiversity ratioThe share of a group, such as leadership, made up of people from a particular background.
- People and HRDiversity reportingMeasuring and reporting on the representation of different groups within an organisation's workforce.
- Data quality and governanceDocumentationWritten records that explain how something works, why it was built that way, and how to use or maintain it.
- Reading charts and reportsDonut chartA pie chart with a hole in the middle, often used to show a total.
- Risk and complianceDORAShort for digital operational resilience act.
- Reading charts and reportsDot plotValues shown as dots along a shared scale.
- Business, finance and operationsDouble materialityLooking at sustainability from two directions: how issues affect the business financially, and how the business affects people and the planet.
- Data engineering and ITDowntimeThe time a system or service is unavailable, whether planned for maintenance or caused by a fault.
- Reading charts and reportsDrill downMoving from a summary to more detailed data within a report.
- Reading charts and reportsDrill-throughClicking a figure to open a page showing the detail behind it.
- Business, finance and operationsDriverA factor, such as headcount or price, that a forecast or model is built up from, and that changes the final result when it changes.
- Evidence and reasoningDriver analysisA method for working out which factors have the biggest statistical influence on an outcome, such as satisfaction or sales.
- Risk and complianceDue diligenceA thorough investigation carried out before a major decision, such as an acquisition, to verify facts and uncover risks.
- Business, finance and operationsDuplicate paymentA payment for the same invoice or transaction made more than once by mistake.
- Business, finance and operationsEarly settlement discountA reduced price offered to a customer in exchange for paying an invoice earlier than its normal due date.
- Risk and complianceEarly warningA signal or indicator that flags a growing risk or problem before it becomes serious enough to cause real damage.
- Business, finance and operationsEBITShort for earnings before interest and taxes.
- Business, finance and operationsEBITDAEarnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation.
- Business, finance and operationsEBITDA marginEBITDA shown as a percentage of revenue, used to compare operating profitability.
- Data layoutEdge listA table of the connections in a network, with one row per link: where it starts, where it ends and often a value, such as the number of trips.
- Data engineering and ITELTShort for extract, load, transform.
- Marketing, sales and customersEmail open rateThe share of delivered emails that were opened.
- AI and machine learningEmbeddingA list of numbers that represents the meaning of a piece of text, image or other content, so similar items sit close together.
- Business, finance and operationsEmission factorA number that converts an activity, such as litres of fuel or kilowatt-hours, into greenhouse gas emissions.
- People and HREmployee engagementHow committed and motivated employees feel about their work and organisation.
- People and HREmployee engagement scoreA survey-based measure of how committed and motivated people feel.
- People and HREmployee net promoter score (eNPS)A score from -100 to 100 based on how likely employees are to recommend their organisation as a place to work, worked out the same way as a net promoter score.
- People and HREmployee retention rateThe percentage of employees who stay with an organisation over a period.
- People and HREmployeesPeople employed by an organisation.
- Data protection and securityEncryptionScrambling data so only people or systems with the right key can read it.
- Business, finance and operationsEnergy consumptionThe total amount of energy used, such as electricity, gas and fuel, usually measured in kilowatt-hours.
- Marketing, sales and customersEngagementA measure of how actively people interact with content, such as through likes, comments, or shares, rather than just viewing it.
- People and HREngagement surveyA regular survey that measures how motivated, satisfied, and committed employees feel.
- AI and machine learningEnsemble modelCombining several models so their predictions together are more reliable than any one alone.
- Data basicsEntityA distinct thing a business stores data about, such as a customer, product, supplier or employee.
- Data engineering and ITEnvironment (dev, test, production)Separate copies of a system for building, testing and live use.
- People and HREqual payThe principle, and often legal requirement, that people doing the same or equivalent work should be paid the same regardless of characteristics like gender.
- Business, finance and operationsERPShort for enterprise resource planning.
- Data engineering and ITError budgetThe amount of unreliability, such as downtime, a system is allowed before it breaches its reliability target.
- Data engineering and ITEscalationPassing an issue up to someone with more authority or expertise, usually because it can't be resolved at the current level or needs a faster response.
- Ethics and judgementEscalation of commitmentContinuing to invest in a decision because of what's already been spent on it, rather than because it's still the best use of resources.
- Business, finance and operationsESGShort for environmental, social and governance.
- Business, finance and operationsESG reportingPublishing information about an organisation’s environmental, social and governance performance, often in line with a reporting standard.
- Evidence and reasoningEstimationArriving at an approximate figure using the best available data and reasoning, when an exact number isn't known or measurable.
- Data engineering and ITETLShort for extract, transform, load: taking data from source systems, cleaning and reshaping it, and loading it into a destination such as a data warehouse.
- Risk and complianceEU AI actThe European Union law that regulates artificial intelligence based on its level of risk, with stricter rules for high-risk uses such as recruitment or credit scoring.
- AI and machine learningEvaluationThe process of testing how well a model performs against a defined set of criteria or examples.
- Business, finance and operationsEvaluation criteriaThe specific, agreed factors used to judge and compare options before a decision is made.
- Data basicsEvent dataRecords of individual things that happened, such as a click, a payment or a login, each with a timestamp.
- Business, finance and operationsEvent trackingRecording specific user actions, such as a click or a sign-up, as discrete, timestamped events for later analysis.
- Evidence and reasoningEvidenceData or facts that support or undermine a claim, as opposed to opinion or assumption.
- Data basicsExcelMicrosoft's spreadsheet software, widely used to store, calculate and chart data.
- Reading charts and reportsExceptionA result that falls outside the normal or expected range, and so is flagged for closer attention.
- Reading charts and reportsException reportA report that only shows items falling outside expected thresholds, so attention goes straight to what needs it rather than everything normal.
- Business, finance and operationsExecutionActually carrying out a plan or strategy, as distinct from designing it.
- Reading charts and reportsExecutive summaryA short section at the top of a report that gives the headline finding and recommendation, for readers who won't read the whole thing.
- People and HRExit interviewA conversation held with an employee as they leave, used to understand their reasons for going.
- Numbers and measuresExpected valueThe average outcome you'd expect if a decision with uncertain results were repeated many times, weighting each possible outcome by its probability.
- Evidence and reasoningExperimentA structured test designed to measure the effect of a specific change, usually by comparing it against a control.
- AI and machine learningExperiment trackingRecording the settings, data, and results of each attempt at training a model, so different attempts can be compared.
- AI and machine learningExplainabilityHow easily a person can understand why a model made a particular decision.
- Risk and complianceExposureThe total amount an organisation stands to lose if a particular risk materialises.
- Time and trendsExtrapolationEstimating values outside the range of the data you actually have, based on the pattern within it.
- Data engineering and ITFabricMicrosoft Fabric.
- Data engineering and ITFaceted searchA search interface that lets people narrow results using multiple filters, such as category and date, at the same time.
- Data layoutFact tableThe central table in a star schema that records events or measurements, such as sales or orders, with numbers to add up and keys that link to dimension tables.
- Data engineering and ITFailoverSwitching automatically to a backup system when the main one fails.
- AI and machine learningFailure modeA specific way a system or model can go wrong, identified in advance so it can be watched for or guarded against.
- Data engineering and ITFailuresTimes when a system or piece of equipment stops working as expected.
- AI and machine learningFalse negativeA case the model missed, predicting negative when the real answer was positive.
- AI and machine learningFalse positiveA case the model wrongly predicted as positive, such as a genuine payment flagged as fraud.
- Data engineering and ITFan trapWhen joining to a table with more rows per key multiplies your results, so totals are counted several times.
- Data engineering and ITFan-outWhen a single record or event unintentionally multiplies into many rows during a join or query, usually distorting totals.
- AI and machine learningFeatureAn input variable a machine learning model uses to make predictions.
- Business, finance and operationsFeature adoptionThe share of users who start using a feature after it's released.
- Business, finance and operationsFeature adoption rateThe percentage of users who use a specific feature.
- AI and machine learningFeature engineeringCreating the inputs a model learns from, such as turning dates into ‘days since last order’.
- Business, finance and operationsFeature flagA switch that turns a product feature on or off for some or all users without releasing new code.
- AI and machine learningFeature importanceA measure of how much each input contributes to a model’s predictions.
- AI and machine learningFeature storeA central place to store, share and reuse the features that machine learning models use.
- Data engineering and ITFederationAn approach where data stays in its original systems but can be queried together as if it were in one place.
- People and HRFeedbackInformation given to someone about their performance or work, intended to help them improve or continue doing well.
- Business, finance and operationsFill rateThe percentage of ordered units that are shipped from available stock.
- Reading charts and reportsFilled mapA map where regions are shaded by value.
- Reading charts and reportsFilterA rule that limits which data a report or chart shows.
- Data engineering and ITFilter contextThe set of filters applying to a calculation at the moment it runs.
- Business, finance and operationsFinancial modelA structured spreadsheet or tool that calculates financial outcomes based on a set of assumptions and drivers.
- Data quality and governanceFindabilityHow easily people can locate the data, document, or information they need.
- AI and machine learningFine-tuningFurther training an existing AI model on specific data so it performs better on a particular task.
- Marketing, sales and customersFirst contact resolution (FCR)The percentage of customer issues solved in the first interaction, without follow-up.
- Business, finance and operationsFirst pass yieldThe percentage of units made correctly the first time, without rework.
- Evidence and reasoningFive whysA simple root-cause technique of repeatedly asking "why" to a problem until the underlying cause, rather than a surface symptom, is reached.
- Business, finance and operationsFixed costA cost that stays the same regardless of how much is produced or sold, such as rent or insurance.
- Time and trendsForecastA prediction of future values based on past data and trends.
- Time and trendsForecast accuracyHow closely forecasts matched actual outcomes over a defined period. Different accuracy measures have different limits.
- Data engineering and ITForeign keyA column in one table whose values must match the primary key of another table, so the two tables stay correctly linked.
- Data basicsFormulaA calculation, typically in a spreadsheet or BI tool, that derives a value from other data.
- Risk and complianceFraud rateThe share of transactions identified as fraudulent.
- Risk and complianceFraud riskThe risk that someone deliberately manipulates records or processes for personal gain.
- Business, finance and operationsFree cash flowThe cash left from normal operations after paying for long-term investments.
- Data quality and governanceFreshnessHow recently the data was updated.
- People and HRFull-time equivalent (FTE)A way of expressing part-time and full-time headcount on a common scale, where one FTE equals one person working full-time hours.
- Marketing, sales and customersFunnelThe stages people move through towards a goal, with fewer people at each step.
- Reading charts and reportsFunnel chartA chart that shows how many items remain at each stage of a sequential process, with stages stacked from first to last, so drop-off between stages is visible.
- Marketing, sales and customersFunnel stageOne step in a funnel, such as visiting, signing up or buying.
- Business, finance and operationsGain from investmentThe total money an investment brings in or saves, before subtracting its cost.
- Reading charts and reportsGantt chartA chart that shows the tasks of a project as horizontal bars along a timeline, with each bar's position and length showing when the task starts and ends.
- Evidence and reasoningGap analysisA comparison of how things work today with how they should work, and what is missing in between.
- Reading charts and reportsGaugeA dial showing progress towards a target.
- Data protection and securityGDPRShort for general data protection regulation.
- Business, finance and operationsGender pay gapThe difference between the average earnings of men and women across an organisation.
- Business, finance and operationsGeneral ledgerThe complete record of all of an organisation's financial transactions, organised by account.
- AI and machine learningGeneralisationHow well a model performs on new, unseen data, rather than just the data it was trained or tested on.
- AI and machine learningGenerative AIAI that creates new content, such as text, images or code, based on patterns learned from existing data.
- Evidence and reasoningGeo testAn experiment that runs a marketing change in some geographic regions but not others, so its effect can be measured by comparing the two.
- Data layoutGeographic join keyA column, such as a country code, region code or postcode, that links the rows of a data table to the shapes on a map.
- Data quality and governanceGolden recordThe single agreed version of a record, built from the best information across systems.
- Evidence and reasoningGoodhart's lawThe idea that once a measure becomes a target, people optimise for the measure itself rather than what it was meant to represent.
- Marketing, sales and customersGoogle analyticsA tool for measuring what people do on a website or app.
- Data basicsGoogle sheetsA spreadsheet that runs in the browser, with live collaboration and its own formula language.
- Business, finance and operationsGovernanceThe structures, roles, and rules that decide who can make which decisions, and how those decisions are checked and held accountable.
- Data basicsGrainWhat one row of a table represents.
- Business, finance and operationsGreenhouse gas protocolThe most widely used global standard for measuring and reporting greenhouse gas emissions.
- Business, finance and operationsGRNI (goods received, not invoiced)Goods that have been received from a supplier but for which no invoice has been received or recorded yet.
- Business, finance and operationsGross marginGross profit as a percentage of revenue.
- Business, finance and operationsGross profitThe profit left after taking the direct costs of producing goods away from revenue.
- Data engineering and ITGroup byA SQL instruction that combines rows sharing the same value so you can summarise them.
- Reading charts and reportsGrouped bar chartTwo or more sets of bars shown side by side for each category.
- AI and machine learningGuardrailsRules and checks that limit what an AI system is allowed to do or say, keeping its outputs safe, accurate and within agreed limits.
- AI and machine learningHallucinationWhen an AI model produces information that sounds confident but is incorrect or made up.
- Marketing, sales and customersHandle timeThe time spent dealing with a customer contact: talk time, hold time and follow-up time afterwards.
- Business, finance and operationsHandoverThe formal transfer of responsibility, information, or a task from one person or team to another.
- Data engineering and ITHard-codingTyping a fixed number directly into a formula or system instead of linking it to its source, which makes it easy to miss when that number changes.
- People and HRHeadcountThe total number of people employed by an organisation at a point in time.
- Reading charts and reportsHeatmapA grid where colour shows the size of each value.
- Evidence and reasoningHeuristicA simple, practical rule of thumb used to make a decision quickly, without guaranteeing the best possible answer.
- Data layoutHierarchyA structure that groups data into levels, such as country, region and city, or department and team.
- Data layoutHierarchy tableA table that records how items sit inside each other, usually with one row per item and a column naming its parent, such as team, department and division.
- Ethics and judgementHindsight biasThe tendency to see past events as more predictable than they actually were before they happened.
- People and HRHiresPeople who have accepted a job offer and joined, or are due to join, an organisation.
- People and HRHiring stagesThe steps a candidate goes through, from applying to accepting an offer.
- Reading charts and reportsHistogramBars showing how many values fall into each range.
- Evidence and reasoningHoldoutA group deliberately excluded from a campaign or model, kept back to measure the real effect.
- Evidence and reasoningHoldout testAn experiment where one group is deliberately left out of a change, so its results can be compared against the group that received it.
- Insyt termsHubYour home page in the Insyt app.
- AI and machine learningHuman in the loopA design where a person reviews or approves what an AI system produces before it is acted on.
- AI and machine learningHyperparameterA setting chosen before training that controls how a model learns, such as how complex it may become.
- Evidence and reasoningHypothesisA clear, testable statement about what you expect to happen.
- Marketing, sales and customersIdeal customer profileA description of the type of company or customer most likely to buy, succeed with, and stay loyal to a product.
- AI and machine learningImbalanced dataData where one outcome is far rarer than the other, such as fraud among normal transactions.
- Marketing, sales and customersImpressionsThe number of times an ad or piece of content is shown, whether or not anyone clicks.
- People and HRIncentiveA reward, financial or otherwise, designed to encourage a particular behaviour or outcome.
- Data engineering and ITIncidentAn unplanned event that disrupts or reduces the quality of an IT service.
- Data engineering and ITIncident responseThe process an organisation follows to detect, manage, and resolve a disruptive event, such as a system outage.
- Data engineering and ITIncremental loadUpdating a dataset by adding only the new or changed records since the last run, rather than reloading everything from scratch.
- Evidence and reasoningIncrementalityThe extra result caused by an action, over what would have happened anyway.
- Numbers and measuresIndexA structure that helps a database find rows quickly, like the index at the back of a book.
- Numbers and measuresIndex (statistics)Converting values so a starting point equals 100, making changes over time easy to compare.
- AI and machine learningInferenceUsing a trained model to produce an answer or prediction from new input.
- AI and machine learningInference costThe ongoing cost of actually running a trained model to produce predictions, as opposed to the cost of training it.
- Data engineering and ITInformation architectureThe way content and data are structured, labelled, and organised so people can find and understand them.
- Data engineering and ITInfrastructure as codeDefining servers, databases and cloud services in code, so environments can be rebuilt exactly and reviewed like any other change.
- Data engineering and ITInner joinA join that returns only the rows that have a match in both tables.
- Evidence and reasoningInsightA useful understanding drawn from data that helps someone make a better decision.
- Data engineering and ITInstrumentationThe code and configuration added to a product or system so its activity and performance can be measured and tracked.
- Data engineering and ITIntegrationConnecting different systems so data can flow between them.
- Business, finance and operationsInterestThe cost of borrowing money, or the return earned on money saved or lent, usually shown as a percentage.
- Business, finance and operationsInternal communicationsThe planned messages and channels an organisation uses to keep its own employees informed.
- Risk and complianceInternal controlsProcesses that protect an organisation from errors, fraud and losses, such as approvals and checks built into how it operates.
- People and HRInternal fill rateThe proportion of open roles filled by existing employees moving internally, rather than by external hires.
- Business, finance and operationsInternal rate of return (IRR)The annual return rate at which an investment’s net present value equals zero.
- Data engineering and ITInternet of things (IoT)Everyday physical devices, such as sensors, meters and trackers, connected to the internet so they can send data.
- Numbers and measuresInterquartile range (IQR)The spread of the middle half of values, from the 25th percentile to the 75th percentile.
- Business, finance and operationsInventoryThe stock a business holds, such as raw materials, work in progress and finished goods.
- Business, finance and operationsInventory turnoverHow many times a business sells and replaces its stock in a period, found by dividing the cost of goods sold by the average value of stock held.
- Business, finance and operationsInvestment appraisalAssessing whether an investment is worthwhile by comparing its costs, benefits, risks and timing.
- Business, finance and operationsInvestment costThe total amount spent on an investment or project before it starts returning value.
- Business, finance and operationsInvoiceA document requesting payment for goods or services, showing what was provided, the amount and when it is due.
- Risk and complianceISO certificationIndependent confirmation that an organisation meets an international standard, such as ISO 27001 for information security.
- Business, finance and operationsISSB standardsGlobal sustainability disclosure standards from the International Sustainability Standards Board, focused on information investors need.
- People and HRJob advertThe posted description of an open role used to attract applicants.
- Business, finance and operationsJobs to be doneA way of understanding customer needs by focusing on the underlying task they're trying to get done, rather than the product features they ask for.
- Data engineering and ITJoinCombining rows from two tables into one result by matching values in a related column, such as a customer ID.
- Business, finance and operationsJournal entryA single record in the accounting system that logs a financial transaction, showing which accounts it affects and by how much.
- Data basicsJSONShort for JavaScript object notation.
- Data engineering and ITJupyter notebookA document that mixes code, results and notes, used for analysis you want to show your working for.
- Business, finance and operationsKanbanA way of managing work on a visual board, limiting how much is in progress at once.
- Risk and complianceKey person riskThe risk to an organisation if a single individual holding critical knowledge or relationships were to leave or become unavailable.
- Risk and complianceKey risk indicator (KRI)A measure that gives early warning that a risk is increasing.
- AI and machine learningKill switchA mechanism that allows a system or automated process to be stopped immediately if it starts behaving unexpectedly.
- Risk and complianceKnow your customer (KYC)Checks that confirm a customer’s identity and assess their risk before and during a business relationship.
- Numbers and measuresKPIA measure that shows progress towards a goal.
- Reading charts and reportsKPI cardA single headline number shown with a label and often a comparison.
- Numbers and measuresKPI treeA diagram that breaks a top-level goal into the smaller measures that drive it.
- Data engineering and ITKubernetesA system for running and scaling containerised applications automatically across many machines.
- Numbers and measuresLagging indicatorA measure that shows results after they have happened, such as last quarter’s revenue.
- Data engineering and ITLakehouseA data platform that combines the flexible storage of a data lake with the structure and performance of a data warehouse.
- Marketing, sales and customersLanding pageA page designed for one purpose, usually where a campaign sends people.
- AI and machine learningLarge language model (LLM)An AI model trained on large amounts of text so it can understand and generate human language, such as answering questions or summarising documents.
- Data engineering and ITLatencyThe delay between a request and a response, such as how long a page or report takes to start loading.
- Data protection and securityLawful basisThe legal reason an organisation is allowed to use someone’s personal data, such as consent, a contract or legitimate interests.
- Marketing, sales and customersLeadA person or organisation that has shown interest and could become a customer.
- Marketing, sales and customersLead qualityHow likely a lead is to actually convert into a paying customer, as opposed to simply how many leads were generated.
- Marketing, sales and customersLead scoringRanking potential customers by how likely they are to buy, using their behaviour and profile.
- Business, finance and operationsLead timeThe total time between an order being placed and it being received.
- Business, finance and operationsLead time for changesThe time from a change being agreed or committed to it being live for users.
- Numbers and measuresLeading indicatorA measure that signals future results, helping teams act early.
- Business, finance and operationsLeanAn approach to improving work by removing anything that does not add value for the customer.
- Marketing, sales and customersLearning phaseAn early period after launching a campaign or model during which performance data is still settling and shouldn't be over-interpreted.
- People and HRLearning transferThe extent to which what someone learns in training actually gets applied back in their day-to-day work.
- Data protection and securityLeast privilegeThe rule that each person or system gets only the access it needs to do its job.
- People and HRLeaversEmployees who leave an organisation during a period, whether they resign, retire or are dismissed.
- Data engineering and ITLeft joinA join that keeps every row from the first (left) table and adds matching data from the second table, leaving the second table's columns empty (null) where there is no match.
- Data protection and securityLegitimate interestsOne of the legal grounds under data protection law that allows an organisation to process personal data, provided it's balanced against the individual's rights.
- Business, finance and operationsLiabilitiesEverything a business owes, such as loans, supplier bills and taxes due.
- Risk and complianceLikelihood and impactThe two scores used to rate a risk: how likely it is to happen and how serious the effect would be.
- Reading charts and reportsLine chartA chart that connects data points with a line to show change over time.
- People and HRLine managerThe person an employee reports to directly, who sets their work, supports them and reviews their performance.
- Business, finance and operationsLiquidityHow easily a business can meet short-term payments using cash or assets that can quickly become cash.
- Marketing, sales and customersList healthHow up to date, engaged, and accurate an email or contact list is, which affects deliverability and campaign performance.
- Data engineering and ITLoad balancerA system that spreads incoming traffic across several servers so no single one is overwhelmed.
- Business, finance and operationsLoad factorHow full a vehicle, vessel or flight is compared with its total capacity.
- Reading charts and reportsLogarithmic scaleAn axis where each equal step multiplies the value, for example by 10 each time.
- Reading charts and reportsLollipop chartValues shown as a thin line ending in a dot.
- Data layoutLong tableA table layout where each row holds one value for one combination of identifiers, such as one row per product per month.
- Reading charts and reportsLookerA business intelligence tool where measures are defined once in code and reused everywhere.
- Data basicsLookupA function or query that finds and returns a matching value from another table or list based on a shared key.
- Data engineering and ITLoose couplingDesigning systems so they depend on each other as little as possible, meaning a change to one is less likely to break another.
- Marketing, sales and customersLTV:CAC ratioCompares the value of a customer with the cost of acquiring them.
- Data engineering and ITM codeThe language behind Power Query.
- AI and machine learningMachine learningA type of AI where systems learn patterns from data to make predictions or decisions without being given step-by-step instructions.
- Business, finance and operationsManagement accountsInternal financial reports produced regularly, such as monthly, for a company's own managers rather than external reporting.
- Business, finance and operationsMarginThe difference between revenue and cost, usually expressed as a percentage of revenue.
- Business, finance and operationsMargin floorThe lowest margin a business will accept on a sale before it requires special approval.
- Business, finance and operationsMarginal costThe extra cost of producing one more unit of something.
- Business, finance and operationsMarket entryThe strategy and decisions involved in a business starting to operate in a new market.
- Business, finance and operationsMarket segmentationDividing a market into groups of customers with similar needs or characteristics.
- Marketing, sales and customersMarket shareThe percentage of total sales in a market that belongs to one company.
- Business, finance and operationsMarket sizingEstimating how big a market is, usually by combining known data points with reasonable assumptions.
- Marketing, sales and customersMarketing qualified lead (MQL)A lead that marketing judges ready for a sales conversation, based on their interest and fit.
- Data basicsMaster dataThe core, shared data about key business entities, such as customers, products and suppliers.
- Data engineering and ITMaterialised viewA view whose results are stored rather than recalculated each time.
- Business, finance and operationsMaterialityWhether an error, omission, or issue is significant enough to actually change a decision or a reported figure; small enough issues are immaterial.
- Business, finance and operationsMateriality assessmentA process for deciding which sustainability topics matter most to a business and its stakeholders.
- Data layoutMatrixA grid of values where both the rows and the columns are categories, such as sales by region and month, or the number of journeys between every pair of stations.
- Reading charts and reportsMatrix visualA table that groups data by rows and columns, with subtotals, similar to a pivot table in a dashboard.
- Business, finance and operationsMaverick spendBuying outside agreed contracts and suppliers, usually at worse prices.
- Numbers and measuresMeanThe sum of the values divided by how many values there are.
- Data engineering and ITMean time between failures (MTBF)The average time a system runs before it fails.
- Data engineering and ITMean time to recovery (MTTR)The average time it takes to restore a service after a failure.
- Data layoutMeasureA calculated value in a report, such as total sales or average order value, that changes as you filter the data.
- Business, finance and operationsMedia coverageThe amount and nature of attention an organisation receives from news and other media outlets.
- Business, finance and operationsMedia monitoringTracking what's being said about an organisation across news outlets and social media.
- Numbers and measuresMedianThe middle value once the values are sorted.
- Data basicsMetadataData that describes other data.
- Numbers and measuresMetricAny number used to measure something.
- Data quality and governanceMetric storeA single place where measure definitions live, so every tool calculates revenue the same way.
- Data engineering and ITMicro-partitionThe small blocks a cloud warehouse stores data in.
- Data engineering and ITMicroservicesBuilding an application as a set of small, independent services that talk to each other.
- Business, finance and operationsMinimum viable product (MVP)The simplest version of a product that can be released to learn whether it solves a real need.
- AI and machine learningMLOpsThe practices and tools for deploying, monitoring and maintaining machine learning models reliably in production.
- Numbers and measuresModeThe value that appears most often in a set of data.
- AI and machine learningModelA mathematical representation that learns from data to make predictions or decisions.
- AI and machine learningModel cardA short document describing what a model does, how it was built and tested, and its limits.
- AI and machine learningModel complexityHow detailed a model is, such as how many inputs, rules or layers it uses.
- AI and machine learningModel driftWhen a model gets worse over time because the world it was trained on has changed.
- AI and machine learningModel evaluationTesting how well a model performs using data it has not seen before.
- AI and machine learningModel registryA central system for tracking which versions of a machine learning model exist, and which one is currently live.
- Data engineering and ITMonitoringContinuously checking a system, process, or metric to catch problems or changes as soon as they happen.
- Data engineering and ITMonitoring and alertingWatching systems continuously and raising an alert when something looks wrong.
- Business, finance and operationsMonth-end closeThe process finance teams follow at the end of each month to check, adjust and finalise the accounts.
- Time and trendsMonth-over-month growth (MoM)The percentage change in a figure compared with the previous month.
- Marketing, sales and customersMonthly recurring revenue (MRR)The predictable revenue a subscription business earns each month.
- Business, finance and operationsMoSCoW prioritisationThe extent to which people actually start and keep using something new, such as a tool, feature or process.
- Time and trendsMoving averageThe average of the last few values in a time series, recalculated as each new value arrives.
- Data protection and securityMulti-factor authentication (MFA)A login method that needs two or more proofs of identity, such as a password and a code on your phone.
- Reading charts and reportsMulti-row cardSeveral key figures stacked in one block, each with its own label.
- Data quality and governanceNaming conventionAn agreed, consistent set of rules for naming things, such as tables or files, so they're predictable and easy to find.
- Business, finance and operationsNavigationThe structure and menus that let someone move around a website, app, or system to find what they need.
- Data protection and securityNecessityThe principle, common in data protection law, that data should only be collected or used when it's genuinely needed for a specific purpose.
- Business, finance and operationsNet book valueWhat an asset is worth in the accounts: its original cost minus depreciation or amortisation so far.
- Business, finance and operationsNet present value (NPV)The value today of future cash flows from an investment, minus its cost, after accounting for the fact that money received later is worth less than money received now.
- Business, finance and operationsNet profitThe profit left after every cost has been deducted, including interest and tax.
- Business, finance and operationsNet profit marginNet profit shown as a percentage of revenue.
- Marketing, sales and customersNet promoter score (NPS)A score from -100 to 100 based on how likely customers say they are to recommend a business: the percentage of promoters minus the percentage of detractors.
- Marketing, sales and customersNet revenue retentionRevenue kept from existing customers over a period, including upgrades, downgrades and churn.
- Business, finance and operationsNet zeroBalancing the greenhouse gases an organisation emits with the amount it removes, so the overall total is zero.
- AI and machine learningNeural networkA model loosely inspired by the brain, made of layers that learn patterns from data.
- Marketing, sales and customersNext stepThe specific, agreed action that will move a deal or project forward, ideally with an owner and a date attached.
- Risk and complianceNIS2The EU directive that sets cybersecurity and incident reporting requirements for organisations in essential sectors such as energy, transport and health.
- Business, finance and operationsNo-showA booking or appointment where the customer doesn't arrive and hasn't cancelled in advance.
- Data layoutNode listA table of the items in a network, with one row per item and its details, such as each station's name and type.
- Data engineering and ITNormalisationOrganising a database to reduce repeated data by splitting it into related tables.
- Numbers and measuresNorth star metricThe single measure that best captures the core value a product delivers to its customers.
- Data basicsNullA marker for a value that is missing or unknown.
- Data layoutNumerator and denominatorIn a fraction or rate, the numerator is the number on top and the denominator is the number it is divided by.
- Data basicsNumerical dataData made up of numbers you can measure and calculate with.
- Marketing, sales and customersObjectionA concern or reason for hesitation a prospect raises during a sales conversation.
- Marketing, sales and customersObjection handlingThe way a salesperson responds to a prospect's concerns or hesitations during a sales conversation.
- Business, finance and operationsObjectiveA specific, intended outcome that a piece of work or a strategy is aimed at achieving.
- Business, finance and operationsOccupancy rateHow much of a space is being used, as a share of what is available.
- People and HROffer acceptanceThe proportion of job offers made that candidates actually accept.
- Business, finance and operationsOKRShort for objectives and key results.
- Business, finance and operationsOn time in full (OTIF)The percentage of orders delivered on the agreed date with the full quantity requested.
- People and HROn-costsThe additional costs of employing someone on top of their base salary, such as employer taxes, pension contributions, and benefits.
- People and HROnboardingThe process of welcoming and preparing new employees so they can contribute quickly.
- People and HROne-to-oneA regular private meeting between a manager and one member of their team to discuss work, wellbeing and development.
- Marketing, sales and customersOpen rateThe share of sent emails that were opened by the recipient.
- Data engineering and ITOpen sourceSoftware whose code is freely available for anyone to use, change and share.
- Business, finance and operationsOpening and closing balanceThe amount at the start (opening) and end (closing) of a period, such as cash in the bank or stock in a warehouse.
- Business, finance and operationsOperating cash flowThe cash generated by a business’s normal day-to-day activities.
- Business, finance and operationsOperating expenses (OPEX)The everyday costs of running a business that are not directly tied to making products, such as rent, salaries and marketing.
- Business, finance and operationsOperating modelMoney owed to a business that is judged unlikely ever to be paid, and so is written off.
- Business, finance and operationsOperating profitThe profit a business makes from its normal activities, after direct costs and operating expenses.
- Risk and complianceOperational riskThe risk of loss from failed processes, people, systems or external events.
- Marketing, sales and customersOpportunityA prospective deal that has progressed beyond an initial enquiry and is being actively worked by a salesperson.
- Business, finance and operationsOpportunity costThe value of the next-best option you give up by choosing one course of action over another.
- Business, finance and operationsOpportunity solution treeA visual way of mapping a desired outcome to the customer opportunities that could drive it, and the solutions worth testing for each.
- Reading charts and reportsOptimisationFinding the best possible solution within a set of limits.
- Evidence and reasoningOptions analysisComparing two or more realistic courses of action against the same criteria before choosing one.
- Data engineering and ITOrchestrationCoordinating and scheduling the tasks in a data pipeline so they run in the right order.
- Marketing, sales and customersOrdersRequests from customers to buy products or services.
- Business, finance and operationsOrganisation designDeciding how teams, roles and reporting lines are structured to meet an organisation’s goals.
- Business, finance and operationsOutcomeThe actual result or effect of an action, as distinct from the output produced or the activity carried out.
- Evidence and reasoningOutlierA value that sits unusually far from the rest of the data.
- Business, finance and operationsOutputThe direct thing produced by an activity, such as a report or a feature shipped, as distinct from the outcome it leads to.
- Business, finance and operationsOverall equipment effectiveness (OEE)A measure of how productive equipment is, combining how often it runs, how fast it runs and the quality of what it makes.
- Business, finance and operationsOverbookingDeliberately selling more capacity, such as seats or rooms, than actually exists, based on the expectation that some bookings will cancel.
- AI and machine learningOverfittingWhen a model learns its training data too closely, including noise, and performs poorly on new data.
- Business, finance and operationsOverheadsOngoing business costs that are not linked to a specific product, such as office rent, utilities and administration.
- Numbers and measuresP-valueThe probability of seeing a result at least as extreme as the one observed if there were no real effect.
- Reading charts and reportsPaginated reportA fixed-layout report designed to print or export cleanly, often many pages long.
- Data engineering and ITPandasA Python library for working with tables of data, similar to a spreadsheet in code.
- Data engineering and ITParameterA value users or developers can change to adjust a calculation or query, such as a growth rate or date range.
- Reading charts and reportsPareto chartA bar chart with categories sorted from largest to smallest, plus a line showing the cumulative percentage, so the few biggest contributors stand out.
- Data engineering and ITPartitioningSplitting a large table into smaller pieces, often by date or category, so queries only need to scan the relevant part.
- Insyt termsPathA structured route of learning, shown as a roadmap of Units.
- People and HRPay equityWhether people doing similar work are paid similarly, once role, level and experience are accounted for.
- People and HRPay gapThe difference in average pay between two groups, such as men and women, across an organisation.
- People and HRPay transparencyHow openly an organisation shares information about pay, such as salary ranges, with employees or the public.
- Business, finance and operationsPayback periodHow long it takes for an investment to earn back its original cost.
- Business, finance and operationsPayment termsThe agreed conditions for when and how an invoice must be paid, such as within 30 days.
- People and HRPayroll runThe regular process of calculating and paying employees' wages for a given period.
- Numbers and measuresPercentage changeHow much a number has gone up or down, as a share of where it started.
- Numbers and measuresPercentage pointThe unit for the difference between two percentages.
- Numbers and measuresPercentileThe value below which a given percentage of data falls.
- Marketing, sales and customersPerformance marketingMarketing activity that's bought and measured against specific, trackable outcomes, such as clicks, sign-ups, or sales.
- People and HRPerformance reviewA regular conversation and assessment of an employee’s work, goals and development.
- Data protection and securityPersonal dataAny information about a living person who can be identified from it.
- Business, finance and operationsPESTLE analysisA framework for reviewing outside influences: Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal and Environmental.
- Data protection and securityPhishingA trick to make people reveal passwords or other sensitive information.
- Reading charts and reportsPie chartA circle divided into slices that show how a whole is split.
- Marketing, sales and customersPipelineThe set of deals or opportunities currently in progress, at various stages, on their way to closing.
- Marketing, sales and customersPipeline ageingHow long deals have been sitting in each stage of the sales pipeline, used to spot ones that are stalling.
- Marketing, sales and customersPipeline coverageHow much value is in the sales pipeline compared with the sales target.
- Marketing, sales and customersPipeline hygieneKeeping the sales pipeline's data accurate and current, such as removing stalled deals and updating stage and close dates.
- Marketing, sales and customersPipeline velocityHow quickly opportunities move through the sales pipeline, combining value, win rate and cycle length.
- Data layoutPivot tableA summary table that groups data by the values in one or more fields, places them as rows and columns, and totals a measure at each crossing.
- People and HRPlanned working daysThe days employees were scheduled to work in a period, excluding weekends, holidays and planned leave.
- Business, finance and operationsPocket priceThe price a business actually keeps after every discount, rebate, and incentive on a sale is subtracted, as opposed to the list price.
- Numbers and measuresPopulationThe whole group you want to know about.
- Business, finance and operationsPorter’s five forcesA framework for judging how competitive a market is, based on rivals, new entrants, substitutes, suppliers and buyers.
- Business, finance and operationsPortfolio managementOverseeing a collection of projects, products, or investments together, balancing resources and priorities across all of them.
- Marketing, sales and customersPositioningHow a product or brand is defined and differentiated in the minds of customers relative to alternatives.
- Business, finance and operationsPost-implementation reviewA review carried out after a project or change goes live, checking whether it delivered what was expected.
- Data engineering and ITPost-mortemA written review after an incident, focused on what to change rather than who to blame.
- Reading charts and reportsPower BIMicrosoft's business intelligence tool for building interactive reports and dashboards.
- Data engineering and ITPower queryThe tool in Power BI and Excel for connecting to, cleaning and reshaping data before analysis.
- Insyt termsPracticeExercises on realistic, synthetic data where you try a skill in a tool.
- Ethics and judgementPrecedentAn earlier decision or case used as a reference point for how a similar situation should be handled.
- AI and machine learningPrecisionOf all the items a model flagged as positive, the share that were actually positive.
- AI and machine learningPredictionsThe outputs a model produces, such as ‘fraud’ or ‘not fraud’.
- Evidence and reasoningPredictive analyticsAnalysis that uses past data to estimate what is likely to happen next.
- Evidence and reasoningPrescriptive analyticsAnalysis that recommends what action to take to reach the best outcome.
- Business, finance and operationsPresent valueWhat a future amount of money is worth today, after allowing for a discount rate.
- Business, finance and operationsPrice consistencyHow closely the actual price charged to similar customers for the same thing matches the agreed or list price, across all transactions.
- Marketing, sales and customersPrice elasticityHow sensitive demand for a product is to a change in its price.
- Business, finance and operationsPrice increaseA rise in the price charged for a product or service.
- Business, finance and operationsPrice per unitThe amount charged for one item or unit of a product or service.
- Business, finance and operationsPrice realisationHow much of a price increase or list price actually makes it through to revenue, after discounts and other deductions.
- Business, finance and operationsPrice varianceThe part of a change in cost or revenue caused by a change in price, isolated from the part caused by a change in volume.
- Data engineering and ITPrimary keyA column, or set of columns, whose values uniquely identify each row in a table and are never empty.
- Business, finance and operationsPrioritisationDeciding what to work on first, based on criteria like value, effort, and urgency.
- Data protection and securityPrivacy by designBuilding privacy protections into a system or process from the start, rather than adding them later.
- Data protection and securityPrivacy noticeThe public explanation of what personal data an organisation collects, why, and what rights people have.
- Numbers and measuresProbabilityHow likely something is to happen, from 0 (impossible) to 1 (certain), often shown as a percentage.
- Evidence and reasoningProblem statementA clear, concise description of the specific problem being solved, agreed before work starts on a solution.
- Business, finance and operationsProcess improvementChanging how a process works to make it faster, cheaper, more reliable, or higher quality.
- Business, finance and operationsProcess mappingDrawing out the steps in a process, who does each one and where the delays or handovers are.
- Business, finance and operationsProcess start and end timeThe timestamps recorded when a task or process begins and finishes, used to measure how long it takes.
- Business, finance and operationsProcurementThe process of finding, agreeing terms with and buying goods or services from suppliers.
- Business, finance and operationsProduct analyticsTracking and analysing how people use a product to improve it.
- Business, finance and operationsProduct discoveryThe work of understanding user problems and testing ideas before deciding what to build.
- Business, finance and operationsProduct-market fitThe point at which a product clearly meets the needs of a market, shown by strong demand and retention.
- Data engineering and ITProduction environmentThe live setting where real users use a system or model, as opposed to testing or development.
- Business, finance and operationsProfit and loss (P&L)A financial statement showing revenue, costs and profit over a period of time.
- Marketing, sales and customersPromoters and detractorsIn NPS surveys, promoters score 9 or 10 and are likely to recommend you.
- AI and machine learningPromptThe instruction or question you give an AI model to guide its response.
- AI and machine learningPrompt engineeringWriting and refining prompts to get more accurate and useful responses from AI models.
- Data protection and securityPrompt injectionAn attack where hidden or malicious instructions trick an AI system into ignoring its original rules.
- AI and machine learningPrompt libraryA shared collection of prompts that work, so a team does not start from scratch each time.
- Data protection and securityProportionalityThe principle that the amount of data collected, or the intrusiveness of an action, should be no more than necessary for its purpose.
- Data quality and governanceProvenanceThe record of where a figure came from and what happened to it on the way.
- Business, finance and operationsProvisionAn amount set aside in the accounts for a probable future cost or loss, such as unpaid debts, even though the exact amount isn't yet certain.
- Evidence and reasoningProxy variableA measurable stand-in used to represent something that can't be measured directly.
- Data protection and securityPseudonymisationReplacing names or other identifiers with codes, while the key that links codes to people is kept separately.
- Ethics and judgementPsychological safetyA shared belief within a team that it's safe to speak up, admit mistakes, and raise concerns without fear of punishment or humiliation.
- Data engineering and ITPull requestA request to merge your changes into the main codebase, where others can review them.
- People and HRPulse surveyA short, frequent survey used to check in on employee sentiment more often than a full annual engagement survey allows.
- Business, finance and operationsPurchase orderA formal document issued to a supplier confirming what's being bought, at what price, and under what terms.
- Marketing, sales and customersPurchasesThe number of times customers buy, or in inventory calculations, the stock a business buys during a period.
- Data engineering and ITPythonA popular programming language used to clean, analyse and automate work with data.
- Marketing, sales and customersQualificationAssessing whether a prospective customer or opportunity is a genuine fit and likely to convert, before investing further time in it.
- Marketing, sales and customersQualified opportunityA sales opportunity that has been checked and confirmed to be a genuine, viable prospect, rather than just an early enquiry.
- Business, finance and operationsQuality assuranceThe systematic checks and processes used to make sure a product, service, or piece of work meets an agreed standard before it goes out.
- Business, finance and operationsQuality of earningsAn assessment of how sustainable and repeatable a company's reported profit really is, as opposed to being boosted by one-off items.
- Data engineering and ITQueryA request for specific data from a database, usually written in SQL.
- Data engineering and ITQuery foldingWhen Power Query pushes your steps back to the source database instead of pulling all the data first.
- Data engineering and ITQuery logA record of the queries run against a database or system, used for troubleshooting, auditing, or performance analysis.
- Data engineering and ITQuery performanceHow quickly and efficiently a query returns its results, which depends on factors like data volume, indexing, and how the query is written.
- Evidence and reasoningQuestion wordingHow the exact phrasing of a survey question can change the answers it gets, even when the underlying question is the same.
- Marketing, sales and customersQuota attainmentHow much of their sales target a person or team has achieved.
- Reading charts and reportsRadar chartA chart with several axes radiating from a centre, used to compare scores across multiple measures.
- AI and machine learningRAGShort for retrieval-augmented generation.
- Evidence and reasoningRandom errorUnpredictable variation in measurements that can push results up or down by chance.
- Numbers and measuresRangeThe difference between the highest and lowest values in a set of data.
- Numbers and measuresRate limitA cap on how many requests a system accepts in a set time, such as 1,000 API calls per hour.
- Data basicsRaw dataData in its original form, exactly as it came from the source, before any cleaning or reshaping.
- Marketing, sales and customersReachThe number of distinct people who see a piece of content or a campaign, as opposed to the total number of views.
- Data basicsReal-time dataData that is processed and available almost immediately after it is created.
- Business, finance and operationsRebateA partial refund paid back to a customer, usually after a purchase and often tied to meeting a volume target.
- AI and machine learningRecallOf all the items that were actually positive, the share the model correctly found.
- Evidence and reasoningRecommendationA suggested course of action put forward alongside analysis, based on the evidence and its likely implications.
- Business, finance and operationsReconciliationChecking that two sets of records, such as a bank statement and a ledger, agree with each other, and investigating any difference.
- Data quality and governanceRecords managementManaging documents and records through their life, from creation to archiving or deletion.
- Data protection and securityRecords of processing activities (ROPA)A written record an organisation is required to keep, under data protection law, describing what personal data it processes, why, and who it is shared with.
- People and HRRecruitment costsAll the money spent filling roles, such as job adverts, agency fees, interview travel and hiring tools.
- Data protection and securityRedactionRemoving or obscuring sensitive information from a document or dataset before it's shared.
- Data engineering and ITRefactoringImproving the structure of existing code without changing what it does.
- Data basicsReference dataStandard lists of values used across systems, such as country codes, currencies or product categories.
- Data quality and governanceReferential integrityA database rule ensuring that a reference from one table to another, such as a foreign key, always points to a record that actually exists.
- Marketing, sales and customersReferralA new prospect or customer introduced by an existing customer or contact.
- Evidence and reasoningRegressionA statistical method for understanding how one value changes as others change, often used to make predictions.
- People and HRRegretted attritionDepartures of employees the organisation would have preferred to keep, as opposed to leavers it's less concerned about losing.
- Data engineering and ITRegular expressionA pattern for matching text, used to find, extract or replace parts of a string.
- Risk and complianceRegulatory complianceFollowing the laws, rules and standards that apply to an organisation and its industry.
- Risk and complianceRegulatory reportingReports an organisation must submit to regulators, in a set format and to a deadline.
- Data engineering and ITRelationshipA link between two tables in a data model, usually through a shared key.
- Business, finance and operationsReleaseMaking a new version of a product, feature or report available to users.
- Data engineering and ITReliabilityHow consistently a system or process performs as expected without failing.
- Risk and complianceRemediationThe action taken to fix a problem, such as a control failure or a compliance breach, once it's been identified.
- Business, finance and operationsRenewable energy shareThe percentage of energy used that comes from renewable sources such as wind or solar.
- Business, finance and operationsReorder pointThe stock level at which a new order should be placed to avoid running out.
- Marketing, sales and customersRepeat purchase rateThe percentage of customers who have bought more than once.
- Reading charts and reportsReportA structured summary of data and findings, produced regularly or on request, to inform a decision or update stakeholders.
- Reading charts and reportsReport requestA specific ask from a stakeholder for information or analysis, ideally clarified into a precise question before any work starts.
- Reading charts and reportsReport subscriptionAn automatic delivery of a report on a schedule, usually by email.
- Data engineering and ITRepositoryThe central store for a project’s code and its full history of changes.
- Evidence and reasoningReproducibilityWhether an analysis or model result can be recreated by someone else, using the same data and method, and getting the same answer.
- Business, finance and operationsRequirementSomething a solution must do or have, agreed in advance as a condition of it being considered complete.
- People and HRRequisitionA formal request to open and fill a new or replacement role.
- Business, finance and operationsResidual valueThe estimated value of an asset at the end of its useful life.
- Evidence and reasoningResponse biasWhen the way people answer a survey is distorted by how the question was asked, who's asking, or what feels socially acceptable to say.
- Evidence and reasoningResponse rateThe share of people invited to give feedback, complete a survey, or take an action who actually do.
- Ethics and judgementResponsible AIBuilding and using AI in ways that are fair, transparent, safe and accountable.
- Marketing, sales and customersRetentionThe share of customers who keep using a product or buying from a business over time.
- Time and trendsRetention curveA chart showing what share of a cohort is still active after each period.
- AI and machine learningRetrainingUpdating a model by training it again, usually on newer data, so its predictions stay accurate over time.
- People and HRRetrieval practiceA learning technique of actively recalling information from memory, shown to help it stick better than simply re-reading it.
- Marketing, sales and customersReturn on ad spend (ROAS)How much revenue advertising brings in for every pound spent on it.
- Business, finance and operationsReturn on capital employed (ROCE)How efficiently a business uses all of its long-term funding to generate profit.
- Business, finance and operationsReturn on equity (ROE)How much profit a company makes for every pound invested by its shareholders.
- Business, finance and operationsReturn on investment (ROI)The gain or loss from an investment compared with what it cost, shown as a percentage.
- Evidence and reasoningRevealed preferenceWhat people actually do, inferred from their real behaviour rather than what they say they'd do.
- Business, finance and operationsRevenueThe money a business earns from selling its goods or services, before any costs are taken off.
- People and HRRevenue per employeeHow much revenue an organisation generates for each employee.
- Business, finance and operationsRevenue recognitionThe accounting rules that determine when revenue is formally recorded, which isn't always the same moment cash is received.
- Data engineering and ITReverse ETLPushing data from the warehouse back into the tools people work in, such as a CRM.
- Business, finance and operationsReversibilityHow easily a decision can be undone if it turns out to be wrong, a key factor in how much scrutiny it deserves upfront.
- Business, finance and operationsRevPARRevenue Per Available Room, a hospitality metric combining occupancy and room rate into a single measure of revenue performance.
- Marketing, sales and customersRFMA way of segmenting customers by Recency, Frequency, and Monetary value, used to identify the most valuable and at-risk customers.
- Reading charts and reportsRibbon chartStacked columns joined by ribbons that show how the ranking between categories changes from one period to the next.
- Business, finance and operationsRICEA prioritisation framework that scores ideas on Reach, Impact, Confidence, and Effort to compare them on a common scale.
- Data protection and securityRight to erasureSomeone’s right to ask for their personal data to be deleted, in certain circumstances.
- Risk and complianceRiskThe possibility that something will happen that stops an objective being met, usually assessed by how likely it is and how bad the impact would be.
- Risk and complianceRisk appetiteThe amount and type of risk an organisation is willing to accept to reach its goals.
- Risk and complianceRisk assessmentA structured review of what could go wrong, how likely it is and how serious it would be.
- Risk and complianceRisk registerA list of identified risks with their likelihood, impact, owner and planned actions.
- Business, finance and operationsRoadmapA plan showing the direction and priorities for a product or data platform over time.
- Business, finance and operationsRoadmap themeA broad goal that groups related roadmap work, such as improving onboarding.
- Insyt termsRoleYour job, as Insyt describes it: the tasks you do, the skills they need and the tools you use.
- Insyt termsRole tailoringAdjusting what Insyt shows you to fit your role, such as which Paths, terms and examples come first.
- Insyt termsRole twinA realistic version of your job.
- Data protection and securityRole-based accessA security approach where what a person can see or do in a system is determined by their assigned role, rather than set individually.
- Data engineering and ITRollbackReverting a system or a piece of data back to a previous, known-good state after a change causes a problem.
- Evidence and reasoningRoot causeThe underlying reason a problem happened, as distinct from its symptoms or immediate triggers.
- Evidence and reasoningRoot cause analysisA structured way of finding the underlying reason for a problem, not just its symptoms.
- Data layoutRowA single record in a table, with one value for each column.
- Data engineering and ITRow contextWorking one row at a time, as a calculated column does.
- Data protection and securityRow-level securityA setting that controls which rows of data each person can see, so people only see the data relevant to them.
- People and HRRubricA set of clear criteria used to score or assess something consistently, such as a piece of work or a candidate.
- Time and trendsRun rateAn estimate of annual performance based on results from a shorter period.
- Data engineering and ITRunbookWritten instructions for running or fixing something, so it does not depend on one person.
- Business, finance and operationsRunwayHow long a business can keep operating before its cash runs out at the current burn rate.
- Business, finance and operationsSafety stockExtra stock held to protect against unexpected demand or delivery delays.
- People and HRSalaryThe fixed amount an employee is paid for their work, usually stated as a yearly figure.
- Marketing, sales and customersSales and marketing costsAll spending on winning customers, such as advertising, sales salaries, commissions and marketing tools.
- Marketing, sales and customersSales cycleThe typical length of time and set of stages it takes to turn a prospect into a paying customer.
- Business, finance and operationsSales mixThe proportion of total sales made up by each different product or service, which affects overall margin since not everything sells at the same profitability.
- Marketing, sales and customersSales pipelineAll the open sales opportunities a team is working on, grouped by how close they are to closing.
- Marketing, sales and customersSales quotaThe sales target set for a person or team over a period.
- Marketing, sales and customersSales stageA defined step in a sales process, such as qualifying, proposal, or negotiation, that a deal moves through on its way to closing.
- Numbers and measuresSampleA smaller group taken from a population and used to learn about the whole.
- Evidence and reasoningSample biasWhen the group of people or records studied isn't representative of the wider population, skewing the results.
- Numbers and measuresSample sizeThe number of observations or people included in an analysis or experiment.
- Risk and complianceSanctions screeningChecking customers and payments against lists of sanctioned people, organisations and countries.
- Marketing, sales and customersSandbaggingDeliberately understating a forecast or holding back a deal, usually to make future results look better by comparison.
- Reading charts and reportsSankey diagramA flow diagram in which bands connect stages or categories and the width of each band is proportional to the quantity flowing along it.
- Data engineering and ITScalabilityHow well a system copes as demand, data or users grow.
- Marketing, sales and customersScalingIncreasing the spend or reach of a marketing activity that's proven to work, while watching for returns to diminish.
- Reading charts and reportsScatter plotA chart that plots items by two measures to reveal relationships.
- Evidence and reasoningScenarioA plausible version of the future used in planning, built on a specific set of assumptions.
- Business, finance and operationsScenario planningPreparing for different possible futures by modelling best, worst and expected cases.
- Data engineering and ITSchemaThe structure of a database, defining its tables, fields, data types and relationships.
- Business, finance and operationsScience based targets (sbti)Emissions reduction targets checked against what climate science says is needed to limit global warming.
- Business, finance and operationsScopeWhat is included in a piece of work, and just as importantly what is not.
- Business, finance and operationsScope 1 emissionsShort for Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive.
- Business, finance and operationsScope 2 emissionsEmissions from the electricity, heating and cooling an organisation buys and uses.
- Business, finance and operationsScope 3 emissionsAll other indirect emissions across the value chain, such as suppliers, business travel and the use of sold products.
- Business, finance and operationsScope creepWhen a project's requirements gradually expand beyond what was originally agreed, without a formal decision to do so.
- Data engineering and ITSearchThe ability to find specific data or content by querying it directly, rather than browsing through it manually.
- Time and trendsSeasonalityA pattern that repeats at the same time each year, month or week.
- Marketing, sales and customersSegmentationSplitting customers into groups that behave differently, so each can be treated differently.
- Risk and complianceSegregation of dutiesSplitting a sensitive process across more than one person, so no single individual can both carry out and approve the same action.
- People and HRSelectionThe process of choosing which candidate to hire from a pool of applicants.
- People and HRSelection criteriaThe specific, agreed factors used to judge and compare candidates for a role.
- Reading charts and reportsSelf-service analyticsGiving people the tools and data to answer their own questions without waiting for a specialist.
- Data engineering and ITSemantic layerA business-friendly layer that translates technical data into agreed terms and calculations everyone uses.
- Data engineering and ITSemantic modelIn Power BI, the dataset that holds tables, relationships and measures that reports are built on.
- AI and machine learningSemantic searchSearch that finds results by meaning instead of exact matching words.
- Data basicsSemi-structured dataData with some organisation, such as labels or tags, without the fixed rows and columns of a table.
- Evidence and reasoningSensitivity analysisTesting how much a result changes when one input, such as price or cost, is changed.
- Evidence and reasoningSentiment analysisUsing text data, such as reviews or social posts, to automatically judge whether the tone expressed is positive, negative, or neutral.
- Data layoutSeriesA set of related values that are plotted together in a chart, such as monthly sales for one region.
- Data engineering and ITServerA computer, often in a data centre or the cloud, that stores data or runs software for other computers to use.
- Data engineering and ITServerlessRunning code without managing servers, where the provider scales it and you pay per use.
- Data engineering and ITService deskThe central team and tool people contact for IT help, such as access requests and technical problems.
- Data engineering and ITService level agreement (SLA)A formal, agreed standard for a service (such as how quickly a request or issue must be responded to or resolved) that a provider commits to meet, and what happens if it isn't.
- Data engineering and ITService level objectiveAn internal target for how reliable or fast a system should be, used to guide engineering priorities.
- Business, finance and operationsServiceable marketThe portion of the total addressable market that a business can realistically reach given its product, geography, and channels.
- Data quality and governanceShadow AIEmployees using AI tools the organisation has not approved or does not know about.
- Data quality and governanceShadow ITTechnology or software used within an organisation without the knowledge or approval of its IT department.
- Marketing, sales and customersShare of voiceHow much of the total conversation or advertising in a market belongs to one brand compared to its competitors.
- Business, finance and operationsShareholderA person or organisation that owns shares in a company, and so owns part of it.
- Business, finance and operationsShareholders’ equityThe value left for a company’s owners after all liabilities are subtracted from assets.
- Data engineering and ITShowbackReporting how much of a shared technology cost each team or department is responsible for, without actually charging them for it.
- Data protection and securitySingle sign-on (SSO)A way to log in once and access many work systems without separate passwords.
- Data quality and governanceSingle source of truthOne agreed, trusted place for a set of data, so everyone uses the same numbers.
- Business, finance and operationsSix sigmaA structured method for reducing variation and defects in a process, using data at each step.
- Insyt termsSkillSomething you need to be able to do to carry out a task well, such as writing a query or explaining a trend.
- People and HRSkills matrixA grid showing which skills each person or role has and at what level, used to spot gaps and plan development.
- Business, finance and operationsSLA complianceThe percentage of requests handled within the agreed service levels.
- Reading charts and reportsSlicerA visual filter in a dashboard that lets users quickly narrow the data shown.
- Business, finance and operationsSlippageWhen a project or task takes longer than planned and its deadline moves back.
- Reading charts and reportsSlope chartLines connecting values at two points in time.
- Data engineering and ITSlowly changing dimensionA way of handling attributes that change over time, such as a customer moving region.
- Data layoutSmall multiplesA set of small charts with the same scale, one for each category, shown side by side.
- Time and trendsSnapshotA copy of data as it was at a specific moment, such as headcount on the last day of each month.
- Data engineering and ITSnowflakeA cloud data platform used to store, process and share large amounts of data.
- Data engineering and ITSnowflake schemaA star schema where the dimensions are split into further tables.
- Data engineering and ITSoftware as a service (SaaS)Software people use over the internet on a subscription, instead of installing and maintaining it themselves.
- People and HRSource of hireThe channel, such as a job board, referral, or agency, through which a successful candidate was originally found.
- Data engineering and ITSource systemThe original system where data is created or entered, such as a CRM, finance system or website.
- Business, finance and operationsSpace utilisationHow intensively a space is used over time, rather than at a single moment.
- People and HRSpan of controlThe average number of people who report directly to each manager.
- Data engineering and ITSparkApache Spark.
- Reading charts and reportsSparklineA tiny line chart without axes, shown next to a number or in a table.
- Data protection and securitySpecial category dataTypes of personal data that need extra protection because misuse could seriously harm the person.
- Business, finance and operationsSpend under managementThe share of total spend that procurement actively controls through negotiated contracts.
- Business, finance and operationsSprintA short, fixed period, often two weeks, in which a team completes an agreed set of work.
- Business, finance and operationsSprint countThe number of sprints a team has completed, used to average work over time.
- Business, finance and operationsSprint planningThe meeting at the start of a sprint where a team agrees what work it will complete.
- Business, finance and operationsSprint reviewThe meeting at the end of a sprint where a team shows what it completed and gathers feedback.
- Data engineering and ITSQLShort for structured query language.
- Reading charts and reportsStacked bar chartBars split into coloured segments that show the parts making up each total.
- Business, finance and operationsStage gateA checkpoint in a process where a piece of work must meet defined criteria before it's allowed to move to the next stage.
- Business, finance and operationsStakeholderAnyone with an interest in, or affected by, a project or decision.
- Business, finance and operationsStakeholder managementIdentifying the people affected by or interested in a piece of work, and deliberately managing how they're informed, consulted, and involved.
- Business, finance and operationsStandard costA pre-set, expected cost for an item or activity, used as a benchmark against which actual costs are compared.
- Numbers and measuresStandard deviationA measure of how spread out values are around the average.
- Numbers and measuresStandard errorA measure of how much a sample average is likely to differ from the true average of the whole population.
- Business, finance and operationsStandard operating procedure (SOP)A written, agreed way of carrying out a task so it is done the same way every time.
- Business, finance and operationsStandard workThe current best-known way of carrying out a task, used as a baseline that's continuously improved.
- People and HRStandard working hoursThe number of hours a full-time employee is contracted to work, such as 37.5 or 40 hours a week.
- Data engineering and ITStar schemaA way of organising data for analysis with one central fact table of events or measurements linked to several dimension tables that describe them.
- Evidence and reasoningStated preferenceWhat people say they want or would do, usually gathered by asking them directly.
- Numbers and measuresStatistical powerThe likelihood that a test will correctly detect a real effect, if one actually exists.
- Numbers and measuresStatistical significanceA way of judging whether a result is likely to be real instead of due to chance.
- Reading charts and reportsStep chartA line that moves in steps, showing values that change at specific moments.
- Marketing, sales and customersStickinessHow often monthly users come back each day, showing how habit-forming a product is.
- Business, finance and operationsStockoutWhen an item is out of stock and an order cannot be fulfilled.
- Business, finance and operationsStockout rateThe percentage of orders affected because an item was out of stock.
- Business, finance and operationsStory pointsA relative estimate of the effort needed to complete a piece of work, used by agile teams to plan sprints.
- Business, finance and operationsStrategic betA significant, deliberate investment in an uncertain opportunity, made because the potential payoff is judged to be worth the risk.
- Business, finance and operationsStrategyA coherent set of choices about where to compete and how to win, that guides an organisation's decisions over time.
- Data engineering and ITStreamingProcessing data continuously as it arrives, instead of in scheduled batches.
- Time and trendsStructural breakA sudden change in a time series caused by a change in how the measure is defined or recorded.
- Data basicsStructured dataData organised into a clear format of rows and columns, such as a spreadsheet or database table.
- Data protection and securitySubject access request (SAR)A formal request by an individual for a copy of the personal data an organisation holds about them.
- Marketing, sales and customersSubscribersCustomers who pay a regular fee, such as monthly or yearly, to keep using a product or service.
- Marketing, sales and customersSubscriptionA pricing model where customers pay a regular fee, such as monthly or yearly, to keep using a product or service.
- People and HRSuccession planningIdentifying and developing people who could fill key roles in the future.
- Reading charts and reportsSunburstConcentric rings that break a total down level by level, from the centre out, to show a hierarchy.
- Ethics and judgementSunk costMoney or time already spent that can't be recovered, and so shouldn't factor into a decision about what to do next.
- Data quality and governanceSupplier recordThe stored profile of a supplier, including its details, terms, and history, used across purchasing and finance processes.
- Marketing, sales and customersSupport requestsQuestions, problems or tickets raised by customers or employees.
- Data engineering and ITSurrogate keyA meaningless identifier created for a table, used instead of a business key that might change.
- Evidence and reasoningSurvey designHow a survey's questions, order, and scales are put together so the answers are useful and not misleading.
- Marketing, sales and customersSurvey responsesThe completed answers people give to a survey question.
- Evidence and reasoningSurvivorship biasA distorted conclusion that comes from looking only at the cases that survived.
- Business, finance and operationsSWOT analysisA simple framework for reviewing an organisation’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.
- Business, finance and operationsSynergyThe extra value expected to be created when two things, such as merging companies, work together, beyond what each would achieve alone.
- Data basicsSynonymAn alternative term treated as equivalent to another for the purposes of search or classification, so both find the same result.
- Data basicsSynthetic dataArtificially generated data that mimics real data, used for testing or training without exposing personal information.
- Evidence and reasoningSystematic errorAn error that pushes results consistently in the same direction, such as a scale that always reads 2kg too heavy.
- Data layoutTableA set of data organised into rows and columns, usually about one subject.
- Reading charts and reportsTableauA popular business intelligence tool for creating interactive charts and dashboards.
- Data quality and governanceTaggingAttaching descriptive labels to data or resources so they can be grouped, filtered, or tracked, such as by cost centre or sensitivity.
- Numbers and measuresTargetThe value a team aims to reach for a KPI within a set period.
- Marketing, sales and customersTargetingChoosing which specific audience a piece of marketing or a campaign is aimed at.
- Insyt termsTaskA piece of work that a role does, such as preparing a monthly report or answering a stakeholder's question.
- Data basicsTaxonomyA structured system of categories used to classify and organise information consistently.
- Insyt termsTeaching exampleA scenario, dataset or stakeholder invented purely to practice with, and labelled clearly wherever it appears.
- Data engineering and ITTechnical debtThe extra future work created by choosing a quick or easy solution now instead of a better long-term one.
- Data engineering and ITTechnology stackThe set of software, tools and platforms an organisation uses to build and run its systems.
- Data engineering and ITTechnology standardAn agreed, approved technology, tool, or platform that an organisation expects teams to use rather than picking their own.
- Business, finance and operationsTenderA formal process where an organisation invites suppliers to submit competing bids for a piece of work or a contract.
- Marketing, sales and customersTerritoryThe set of accounts, regions, or customer segments a particular salesperson or team is responsible for.
- Risk and complianceThird-party riskThe risk that suppliers or partners cause harm through failures, breaches or poor practices.
- Risk and complianceThree lines of defenceA model where operational teams own risk, a second line oversees it, and internal audit reviews independently.
- Business, finance and operationsThree-way matchA control that checks a purchase order, the goods receipt, and the supplier's invoice all agree before a payment is approved.
- Numbers and measuresThresholdA set value that triggers an action or alert when a measure goes above or below it.
- Business, finance and operationsThroughputThe amount a process or team produces in a set period of time.
- Marketing, sales and customersTicket backlogThe number of open support tickets waiting to be resolved.
- Data layoutTidy dataA way of laying out data so that each variable is a column, each observation is a row and each type of thing being observed has its own table.
- Time and trendsTime intelligenceCalculations that compare values across time, such as year to date or same period last year.
- Time and trendsTime seriesValues of one measure recorded in time order at equal intervals.
- Time and trendsTime series forecastingPredicting future values from patterns in past values over time, such as trend and seasonality.
- Data layoutTime series tableA table with one row per point in time, or per point in time for each item, holding a date or time column and the values recorded then.
- People and HRTime to hireThe average number of days between a candidate entering the hiring process and accepting a job offer.
- Business, finance and operationsTime to valueHow long it takes a new user or customer to get their first meaningful benefit from a product.
- Data quality and governanceTimelinessWhether data is available and up to date by the point it's actually needed.
- Data basicsTimestampA record of the exact date and time something happened, such as when an order was placed.
- AI and machine learningTokenA small chunk of text, such as a word or part of a word, that an AI language model reads and writes.
- Insyt termsToolSoftware you use to do a task, such as Excel, SQL or Power BI.
- Reading charts and reportsTooltipThe small panel that appears when you hover over part of a chart.
- Business, finance and operationsTotal addressable market (TAM)The total possible revenue available if a product captured 100% of the market it could theoretically serve.
- Business, finance and operationsTotal cost of ownershipThe full cost of something over its life, including purchase price plus running, maintenance, and eventual disposal costs, not just the upfront price.
- Business, finance and operationsTotal costsAll costs added together, both fixed and variable, including interest and tax where relevant.
- Business, finance and operationsTracking planA document that defines exactly which user events are tracked, what data each one captures, and why.
- Ethics and judgementTrade-offGiving up some of one thing to gain more of another, an unavoidable part of most decisions.
- AI and machine learningTrain/test splitHolding back part of the data so a model can be tested on examples it has never seen.
- AI and machine learningTraining dataThe data used to teach a machine learning model to recognise patterns.
- People and HRTraining hoursThe total time employees spend in learning and development activities.
- People and HRTraining hours per employeeThe average amount of learning time each employee receives.
- Business, finance and operationsTransactionsIndividual exchanges of money, such as card payments, transfers or purchases.
- Data engineering and ITTransformationChanging data into a more useful format, such as cleaning, combining or calculating new fields.
- Ethics and judgementTransparencyHow clearly the workings of a system, such as an AI model, can be understood and explained to the people affected by it.
- Reading charts and reportsTreemapNested rectangles sized by value, showing parts of a whole or a hierarchy.
- Time and trendsTrendThe long-term direction of a time series once short-term ups and downs are set aside.
- Time and trendsTrend lineA straight or smooth line drawn through data points to show their general direction.
- AI and machine learningTrue positiveA case the model correctly predicted as positive, such as a real fraud case it flagged.
- People and HRTurnoverThe rate at which employees join and leave an organisation over a period, sometimes also used to mean total sales revenue depending on context.
- Evidence and reasoningUncertaintyHow much an estimate could be wrong, given the data and methods used to produce it.
- Insyt termsUnitOne step in a Path, opened in focus mode so you can work through it without distractions.
- Business, finance and operationsUnit economicsThe revenue and costs linked to a single unit or customer, used to judge whether each sale is profitable.
- Data engineering and ITUnit testAn automatic check that one small piece of code behaves as expected.
- Data basicsUnitsIndividual items produced, ordered, shipped or sold, used to count output and demand.
- Data layoutUnpivotTurning several columns into rows, so that column headings become values in one column and the cell values go into another.
- Data basicsUnstructured dataData without a fixed format, such as emails, documents, images and audio.
- Marketing, sales and customersUpsell rateThe percentage of customers who buy a higher-value product or add-on.
- Data engineering and ITUptimeThe percentage of time a system or service is available and working.
- Business, finance and operationsUsability testingWatching real people try to use a product or feature to find out where they get stuck or confused.
- Business, finance and operationsUse caseA description of how someone uses a system to achieve a goal, including the main steps and what can go wrong.
- Business, finance and operationsUseful lifeThe number of years an asset is expected to be used by a business.
- Business, finance and operationsUser experienceHow easy, clear, and satisfying a product feels to actually use, distinct from whether it technically works.
- Business, finance and operationsUser pathThe sequence of steps a person actually takes through a product or website, which can be tracked to see where they succeed or drop off.
- Business, finance and operationsUser researchTalking to or observing real users to understand their needs, behaviour, and pain points before or after building something.
- Business, finance and operationsUser storyA short description of a need from the user's point of view, used to plan work.
- Marketing, sales and customersUsersPeople who use a product, app or system.
- Business, finance and operationsUtilisationThe proportion of available time or capacity that's actually being used productively.
- Marketing, sales and customersUTMA short code (or set of tags) added to a link's URL so that clicks on it can be traced back to a specific campaign, channel, or piece of content.
- Data engineering and ITValidationChecking that data meets expected rules before it is used.
- Business, finance and operationsValuationAn estimate of what a business, asset, or investment is worth.
- Business, finance and operationsValue propositionA clear statement of the benefits a product or service gives customers and why they should choose it.
- Business, finance and operationsVariable costA cost that rises and falls directly with the amount produced or sold, such as raw materials or delivery.
- Business, finance and operationsVariable cost per unitThe cost that goes into making or delivering one unit, such as materials and packaging.
- Numbers and measuresVariance (statistics)A measure of how far values spread out from their average.
- Evidence and reasoningVariance analysisBreaking a budget variance down into its causes, such as price, volume, mix or timing, so you know why actual results differ from plan and what to do about it.
- Reading charts and reportsVariance waterfall chartA waterfall chart that starts at one total, such as budget, adds and subtracts each variance as a floating bar, and ends at the other total, such as actual.
- Numbers and measuresVariationThe natural or unexpected spread in results from one instance of a process to the next.
- AI and machine learningVector databaseA database that stores information as lists of numbers called vectors, so AI systems can find content with a similar meaning.
- Business, finance and operationsVelocityThe amount of work a team completes in a sprint, used to plan future sprints.
- Risk and complianceVerificationChecking that a claim, record, or piece of work is accurate before relying on it.
- Data engineering and ITVersion controlA system that tracks every change to code or files so teams can collaborate and undo mistakes.
- Marketing, sales and customersView-throughA conversion counted when someone sees, but doesn't click, an ad and later takes the desired action anyway.
- Reading charts and reportsViolin plotA chart that combines a box plot with a smooth curve showing where values are concentrated.
- Business, finance and operationsVision and missionA vision describes the future an organisation wants to create.
- Marketing, sales and customersVisits and visitorsA visit is one session on a website.
- Reading charts and reportsVisualisationPresenting data as a chart, map or graphic so patterns and differences are easier to see.
- Marketing, sales and customersVoice of the customerCollecting and analysing what customers say about their needs and experiences.
- Business, finance and operationsVolume varianceThe part of a change in cost or revenue caused by selling or using more or less, isolated from the part caused by price.
- People and HRVoluntary turnoverThe percentage of employees who choose to leave an organisation over a period, for example by resigning, compared with the average number employed.
- Reading charts and reportsWaffle chartA grid of small squares where each square is a share of the whole, used to show a percentage.
- Data engineering and ITWarehouse sizeHow much compute is assigned to run your queries.
- Reading charts and reportsWaterfall chartBars that show how increases and decreases build from a starting value to an end value.
- Data engineering and ITWebhookA way for one system to send data to another automatically as soon as an event happens.
- Numbers and measuresWeighted averageAn average where each value counts in proportion to its weight, such as how many items it covers.
- Marketing, sales and customersWeighted pipelineThe total value of open deals adjusted by each deal's probability of closing, giving a more realistic forecast than the raw total.
- Numbers and measuresWeightingGiving some values in a calculation more influence than others, to better reflect their real importance or representativeness.
- Data layoutWide tableA table layout where each row holds several values side by side in separate columns, such as one row per product with a column for each month.
- Marketing, sales and customersWin rateThe percentage of sales opportunities that end in a won deal.
- Marketing, sales and customersWin-loss analysisA review of why deals were won or lost, used to spot patterns that can improve future sales performance.
- Data engineering and ITWindow functionA SQL calculation over a set of rows related to the current row, such as a running total or a rank, that keeps every row instead of grouping them into one.
- Reading charts and reportsWord cloudA picture of words where more frequent words appear larger.
- Business, finance and operationsWork in progress (WIP)Work that has started but is not finished, whether stock part-made or tasks part-done.
- People and HRWorkforce planningForecasting the number and type of people an organisation will need, and planning how to have them in place.
- Business, finance and operationsWorking capitalCurrent assets minus current liabilities.
- Data engineering and ITWorkspaceA shared area in a BI tool, such as Power BI, where teams store and manage reports and datasets.
- Business, finance and operationsWrite-offFormally recognising that an asset, such as a debt, is no longer worth what it's recorded at, and reducing its value accordingly.
- Time and trendsYear-over-year growth (YoY)The percentage change in a figure compared with the same period one year earlier.
- Business, finance and operationsYieldThe proportion of output or revenue actually achieved out of what was theoretically possible.
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