Planning Glossary

Browse 75 planning terms defined in plain English, from the cultural dictionary of computing.

75 Planning Terms

Agile Estimation
The practice of estimating work in agile environments, often using relative sizing, story points, or lightweight forecasting instead of exact hour counts....
Backlog Grooming
The process of reviewing, organizing, clarifying, splitting, or reprioritizing backlog items so future work is easier to plan. The term is still common, though...
Back of the Napkin
Describing a rough estimate, sketch, or quick model done informally without much precision. In engineering slang, back-of-the-napkin work is useful for framing...
Baseline
A starting reference point used for comparison, measurement, or evaluation. In tech work, baselines help teams judge whether a change actually improved...
Budget
A defined limit on resources such as money, CPU time, latency, memory, build minutes, or engineering effort that a team or system is expected to stay within....
Business Model Canvas
A one-page strategic framework for mapping a company's key elements such as customers, value proposition, channels, revenue streams, and costs. It is commonly...
Business Plan
A document or model describing how a business will operate, grow, compete, and finance itself over time. Early startups may keep it lightweight, but investors...
Calendar Driven Development
A mocking term for making product and engineering choices mainly to satisfy dates on the calendar rather than technical readiness or user value. In engineering...
Calendar Year
A reporting or planning year that runs from January 1 through December 31, as opposed to a company-specific fiscal year. The distinction matters in budgeting,...
Capacity Planning
The process of estimating future resource needs such as CPU, memory, storage, throughput, and concurrency so systems can handle expected growth and peak...
Clean Sheet
A fresh start that assumes no inherited constraints, often used in planning, budgeting, or design exercises. Clean-sheet thinking can surface better options...
Cooldown Sprint
A lighter sprint scheduled after an intense push, used for cleanup, debt work, and recovery.
Critical Path Slang
Informal talk around whatever work directly controls whether a project or release can complete on time. In engineering slang, 'critical path' is often used...
Deadline
A fixed point in time by which work is expected to be completed. In tech culture deadlines can create focus and coordination, but they also become destructive...
Decision Matrix
A table or structured comparison used to score or compare options across chosen criteria. In workplace culture decision matrices can be helpful for clarity,...
Epic
A large body of work or planning unit that groups related stories, tasks, or features under a broader goal. In workplace culture epics help organize roadmaps,...
ERP
Enterprise resource planning software used to manage core business processes such as finance, procurement, inventory, and operations in a unified system. ERP...
Estimation
The act of forecasting how much time, effort, complexity, or uncertainty a task or project involves. In software culture estimation is useful, but only if...
Fairy Dust Feature
A magical-sounding feature idea with vague implementation details and unrealistic expectations about impact.
Feature Freeze
A period when no new features are allowed so the team can stabilize, test, and prepare a release candidate. Only fixes and critical changes usually get...
Feature Parity
The state where a new system or version supports all the features of the system it's replacing. Often a migration blocker — users won't switch until the new...
Feature Planning
The work of deciding what a feature should do, for whom, with what scope, dependencies, and success criteria. In good product culture, feature planning...
Feature Roadmap
A plan showing expected upcoming features and their general order or direction. In culture, feature roadmaps are both planning tools and expectation-management...
Forecasting
The process of projecting future revenue, costs, hiring, demand, or other business outcomes based on assumptions and current data. Good forecasting is...
Future Proof
To design something in a way intended to remain useful and adaptable as needs, technology, or conditions change. In engineering culture the phrase is useful up...
GAP Analysis
A structured assessment of the difference between current state and desired future state, used to identify what capabilities, resources, or changes are...
Goal Setting
The practice of defining goals clearly enough that people know what outcomes matter and can align work accordingly. In healthy organizations, goal setting...
Headcount
The number of people employed or planned within a company, team, or function. Headcount planning is central to startup budgeting because people costs dominate...
Infrastructure Week
A dedicated period set aside for reliability, migrations, cleanup, and internal engineering improvements instead of product features.
IRP
Short for incident response plan, the documented set of roles, procedures, contacts, escalation paths, and decision points used when a security incident...
Kanban Board Slang
Informal language and shorthand used around kanban boards, ticket flow, and workflow states. In engineering slang, this includes all the little phrases teams...
Known Unknown
A risk or gap you are aware exists even though you do not yet know the exact answer. In engineering slang, distinguishing known unknowns from surprise unknowns...
Lame Duck Sprint
A sprint that has little real momentum because a release, reorg, holiday, or major decision has already made the iteration effectively provisional.
Lean Canvas
A one-page planning framework adapted for startups that emphasizes problem, solution, key metrics, unfair advantage, and customer segments. It is designed to...
Long-Horizon Planning
Planning over many steps or over extended time spans where early decisions affect distant later outcomes. Long-horizon planning is difficult because errors can...
Milestone
A significant target or threshold used to measure progress, such as first revenue, product launch, hiring completion, or a financing goal. Startups use...
Mind Map
A visual or mental map of related concepts, dependencies, or problem areas. In engineering slang, mind maps are useful when the issue is too interconnected to...
Multi-Step Reasoning
Reasoning that unfolds across several logical or computational steps rather than a single immediate response. Multi-step reasoning is important for tasks like...
Offsite
A meeting or event held away from the usual workplace, often to focus on planning, bonding, retrospectives, or strategy without normal office interruptions. In...
Over Budget
Costing more than the agreed or expected amount, whether in money, time, or compute. In engineering it often applies to cloud spend, project estimates, or...
Paper Napkin Architecture
A rough system design sketched quickly and informally, often enough to align a team before heavier documentation exists.
Planning AI
AI systems or techniques focused on creating and following plans toward goals rather than only generating one-step responses. Planning AI is especially...
Pre-Mortem
A planning exercise where a team imagines that a project has already failed and works backward to identify plausible causes in advance. It is used to surface...
Product Roadmap
A forward-looking plan showing which product initiatives are expected, why they matter, and roughly when they may happen. Useful roadmaps communicate...
Project Charter
A document describing a project's purpose, scope, principles, or governance expectations. In open-source and organizational culture, a project charter helps...
Release Cadence
The rhythm or frequency with which a project publishes new versions, such as weekly, monthly, or on-demand. Release cadence affects user expectations,...
Release Cycle
The full sequence from planning and development through testing, packaging, and publication of a software version. Teams discuss release cycles to reason about...
Release Strategy
The intentional plan for how a project versions, packages, stages, communicates, and rolls out software changes over time. Release strategy includes decisions...
Remediation Plan
A documented plan describing how identified vulnerabilities, control gaps, or incident findings will be fixed, by whom, and on what timeline. Strong...
Response Plan
A documented plan describing how an organization will handle a specific kind of incident or security event, including roles, decision points, actions, and...
Roadmap
A high-level visual or written plan that communicates the strategic direction, priorities, and timeline of a product or project over weeks, quarters, or...
Rolling Forecast
A forecast that is updated continuously by extending the planning horizon forward as each period closes, rather than being fixed once per year. Rolling...
Scope Creep Culture
A work environment where requirements and expectations constantly expand without corresponding changes to time, staffing, or priorities. It describes an...
Scope Creep Slang
A loose use of 'scope creep' for any gradual expansion of work, expectations, or commitments beyond the original plan, even outside formal project management....
Scope Monster
A project or requirement set that keeps growing until it becomes intimidating and hard to control. In engineering slang, scope monsters are built one 'small...
Spike
A time-boxed research task in Agile development aimed at reducing uncertainty before committing to a full implementation. The output is knowledge (a proof of...
Sprint Planning
The meeting or process where a team decides what work to take into an upcoming sprint and how it will be approached. Good sprint planning aligns scope,...
Sprint Velocity
The average number of story points (or units of work) a team completes per sprint, used for forecasting future capacity. Should stabilize over time as...
Sprint Zero
An initial setup period before normal sprint work begins, usually used for planning, tooling, staffing, or environment prep.
Stretch Goal
An ambitious target set beyond the expected plan to motivate effort or capture upside if execution goes unusually well. Stretch goals can inspire teams, but...
Task Decomposition
Breaking a larger task into smaller subtasks that can be solved, checked, or delegated more easily. Task decomposition is common in agent workflows because it...
Task Planning
The process of deciding the sequence of steps needed to complete a goal, often including dependencies, tool use, and checkpoints. Task planning is a core...
TBD
Short for 'to be determined,' used as a placeholder where a value, decision, or detail has not yet been finalized. It is harmless in drafts and dangerous when...
Technical Specification
A document written before implementation that describes the problem, proposed solution, architecture, API contracts, data models, alternatives considered, and...
Technical Spike
A time-boxed investigation to answer a technical question or reduce uncertainty before committing to an implementation approach. Produces knowledge (proof of...
Territory
The defined set of accounts, geographies, or segments assigned to a salesperson or team. Territory design strongly affects fairness, forecasting, and rep...
Territory Planning
The process of designing how accounts, geographies, and segments are assigned across the sales team to balance opportunity and coverage. Good territory...
Three Amigos Meeting
A planning or clarification meeting that brings together representatives such as product, engineering, and QA to align on a story before implementation.
Three Horizons
A strategy framework that separates efforts into near-term core execution, medium-term emerging bets, and longer-term exploratory opportunities. The model...
Time Box
To set a fixed time limit for a task, meeting, investigation, or experiment so work does not expand indefinitely. Time boxing is common in engineering when...
Tool Planning
The process of deciding which tools to use, in what order, and with what inputs to accomplish a task. Tool planning is a core challenge in agent systems that...
Unknown Unknowns
Risks or factors you do not yet know exist, making them impossible to plan around directly.
Unplanned Work
Interrupt-driven tasks such as outages, support escalations, and urgent fixes that were not on the original plan.
Velocity
In Agile/Scrum, the amount of work a team completes in a sprint, measured in story points or other units. Used for forecasting capacity, not as a performance...
Whiteboard
The physical or virtual space where teams sketch architecture, flows, and half-formed ideas. In engineering slang, the whiteboard is where ambiguity gets...

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