Operations glossary
The terms that come up when a business is trying to work out where it is losing value, defined in plain language and with the part that matters said out loud.
Sixty four terms that come up when a business is working out where it is losing value. Each defined in plain language with the distinction that matters in practice, so cycle time is separated from lead time and orchestration from integration. Free to quote and cite.
What you get
Written to be useful
Each definition says what the term means and why it matters, not just what the words expand to.
No jargon ladders
Nothing is defined using another term you would have to look up first.
Free to quote
Use any of it, anywhere, with or without attribution.
Operations first
Weighted toward what costs businesses money rather than what sounds impressive.
Why most business glossaries are useless
Most glossaries restate a term in more formal words, then use three more terms you would have to look up. Correct, and no help with a decision.
Each entry here says what the term means, then the part usually left out: why it matters or what people get backwards. Every one links to the page on this site that puts a number on it.
Definitions are more useful with a number attached. The twenty-five tools put one on most of the terms here, from cycle efficiency to the value of a single inquiry.
Fractional COO · Standard operating procedure · Process mapping · Handoff · Exception rate · Cycle time · Lead time · Process debt · Bottleneck · Runbook · RACI · Root cause analysis · Service level agreement · Fractional · Work in progress · Throughput · Escalation path · Capacity · Revenue leakage · Lead response time · Attribution · Pipeline hygiene · Quote to cash · Churn · Conversion rate · Business process automation · Silent failure · Happy path · Idempotency · Swivel chair work · Trigger · Orchestration · Dead letter queue · Straight through processing · Retrieval augmented generation · Human in the loop · AI fluency · Hallucination · Grounding · Evaluation set · Prompt injection · Model Context Protocol · Context window · Agent · Token · Single source of truth · Data hygiene · Schema · Reconciliation · Audit trail · Loaded cost · Cost of delay · Rework · Opportunity cost · Switching cost · Unit economics of a process · Registered agent · Good standing · Foreign qualification · Economic nexus · Beneficial ownership · Prequalification · Change order · Proof of delivery
Operations
Fractional COO
A senior operator who runs part of the business part time, inside your systems, on a set rhythm.
Standard operating procedure
How a recurring task is done, written so a competent new starter can follow it unaided.
Process mapping
Recording how work really flows, step by step, who touches it and where it waits.
Exception rate
The share of transactions that fall out of the standard process and need a person.
Process debt
The accumulated cost of workarounds and undocumented steps that made sense once.
Runbook
What to do when a specific thing goes wrong: symptom, checks, fix, who to call.
Root cause analysis
Working back from a problem to the condition that produced it, not the step where it showed.
Service level agreement
A stated commitment on speed or reliability, such as a reply within one business day.
Fractional
A senior person working with a company part time, ongoing, rather than a full hire or a project.
Escalation path
The written answer to who decides when the normal route is blocked.
Capacity
How much a team can finish in a period without borrowing from the next.
Revenue
Revenue leakage
Money already earned and not collected, or demand already paid for and not converted: slow first replies.
Pipeline hygiene
Keeping every open opportunity current enough that the forecast means something.
Quote to cash
The whole path from a price going out to money arriving: approval, delivery, invoice, collection.
Automation
Business process automation
Software carrying a repeating, rule-based task end to end without a person driving it.
Silent failure
An automation that stops working and nothing says so, for weeks.
Idempotency
A step that gives the same result whether it runs once or five times.
Swivel chair work
Moving the same data between two systems by hand because they do not talk.
Orchestration
Moving one business event through several systems in order, with retries and failure handling.
Dead letter queue
Where a failed job goes so it can be seen and retried instead of vanishing.
AI
Retrieval augmented generation
Giving a model your own documents at the moment it answers, instead of relying on training alone.
AI fluency
A team knowing what these tools do well, badly, and when not to use them.
Hallucination
A model producing something fluent and wrong with the confidence it gives something right.
Evaluation set
A fixed set of real cases with known answers, used to tell whether a change made things better or worse.
Prompt injection
Instructions hidden in content the model reads, written to make it act against you.
Model Context Protocol
An open standard connecting an AI assistant to tools and data through one interface, so a database.
Context window
How much text a model can hold at once: instructions, source material and answer together.
Agent
A model that plans and acts in sequence, calling tools and reacting to results.
Data
Single source of truth
One system that holds the authoritative version of a record, which everything else reads from.
Data hygiene
Keeping records accurate, deduplicated and complete enough to act on.
Schema
The agreed shape of a record: which fields exist, their types, which are required.
Reconciliation
Comparing two records of the same thing and explaining every difference.
Cost
Loaded cost
The true hourly cost of an employee: salary plus taxes, benefits, equipment and overhead, over hours worked.
Rework
Doing work a second time because the first pass was wrong or built on stale information.
Switching cost
The time lost every move between tasks or systems, including reloading where you were.
Unit economics of a process
What one run of a process costs end to end, waiting, checking and rework included.
Compliance and entities
Registered agent
The person or company that receives legal and official mail for a business in a state.
Good standing
A state confirming an entity has met its filings and fees.
Foreign qualification
Registering to operate in a state other than the one you formed in.
Economic nexus
A tax connection to a state created by sales volume rather than presence.
Beneficial ownership
A record of the real people who own or control a company, as distinct from the entities on the paperwork.
Procurement
Prequalification
Proving you meet a buyer's requirements before you may bid: safety records, insurance, training, financials, kept current continuously.
Construction
Change order
A documented agreement to alter scope, price or schedule on contracted work.
Logistics
Proof of delivery
Confirmation goods reached the recipient, usually the document that releases the invoice.
Questions we get
Can I quote these definitions?
Yes, anywhere, with or without attribution. They are marked up as structured data specifically so machines can read and reuse them as well as people.
Why is the wording so plain?
Because the alternative is a definition that is correct and useless. If a term has to be explained using two other terms the reader would also need explained, nothing has been communicated.
Which of these terms cost businesses the most?
Handoffs, exception rates and lead response time, consistently. All three are cheap to measure, all three are usually worse than anyone expects, and none of them appear in a standard report.
Are the AI definitions going to age badly?
The tools will, the patterns will not. Retrieval augmented generation and human in the loop describe shapes of system that will outlast whatever is implementing them today.
More in the guides and every answer in one place.
Read next
The terms in practice, and the tools that put numbers on them.
Shaheer leads the work, with engineers, writers, filers and analysts behind him. C-suite operations for a San Francisco AI company, Six Sigma on the process side, Anthropic certified on the Model Context Protocol, ten years across eight industries. See what we have built