Glossary – Simple but useful technique

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Communication is a vital element of Business Analysis. We hear all too often that a particular project failed due to communication issues. And so it happens that because of faulty communication structure (or complete lack thereof), the Business Analysis becomes ineffective. Communication issues lead to unclear and inconsistent requirements, and the accompanying documentation turns out ambiguous.

What is a Glossary?

For the process of collecting and putting down different requirements to run smoothly and efficiently, it is crucial that all stakeholders understand the key concepts in a consistent, identical way. How can this be achieved? The answer is a tool that has been established long time ago: a Glossary.

The main goal to create and maintain a Glossary in a project is to agree together with the stakeholders on common definitions for key concepts. These established definitions should be easy accessible so that they can be based upon and referred to as needed. When creating definitions, it is good to underline reference to other concepts, also used in the Glossary. For example, when we create a Glossary related to the financial products, the term ‘deposit’ may be defined in the following way:

Deposit – An investment option, where a specified amount of money in a given currency is deposited for a fixed period with a designated interest rate. When the period lapses, a customer is entitled to have that money returned with amount of accrued interest on top of that.

It is also worth to consider including some key attributes in your glossary. They are characteristics specific to the particular term. In case of a Deposit it would be, for example, “interest rate” and “currency”. These key attributes allow you to define concepts more accurately. They also come handy when later on you need to create different types of documentation, like for example, data models. So in our case, the full definition of a Deposit would sound more less like that:

Deposit – An investment option, where a specified amount of money in a given currency is deposited for a fixed period with a designated interest rate. When the period lapses, a customer is entitled to have that money returned with amount of accrued interest on top of that.
Attributes: interest rate, currency

How to chose what to put to the Glossary?

First of all, your project Glossary should contain terms which are:

  • Key to the given business domain
  • Unique, unknown outside of the domain
  • Ambiguous, or commonly used in other contexts
  • Defined differently: within a particular organization and outside of it

It is also worth to include some commonly used abbreviations.

How to create a project Glossary?

Rule number one is to start as early as possible, on the initial stage of Business Analysis. It allows to harmonize terminology and avoid many potential errors and misunderstandings. It also serves as a point of reference when communicating with stakeholders and makes a good basis for those taking care of the documentation. Another rule is that the definitions must be concise, accurate and clear. There should be no room left for ambiguity or different interpretations. If a definition contains abbreviation, they should also be explained (at least at their first occurrence).

It is also important for the Glossary to be easy and commonly accessible so that all interested parties have unobstructed access to it. For the Glossary to play its role properly, it should also be updated on the continuous basis. It is advisable to have one person in charge of this task, otherwise there is a risk of the Glossary going ‘out-of-sync’, potentially leading to the emergence of several versions with the content not agreed upon or unauthorized. There are of course many dedicated tools to help you manage your project Glossary, for example, shared files, Wiki, etc.

Advantages of having a project Glossary

An obvious advantage of creating and maintaining a Glossary in your project is increasing the efficiency of communication by using precise, unambiguous terms. Another advantage is avoiding unnecessary misunderstandings arising from different ways the terminology can be understood. A glossary is an invaluable asset for the project documentation, as it accelerates the writing process and increases documentation’s quality. This is because we can refer to an earlier defined terms without the need to bring up its definition each time it is required. Additionally, we minimize the risk of inconsistency in naming convention and used terminology.

My recommendations

  • Create your Glossary at an early stage of Business Analysis (in fact, the sooner you do it, the more beneficial it becomes)
  • Use Glossary actively, use cross-references in the documentation
  • Make sure your Glossary is easily accessible to those interested
  • Keep the content up to date
  • Do not assume that something is ‘obvious and clear’. If there is a risk that a given term may be interpreted differently by different people or depending on a context, include it in your Glossary
  • Do not hesitate to ask your stakeholders for precise understanding of terms