# Work Management Glossary

> 40 terms from the Workplace & Collaboration book's Work Management part, each defined in a line and linked to the chapter that explains it.

- **Automation flow:** a customer-built rule of trigger, conditions, branches and actions that changes work items after an event, metered by plan ([Automation Rules](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/workplace-and-collaboration/automation-rules#triggers-conditions-and-actions)).
- **Burndown chart:** remaining sprint work plotted against time in the board's estimation statistic, with scope added mid-sprint shown as scope change ([Boards, Sprints & Cycles](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/workplace-and-collaboration/boards-sprints-and-cycles#the-standard-charts)).
- **Change advisory board (CAB):** the recurring group that reviews and authorizes normal change requests before they are implemented ([IT & Service Management](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/workplace-and-collaboration/service-management#problems-and-changes)).
- **Closing keyword:** a word such as "fixes" or "closes" before an issue reference in a pull request or commit that closes the issue when the change merges to the default branch ([Development Collaboration](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/workplace-and-collaboration/development-collaboration#linking-work-to-code)).
- **CMDB:** the configuration management database of configuration items and their relationships, used for impact analysis on incidents and changes ([IT & Service Management](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/workplace-and-collaboration/service-management#the-cmdb-and-assets)).
- **CODEOWNERS:** a repository file mapping paths to the people or teams whose review is required for changes to them, where the last matching pattern wins ([Development Collaboration](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/workplace-and-collaboration/development-collaboration#code-owners)).
- **Company-managed space:** a Jira space configured by Jira admins through shared schemes, so one workflow or field change applies to every space using it ([Workflows & Status Machines](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/workplace-and-collaboration/workflows-and-states#team-managed-and-company-managed)).
- **Cumulative flow diagram:** an area chart of items in each status over time, where a widening band marks a bottleneck ([Boards, Sprints & Cycles](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/workplace-and-collaboration/boards-sprints-and-cycles#the-standard-charts)).
- **Custom field:** a customer-defined attribute on work items, with contexts, options and per-tenant limits, and costs in validation, indexing and export ([Work Items, Hierarchies & Fields](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/workplace-and-collaboration/work-items-and-fields#custom-fields)).
- **Cycle (Linear):** an automatic, repeating time-box of one to eight weeks whose unfinished issues roll over by default ([Boards, Sprints & Cycles](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/workplace-and-collaboration/boards-sprints-and-cycles#linear-cycles)).
- **Cycle time:** the elapsed time between when a work item started and when it finished ([Boards, Sprints & Cycles](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/workplace-and-collaboration/boards-sprints-and-cycles#flow-metrics-and-their-misuse)).
- **Delivery plan:** an Azure Boards timeline of up to 20 team backlogs with cross-team dependencies drawn between items ([Portfolios, Roadmaps & Goals](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/workplace-and-collaboration/portfolios-roadmaps-and-goals#plans-and-portfolios)).
- **Deployment gating:** a pipeline pausing until the linked change request is approved in the service desk ([IT & Service Management](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/workplace-and-collaboration/service-management#problems-and-changes)).
- **Development panel:** the section of a work item showing linked branches, commits, pull requests, builds and deployments, inferred from the item key in their text ([Development Collaboration](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/workplace-and-collaboration/development-collaboration#linking-work-to-code)).
- **Flow actor:** the identity an automation rule acts as, such as "Automation for Jira" by default in Jira ([Automation Rules](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/workplace-and-collaboration/automation-rules#the-rule-actor)).
- **Goal:** an outcome that several projects contribute to, with sub-goals, key results and an on track, at risk or off track status ([Portfolios, Roadmaps & Goals](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/workplace-and-collaboration/portfolios-roadmaps-and-goals#projects-initiatives-and-goals)).
- **Impact and urgency matrix:** the lookup that computes an incident's priority from how much it affects and how soon it hurts ([IT & Service Management](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/workplace-and-collaboration/service-management#incidents-and-priority)).
- **Initiative (Linear):** a grouping of projects around a company objective, with sub-initiatives and status updates ([Portfolios, Roadmaps & Goals](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/workplace-and-collaboration/portfolios-roadmaps-and-goals#projects-initiatives-and-goals)).
- **InnerSource:** applying open source development practices inside a company, so any team can read and propose changes to another team's code ([Development Collaboration](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/workplace-and-collaboration/development-collaboration#inner-source)).
- **JQL:** Jira Query Language, a field-operator-value language with keywords and functions that returns work items and is not SQL ([Queries, Views & Dashboards](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/workplace-and-collaboration/queries-views-and-dashboards#jql)).
- **Loop detection:** an automation engine's limit on how many times rules may trigger themselves or each other in succession before the chain is stopped ([Automation Rules](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/workplace-and-collaboration/automation-rules#loops-and-runaway-rules)).
- **Major incident:** an incident causing significant business disruption, run through its own process, queue and manager ([IT & Service Management](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/workplace-and-collaboration/service-management#incidents-and-priority)).
- **Merge queue:** a mechanism that merges approved pull requests in order, testing each on top of those ahead of it ([Development Collaboration](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/workplace-and-collaboration/development-collaboration#merge-queues)).
- **Permission-trimmed query:** a query whose results, counts and rollups include only what the viewer may see ([Queries, Views & Dashboards](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/workplace-and-collaboration/queries-views-and-dashboards#permission-trimmed-queries)).
- **Plan (Jira Plans):** a sandboxed view over boards, spaces and filters for scheduling, capacity and dependencies across teams, formerly Advanced Roadmaps ([Portfolios, Roadmaps & Goals](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/workplace-and-collaboration/portfolios-roadmaps-and-goals#plans-and-portfolios)).
- **Post function:** a step that runs after a workflow transition, such as setting a field or firing an event ([Workflows & Status Machines](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/workplace-and-collaboration/workflows-and-states#conditions-validators-and-post-functions)).
- **Request type:** a service desk form with its own fields, workflow and audience that employees use to ask for something ([IT & Service Management](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/workplace-and-collaboration/service-management#requests-and-queues)).
- **Resolution:** the field recording how a work item ended (done, won't do, duplicate), kept separate from its status ([Workflows & Status Machines](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/workplace-and-collaboration/workflows-and-states#resolutions)).
- **Saved filter:** a stored query with an owner and an audience, shared without widening anyone's access to the items it returns ([Queries, Views & Dashboards](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/workplace-and-collaboration/queries-views-and-dashboards#saved-filters-and-views)).
- **SLA clock:** a per-ticket timer that starts, pauses and stops on conditions, runs on a business calendar, and records whether its goal was met ([IT & Service Management](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/workplace-and-collaboration/service-management#sla-clocks)).
- **Smart Commit:** a command in a commit message (comment, log time or transition) that acts on the Jira work item whose key it names ([Development Collaboration](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/workplace-and-collaboration/development-collaboration#linking-work-to-code)).
- **Sprint:** a fixed time-box of one month or less with a goal, whose scope and estimates are recorded at start and close ([Boards, Sprints & Cycles](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/workplace-and-collaboration/boards-sprints-and-cycles#sprints)).
- **State category:** a fixed product-level class (such as proposed, in progress, resolved, completed) that every customer-named status maps to ([Workflows & Status Machines](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/workplace-and-collaboration/workflows-and-states#statuses-and-categories)).
- **Status update:** an owner's dated note on a project or goal with a health value, collected on a cadence ([Portfolios, Roadmaps & Goals](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/workplace-and-collaboration/portfolios-roadmaps-and-goals#status-updates)).
- **Team-managed space:** a Jira space set up and maintained by its own team, with a self-contained workflow ([Workflows & Status Machines](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/workplace-and-collaboration/workflows-and-states#team-managed-and-company-managed)).
- **Transition:** a permitted move between two statuses, with conditions, validators and post functions attached ([Workflows & Status Machines](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/workplace-and-collaboration/workflows-and-states#transitions)).
- **Triage:** a team inbox where work arriving from outside the team is accepted, declined, merged as a duplicate or snoozed ([Boards, Sprints & Cycles](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/workplace-and-collaboration/boards-sprints-and-cycles#triage)).
- **Velocity:** the sum of estimates a team completes per sprint, useful for its own capacity and misleading as a performance measure ([Boards, Sprints & Cycles](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/workplace-and-collaboration/boards-sprints-and-cycles#estimates-and-velocity)).
- **WIP limit:** an advisory maximum (and sometimes minimum) on items in a board column ([Boards, Sprints & Cycles](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/workplace-and-collaboration/boards-sprints-and-cycles#wip-limits)).
- **WIQL:** Azure Boards' Work Item Query Language, with SELECT, FROM, WHERE, ORDER BY and an ASOF clause for historical queries ([Queries, Views & Dashboards](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/workplace-and-collaboration/queries-views-and-dashboards#azure-boards-wiql)).

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