Work Product Descriptor (Artifact): Glossary
This artifact defines important terms used by the project. These terms are the basis for effective collaboration with the stakeholders and other team members.
Purpose
The goal is for the Glossary to provide a common vocabulary agreed upon by all Stakeholders. It can help people from different functional groups reach a mutual understanding of the system. The goal is not to record all possible terms, but only those that are unclear, ambiguous, or require elaboration.
Relationships
RolesResponsible: Modified By:
Input ToMandatory: Optional:
  • None
External:
  • None
Main Description

The Glossary helps you avoid miscommunication by providing two essential resources:

  • A central location to look for terms and abbreviations that are new to development team members
  • Definitions of terms that are used in specific ways within the domain

Definitions for the Glossary terms come from several sources, such as requirements documents, specifications, and discussions with Stakeholders and domain experts.

Properties
Optional
PlannedYes
Key Considerations

In some projects that do not involve business or domain modeling, the Glossary is the primary artifact for capturing information about the project's business domain.

Although listed as an output from, and an input to tasks associated with the requirements discipline, this artifact can be updated at any time, by any role, as new terms are identified.

Tailoring
Impact of not havingMisunderstandings about the meanings of data items account for many failed projects. Some of them become obvious only in the late stages of system testing and can b extremely expensive to correct.
Representation Options

This is a simple alphabetized listing of domain terms and their definitions. It can be captured in a spreadsheet, document, or published on a Wiki site to simplify access and maintenance.