IT Management

Career paths and IT certifications

• liaison officer

  A liaison officer is an employee who is responsible for establishing a positive working relationship between two or more people, organizations or agencies, typically with the goal of working through a mutual problem or concern.

• microlearning (microtraining)

  Microlearning is an educational strategy that breaks complex topics down into short-form, stand-alone units of study that can be viewed as many times as necessary, whenever and wherever the learner needs them. Microlearning instructional modules are designed to address one specific skill or knowledge gap.

• chief product officer (CPO)

  A chief product officer (CPO) is a C-level executive who is responsible for the strategy and execution of all product-related activities within an organization.

Compliance, risk and governance

This glossary contains definitions related to compliance. Some definitions explain the meaning of words used in compliance regulations. Other definitions are related to the strategies that compliance officers use to mitigate risk and create a manageable compliance infrastructure.

• What is Cybersecurity? Everything You Need to Know

  Cybersecurity is the protection of internet-connected systems -- including hardware, software and data -- from cyberattacks.

• regulatory compliance

  Regulatory compliance is an organization's adherence to laws, regulations, guidelines and specifications relevant to its business processes.

• NIST Privacy Framework

  The NIST Privacy Framework is a voluntary tool created by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which lays out strategies for private sector organizations to improve their data risk management practices.

CRM

The goal of customer experience management (CEM) is to optimize customer satisfaction at each touchpoint of the customer journey. Definitions in this glossary include terms about marketing and creating a customer-centric view of business, the use of AI and RPA in martech, capturing and analyzing customer feedback and contact center automation.

• Direct-to-Consumer (D2C or DTC)

  D2C (Direct-to-consumer, or Direct2Consumer) is a type of business-to-consumer (B2C) retail sales strategy where a business will build, market, sell and ship a product directly to the customer.

• virtual agent

  A virtual agent (sometimes called an intelligent virtual agent, virtual rep or chatbot) is a software program that uses scripted rules and, increasingly, artificial intelligence applications to provide automated service or guidance to humans.

• behavioral targeting

  Behavioral targeting is the presentation of content and marketing based on the previous choices of users across websites.

ERP

Terms related to business, including definitions about project management and words and phrases about human resources, finance and vertical industries.

• crisis management plan (CMP)

  A crisis management plan (CMP) is a document that outlines the processes an organization will use to respond to a critical situation.

• employee life cycle

  Employee life cycle -- also spelled employee lifecycle -- is an HR model that identifies the different stages a worker advances through in an organization in, as well as the role HR plays in optimizing that progress.

• chief experience officer (CXO)

  A chief experience officer (CXO) is an executive who ensures positive interactions with an organization's external customers. 

Government IT

Terms related to government IT, including definitions about specific federal, state and local government programs as well as words and phrases about policy and compliance.

• What is Cybersecurity? Everything You Need to Know

  Cybersecurity is the protection of internet-connected systems -- including hardware, software and data -- from cyberattacks.

• Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA)

  The Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) is a component of the United States Department of Defense (DoD) that works with defense contractors to ensure government services and supplies are delivered on time, come at the expected cost and satisfy all performance requirements.

• Advanced Encryption Standard (AES)

  The Advanced Encryption Standard, or AES, is a symmetric block cipher chosen by the U.S. government to protect classified information and is implemented in software and hardware throughout the world to encrypt sensitive data.

Healthcare IT

Terms related to healthcare IT, including definitions about healthcare information and management systems and words and phrases about electronic health records, meaningful use, government regulations and medical technology.

• What is Cybersecurity? Everything You Need to Know

  Cybersecurity is the protection of internet-connected systems -- including hardware, software and data -- from cyberattacks.

• emergent medical data (EMD)

  Emergent medical data (EMD) is health information gathered about an individual from seemingly unrelated user behavior data.

• polygenic risk score (PRS)

  A polygenic risk score (PRS) is an expression of someone's likelihood of having or developing a particular medical condition.

HR management

• employee life cycle

  Employee life cycle -- also spelled employee lifecycle -- is an HR model that identifies the different stages a worker advances through in an organization in, as well as the role HR plays in optimizing that progress.

• employee privacy policy

  An employee privacy policy is documentation specifying an organization's rules and procedures for gathering, using and disclosing the personal information of former, current or prospective employees.

• digital self-harm

  Digital self-harm is targeting oneself with negative content online.

IT procurement

Terms related to the activities and procedures necessary to acquire information technology (IT) products and services.

• Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA)

  The Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) is a component of the United States Department of Defense (DoD) that works with defense contractors to ensure government services and supplies are delivered on time, come at the expected cost and satisfy all performance requirements.

• What is ERP? Guide to enterprise resource planning software

  ERP, or enterprise resource planning, is modular software designed to integrate the main functions of an organization's business processes into a unified system.

• trusted execution environment (TEE)

  A trusted execution environment (TEE) is an area on the main processor of a device that is separated from the system’s main operating system (OS) to ensure that sensitive data can be stored and managed in a secure environment.

Network management

Terms related to managing computer networks, including definitions about LANS or WANS and words and phrases about network design, troubleshooting, security and backups.

• Microsoft Azure

  Microsoft Azure, formerly known as Windows Azure, is Microsoft's public cloud computing platform.

• latency

  Latency is the delay from the input into a system to a desired outcome. In telecommunications, low latency is associated with a positive user experience (UX) while high latency is associated with poor UX.

• computer network

  A computer network, also referred to as a data network, is a series of interconnected nodes that can transmit, receive and exchange data, voice and video traffic.

Project management

Terms related to project management, including definitions about project management methodologies and tools.

• model of reflection

  A model of reflection is a structured process that is used to guide personal and situational analysis and improvement.

• resource contention

  In computing, 'resource contention' refers to a conflict over a shared resource between several components.

• two pizza rule

  The two pizza rule is a guideline for limiting the number of attendees at a meeting. According to the rule, a meeting should never have so many attendees that they could not all be fed with two pizzas.

Security management

Terms related to security management, including definitions about intrusion detection systems (IDS) and words and phrases about asset management, security policies, security monitoring, authorization and authentication.

• What is Cybersecurity? Everything You Need to Know

  Cybersecurity is the protection of internet-connected systems -- including hardware, software and data -- from cyberattacks.

• risk analysis

  Risk analysis is the process of identifying and analyzing potential issues that could negatively impact key business initiatives or projects.

• unified endpoint management (UEM)

  Unified endpoint management (UEM) is an approach to securing and controlling desktop computers, laptops, smartphones and tablets in a connected, cohesive manner from a single console.

SEO

Definitions related to search engine optimization, including definitions about SEO and words and phrases about bots, spiders, organic traffic and all areas of search engine marketing (SEM).

• metadata

  Metadata is data that describes other data. 

• microdata

  Microdata is a type of specification language that is embedded within HTML content to improve machine readability, annotate elements and analyze web pages.

• Click to Tweet

  Click to Tweet is a website that automatically generates links for users to share content through their own Twitter accounts.

Software asset management

Terms related to software management, including definitions about licensing and words and phrases about software lifecycle management and software asset management.

• application lifecycle management (ALM)

  Application lifecycle management (ALM) is an integrated system of people, tools and processes that supervise a software application from its initial planning through retirement.

• enterprise content management (ECM)

  Enterprise content management (ECM) is a set of defined processes, strategies and tools that allow a business to effectively obtain, organize, store and deliver critical information to its employees, business stakeholders and customers.

• private cloud (internal cloud or corporate cloud)

  Private cloud is a type of cloud computing that delivers similar advantages to public cloud, including scalability and self-service, but through a proprietary architecture.

Storage management

Terms related to data storage management, including definitions about enterprise storage and words and phrases about storage infrastructure, storage capacity and hierarchical storage management (HSM).

• cloud storage

  Cloud storage is a service model in which data is transmitted and stored on remote storage systems, where it is maintained, managed, backed up and made available to users over a network (typically the internet).

• data lake

  A data lake is a storage repository that holds a vast amount of raw data in its native format until it is needed.

• cloud computing

  Cloud computing is a general term for anything that involves delivering hosted services over the internet.