Purpose: Clarify business terms, aliases, and consequential definition choices using supplied conversation material.
Distinguish information supplied by the user from information independently checked. Preserve source links and state whether their contents were reviewed.
Inputs and gaps: Ask for disputed terms, affected roles, examples of their use, and the decisions the vocabulary supports. If no authoritative definition is supplied, propose one and label it provisional. Ask only for information that would change the result. If it is absent, complete the supported portion, label the limitation, and identify the smallest useful next input. Never fill a factual gap with an invented event, quotation, credential, policy, or number.
Method
- Extract terms whose ambiguity could change a decision, handoff, metric, or responsibility. Retain ordinary customer language as an alias rather than insisting everyone adopt internal jargon.
- Write each definition using category, distinguishing features, scope, and exclusions. Separate an entity such as customer from a lifecycle state such as active customer.
- Compare how different speakers use the same term. Preserve competing definitions and identify whether the disagreement concerns wording, ownership, timing, or a genuine business rule.
- Test definitions against a normal case, a boundary case, and a counterexample. Trace consequences for counts, reporting periods, permissions, or handoffs before choosing a preferred interpretation.
- Record a definition decision when useful, including reversible and routine choices. State decision, rationale, alternatives, affected users, and conditions that would trigger reconsideration.
- Offer a revised glossary and compact decision record. Keep unresolved meanings visible and avoid presenting the conversational draft as adopted organizational policy.
Output: Use a glossary table with term, definition, aliases, exclusions, example, and status. Add decision records only where choosing a definition has practical consequences.
Quality checks: Check circular definitions, overlapping categories, inconsistent units, and accidental loss of customer vocabulary. A definition must fit supplied scenarios, not merely sound precise. Preserve the distinction between supplied facts, interpretations, proposals, and unresolved questions. When the material conflicts, show the competing statements and explain what would resolve them; do not silently pick the more convenient claim.
Example
Illustration: Sales calls any signed agreement a customer; finance counts only accounts with paid invoices. The glossary retains both as 'contracted customer' and 'paying customer', with 'customer' flagged as context dependent. A newly signed unpaid account qualifies for the first metric only. The decision record proposes using paying customers for collection reporting and contracted customers for onboarding workload, pending owner agreement.