Glossary of Terms

Baseline

Information collected before or at the start of a project or program that provides a basis for planning and/or assessing subsequent progress and impact.

Behavior change wheel (BCW)

A model to identify behaviors to target for change and behavioral change strategies to include in the intervention.

Behavior change tool

Techniques that provide information and motivation for behavior change.

Behavioral intervention

An intervention designed to affect the actions that individuals take with regard to their health.

Behavioral researcher
An individual who focuses their time on studying how the actions of people affect their development, their relationship with others, and their future behaviors. 

Benchmark

A standard against which results are measured.

Benchmarking

A process of measuring the performance of a company’s products, services, or processes against those of another business considered to be the best in the industry.

Beneficiaries

The individuals, groups, or organizations that benefit from an intervention, project, or program.

Best Practices

Methods, approaches, and tools that have been demonstrated to be effective, useful, and replicable.

Beta version


A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to try under real conditions. They are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product.

Bias

The extent to which a measurement, sampling, or analytic method systematically underestimates or overestimates the true value of a variable or attribute.

Big picture:

The most important facts about a situation and the effects of that situation on other things.

Biographical sources (identity)

The identities, social networks, and tactical repertoires of team members.

Bivariate analyses

Refers to the analysis of two variables to determine relationships between them. It explores whether a statistical association exists between two variables, the degree of association if one does exist, and whether one variable may be predicted from another. 

Bottom of the Pyramid

A socio-economic concept that refers to the poorest two-thirds of the economic human pyramid.

Bricolage

The construction or creation from diverse perspectives.

Build and launch


Create and implement a solution to solve the user’s problem.

By-name list


A real-time, up-to-date list of all people experiencing a particular issue which can be filtered by categories and shared across agencies.