One of my major observations since being in the corporate world is that - people define concepts based on their past experiences and hence most of the times the definitions to these concepts are never the same.

Say for instance, what are the key elements of an ideal product lifecycle. An engineer, a product manager, and a marketeer will define these all differently. Even two different product managers might define these lifecycle stages very differently - the goals might remain same for both PMs meaning the output product should be adopted by the masses and shows high growth in the market - and still how they define ‘an ideal product lifecycle’ would remain different.

Hence I have grown to believe,

a definition to a concept is a framework for oneself and a mere perspective for the rest of the world

I define a concept from how I understand it and then proceed to establish it as a framework - defining makes it easy for me to apply concepts consistently. While the rest of the world can try to poke my definitions and build their own for the same concept.

Remember when in school, how we were supposed to learn the textbook definitions for everything. Even Newton’s third law of motion had a definition something like “every action has an equal and opposite reaction”. But as a kid, all experience I had was that my hand would hurt if I catch the cricket ball keeping my palm stiff. So a definition like “a cricket ball exerts a force on me while I am trying to stop it by applying force in opposite direction of its motion” was equally good.

Ultimately understanding the concept and defining it from my own perspectives matter more than learning the definition born out of someone else’s perspective.

Today, I believe one of the best way of promoting learning is to encouraging each of us to have our own definitions. Definitions are subjective.