Agile glossary

Agile teams have a vocabulary of their own. In Scrum, the Product Owner orders the product backlog, the team agrees a sprint goal, and everyone checks progress at the daily scrum. Hover over (or tap) the underlined words to see their definitions.

Agile basics

Agile

An approach to work that delivers in small increments, gets feedback early and adapts the plan as the team learns.

Agile Manifesto

The 2001 statement of four values and twelve principles behind agile software development.

Iteration

A short, fixed period of work that ends with something usable. Scrum calls it a sprint.

Increment

The finished, usable work produced by the end of an iteration, added to everything delivered before it.

Timebox

A fixed maximum amount of time for an activity. When the time is up, the activity ends.

Cross-functional team

A team with all the skills it needs to deliver work without waiting on other teams.

Self-managing team (self-organizing team)

A team that decides for itself who does what, when and how.

Stakeholder

Anyone with an interest in the product or affected by it, such as customers, users, sponsors or other teams.

MVP (minimum viable product)

The simplest version of a product that can be released to learn from real users.

Technical debt

The future cost of shortcuts taken now, such as quick fixes that make later changes slower and riskier.

Spike

A timeboxed investigation to answer a question or reduce uncertainty before committing to the work.

Backlog and estimation

Epic

A large body of work that is split into smaller stories and delivered over several iterations.

User story (story)

A small piece of functionality described from the user's point of view, often written as "As a…, I want…, so that…".

Acceptance criteria

The conditions a story must meet for the Product Owner or customer to accept it.

Definition of Done (DoD)

The shared checklist every piece of work must meet before it counts as finished, such as tested, reviewed and documented.

Definition of Ready (DoR)

The conditions a backlog item must meet before the team starts it, such as clear acceptance criteria and an estimate.

Backlog refinement (backlog grooming)

Ongoing work to clarify, split and estimate backlog items so they are ready for planning.

Story points (story point)

A relative estimate of the effort, complexity and uncertainty of a story, used instead of hours.

Planning poker

An estimation game where everyone reveals an estimate at the same time, then the team discusses the differences and estimates again.

T-shirt sizing

Rough relative estimation using sizes such as S, M, L and XL, useful early on when detail is thin.

Velocity

The average amount of work a team finishes per sprint, used to forecast how much it can take on.

Capacity

How much work a team can take on in a period, given holidays, meetings and other commitments.

Burndown chart

A chart of the work remaining over time. The line should reach zero by the end of the sprint.

Burnup chart

A chart of the work completed over time against the total scope, so changes in scope are visible.

Scrum

Scrum

A lightweight framework in which a small team delivers value in sprints, using defined accountabilities, events and artifacts.

Sprint

A timebox of one month or less in which a Scrum team creates a usable increment. A new sprint starts as soon as the last one ends.

Product Owner

The person accountable for maximizing the value of the product, mainly by managing and ordering the product backlog.

Scrum Master

The person accountable for the team's effectiveness with Scrum, by coaching the team and helping remove impediments.

Developers

In Scrum, the people on the team who create each increment, whatever their specialty.

Product backlog

The ordered list of everything that might be needed to improve the product. It is never complete.

Sprint backlog

The sprint goal, the backlog items chosen for the sprint, and the team's plan for delivering them.

Product goal

The long-term objective for the product that the Scrum team works toward.

Sprint goal

The single objective for a sprint, which gives the team focus and flexibility over the exact work.

Sprint planning

The event that starts a sprint, where the team decides why the sprint is valuable, what can be done and how.

Daily scrum (daily stand-up, stand-up)

A 15-minute daily event where the developers check progress toward the sprint goal and adjust their plan.

Sprint review

The event near the end of a sprint where the team shows stakeholders what was done and they agree what to do next.

Sprint retrospective (retro)

The event that ends a sprint, where the team looks at how it worked and picks improvements to make.

Impediment (blocker)

Anything that slows the team down or stops its progress.

Kanban and flow

Kanban

A method for managing the flow of work by making it visible on a board, limiting work in progress and improving continuously.

WIP limit (work in progress limit)

The most items allowed in a stage of the workflow at once, so work finishes before new work starts.

Pull system

A way of working where people pull the next item when they have capacity, instead of having work pushed onto them.

Lead time

The time from when a request is made until it is delivered.

Cycle time

The time from when work on an item starts until it is finished.

Throughput

The number of items finished in a period, such as stories per week.

Cumulative flow diagram (CFD)

A chart of how many items are in each stage over time. A band that keeps widening shows a bottleneck.

Scaling agile

SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework)

A framework for applying agile practices across many teams in a large organization.

Agile Release Train (ART)

In SAFe, a long-lived team of agile teams that plans, commits and delivers together.

PI planning (Program Increment planning, PI)

In SAFe, a regular event, usually every 8 to 12 weeks, where all the teams on a release train plan the next increment together.

Scrum of Scrums

A regular meeting where representatives from several Scrum teams coordinate work and dependencies.

SAFe® is a registered trademark of Scaled Agile, Inc. This glossary is independent and not endorsed by Scaled Agile.