Agile terminology - 25 must know terms

Acceptance Testing

Is a formal description of the behavior of a software product, generally expressed as an example or a usage scenario.

Backlog

Is a list of the new features, changes to existing features, bug fixes, infrastructure changes or other activities that a team may deliver in order to achieve a specific outcome.

Backlog Grooming

When the product owner and some, or all, of the rest of the team refine the backlog on a regular basis to ensure the backlog contains the appropriate items, that they are prioritized, and that the items at the top of the backlog are ready for delivery.

Burndown Chart

To track the amount of output (in terms of hours, story points, or backlog items) a team has completed across an iteration or a project.

Daily (Scrum) Meeting

Is one of the most commonly practiced Agile techniques and presents opportunity for a team to get together on a regular basis to coordinate their activities.

Definition of Done

Is an agreed upon list of the activities deemed necessary to get a product increment, usually represented by a user story, to a done state by the end of a sprint.

Epic

A large user story that cannot be delivered as defined within a single iteration or is large enough that it can be split into smaller user stories.

Incremental Development

Is when each successive version of a product is usable, and each builds upon the previous version by adding user-visible functionality.

Integration

Refers to any efforts still required for a project team to deliver a product suitable for release as a functional whole.

Kanban

Is a means to design, manage, and improve flow systems for knowledge work. The method also allows organizations to start with their existing workflow and drive evolutionary change. They can do this by visualizing their flow of work, limit work in progress (WIP) and stop starting and start finishing.

Lead Time

Is the time between a customer order and delivery. In software development, it can also be the time between a requirement made and its fulfillment.

Minimum Marketable Feature (MMF)

Is a small, self-contained feature that can be developed quickly and that delivers significant value to the user.

Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

Is the “version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort.”

Personas

Synthetic biographies of fictitious users of the future product.

Product Owner

Is a role created by the Scrum Framework responsible for making sure the team delivers the desired outcome.

Retrospective

Is a meeting that's held at the end of an iteration in Agile software development (ASD). During the retrospective, the team reflects on what happened in the iteration and identifies actions for improvement going forward.

Scrum

Is a process framework used to manage product development and other knowledge work.

Scrum Master

Is responsible for ensuring the team lives agile values and principles and follows the practices that the team agreed they would use.

Scrum Team

Is a collection of individuals working together to deliver the requested and committed product increments.

Sprint

Is a short, time-boxed period when a scrum team works to complete a set amount of work.

Sprint Planning

Is an event that occurs at the beginning of a sprint where the team determines the product backlog items they will work on during that sprint.

Sprint Review

Is an informal meeting which the development team, the scrum master, the product owner and the stakeholders will attend. The team gives a demo on the product and will determine what are finished and what aren't.

Task Board

Visualisation tool where
tasks are divided into three columns labeled “To Do,” “In Progress,” and “Done.” Cards are placed in the columns to reflect the current status of that task.

User Stories

In consultation with the customer or product owner, the team divides up the work to be done into functional increments.

User Story Template

Is one of the most commonly recommended aids to write user stories: As a … I want … So that …