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Agile glossary

by agilekrc
Look up Agile terms using this detailed Agile glossary.
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Agile glossary

A B C D E F G H I K L M N O P Q R S T U V W

Absolute estimation
An approach to estimation using fixed units of time, such as hours, days, or weeks, often compared with relative estimation methods.
Acceptance criteria
Standards used to assess the completeness and functionality of a developed feature.
Acceptance Test Driven Development (ATDD)
A collaborative method where team members with varying expertise (customer, development, testing) develop acceptance tests before implementing the corresponding functionality.
Acceptance testing
A testing process that confirms whether a software product behaves as expected, often defined through examples or usage scenarios.
Adaptation
Refers to changes made by a team in response to insights gained during the inspection phase, one of the three pillars of empiricism.
Adaptive approach
A strategy contrasting with predictive methods that incorporates flexibility and responsiveness to changes.
Agile
A product development approach that emphasises incremental and iterative delivery.
Agile champions
Proponents within an organisation who promote and facilitate the adoption of Agile practices.
Agile development
A collection of iterative software development methodologies, including Scrum, Lean, DSDM, and eXtreme Programming (XP).
Agile iteration
A concise time frame, usually one to two weeks, in which a team focuses on refining a process to enhance its effectiveness, and on delivering value to the customer through a working prototype.
Agile Manifesto
Outlines the four foundational values of Agile development: preference for individuals and interactions, working software, customer collaboration, and responding to change.
Agile mindset
A flexible and adaptive way of thinking that embraces quick response to change and fosters Agile practices.
Agile principle
The twelve guiding principles conceived alongside the Agile Manifesto in 2001 that inform Agile practices and behaviours.
Agile Release Train (ART)
In the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), a group of Agile teams that collaboratively develops and delivers solutions.
Agile Release Train Engineer (RTE)
In the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), the role of a servant leader and coach for the Agile Release Train.
Agile software development
A method of software creation where small, self-organising teams use close collaboration and short delivery cycles to enhance development efficiency and reduce costs.
Agile transformation
The transition of an organisation’s culture and processes from traditional methodologies to those based on Agile principles.
Agile values
The core values listed in the Agile Manifesto, introduced in 2001 when the Agile movement was formally initiated.
Agile working group
A group within an organisation that champions Agile methods, assisting in the change process and removing obstacles. Also referred to as Agile Champions.
Anti-pattern
Ineffective recurring solutions to problems that often lead to negative consequences.
Artifacts
In Scrum, these are the tools that aid team development, including Product Backlog, Sprint Backlog and Increment.
Automated build
The process of transforming files and other assets into a software product without human intervention, based solely on information in the version control repository.
Automated test
Within eXtreme Programming (XP), these are function-level tests that are executed automatically upon code integration or at scheduled intervals.

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Backlog
Work items that have been prioritised but are yet to be completed.
Backlog grooming
The ongoing process of reviewing and prioritising backlog items to ensure they are ready for delivery.
Backlog refinement
See backlog grooming.
Batch size reduction
Decreasing the size of work items to improve flow through the system, reducing risks and accelerating feedback and learning.
Behavior Driven Development (BDD)
A practice where team discussions around the expected behaviour of a system lead to a mutual understanding of the required functionality.
Bottleneck
A point in a process or operation that limits capacity and consequently reduces the overall throughput.
Burndown chart
A burndown chart is a graphical representation showing the volume of work completed over time during a project iteration or the entire project.
Burnup chart
A burnup chart is used to illustrate progress by displaying the cumulative amount of work completed in the context of the total amount of work.
Business agility
The capability of an organisation to quickly adapt to internal or external changes to deliver value to its customers.
Business value
The perceived benefits and importance of a feature or backlog item from a customer’s perspective.

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Cadence
The duration of a Sprint or release cycle, defining the rhythm of the team’s development efforts.
Capacity
An estimate of the volume of work that an Agile team can undertake considering the available team members and workdays.
Ceremonies
Agile ceremonies are meetings, such as daily planning, that outline completed tasks, upcoming work, and potential obstacles.
Ceremony
Any of a variety of routine proceedings in Agile methodology, typically involving status checking and planning.
Collective code ownership
The principle that code may be edited by any team member to add functionality, repair defects, or refactor code, thereby eliminating bottlenecks.
Collective ownership
The shared agreement that all team members have the authority to modify any part of the codebase as needed. See collective code ownership.
Collocated team
Teams that work in physical proximity to one another in the same location.
Communities of practice
Groups with shared interests collaborating to exchange knowledge and address common challenges, often used in Agile during the transition to cross-functional teams.
Continuous deployment
The practice of deploying every qualifying change to production, thereby reducing the time between code creation and its use by end-users.
Continuous delivery
Continuous delivery is the discipline of reliably and repeatedly pushing out enhancements and bug fixes to customers at a high frequency.
Continuous integration
Continuous integration is the practice of frequently merging code changes into a central repository to ensure a product can be released at any time.
Continuous everything
A DevOps concept that emphasises the automation of various stages including testing, staging, and deployment to enhance agility.
COD – Cost of Delay
The potential loss incurred by failing to deliver market value at the optimal time.
Cumulative Flow Diagram (CFD)
A visual representation of the various stages of work items, commonly associated with Kanban.
Cycle time
The duration required for a team to complete a work item from the commencement of work to delivery to the customer.

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DAD (Disciplined Agile Delivery)
A framework for making process-related decisions in Agile development.
Daily Scrum
A brief team meeting in the Scrum framework focusing on work done, upcoming tasks, and current roadblocks.
Daily standup
See Daily Scrum.
Definition of Done
A checklist of criteria a Product Increment must satisfy to be considered complete at the end of a Sprint.
Definition of Ready
Clear criteria that backlog items must meet to be deemed ready for inclusion in an upcoming iteration, often based on the INVEST matrix.
Dependency
A requirement for one team’s output that is contingent on another team’s involvement or delivery.
Developers
In the Scrum framework, developers are team members who are collectively responsible for creating a usable Product Increment each Sprint.
DevOps
DevOps is an approach that integrates the development team’s activities with IT operations to enable continuous delivery.
Disciplined Agile
An Agile decision-making toolkit created by Scott Ambler and Mark Lines, later acquired by the Project Management Institute (PMI).
Distributed teams
Teams that work remotely or are geographically dispersed.
DSDM (Dynamic Systems Development Method)
DSDM is an Agile method of software development that evolved into the DSDM project management framework.

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Emergence
The process through which new developments or knowledge suddenly come to light or gain prominence unexpectedly.
Empirical process control
A control method that emphasises regular review and adaptation based on the outcomes observed from the process itself, often contrasted with planned, predictive approaches.
Empiricism
A decision-making approach that relies on observation, experimentation, and experience rather than theoretical speculation. Empiricism is underpinned by transparency, inspection, and adaptation.
Epic
An epic is a substantial user story that is too large to be completed in a single iteration or can be subdivided into smaller, more manageable user stories.
Estimation
The process of evaluating the amount of effort required to fulfil a particular development task, commonly expressed in units of time.
Estimation points
A unit of measurement used by Agile teams to express the size and complexity of tasks or user stories, often referred to as ‘story points’.
Exploratory testing
An approach to software testing that emphasises simultaneous learning, test design, and execution, as opposed to following predefined test scripts.
Extreme Programming (XP)
An Agile software development methodology that focuses on enhancing the quality of software and the quality of life for the development team, prescribing specific engineering practices.

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Facilitation
The role or act of guiding a group through a process or meeting to ensure effective participation and achieve desired outcomes.
Feature Driven Development (FDD)
Feature Driven Development (FDD) is a Agile software development framework centered on progress tracking through ‘features’, akin to user stories.
Feature team
An Agile team equipped with all the necessary skills to deliver customer requirements directly, without dependencies on other teams.
Fibonacci sequence
A sequence of numbers where each number is the sum of the two preceding ones, commonly used in Agile estimation (e.g., 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, …).
Flow metrics
Measurements used to gauge the delivery rate of business value in software products, viewed from the customer perspective.
Frequent releases
The practice in Agile of regularly releasing the product to end-users and incorporating their feedback.

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Given – When – Then
A template pattern for framing acceptance tests for a user story, involving specifying the context (Given), the action (When), and the expected outcome (Then).

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Heartbeat retrospective
A recurring meeting where the team reflects on significant events since the last meeting and identifies improvement opportunities.

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Incremental development
An approach in which each new version of a product is functional and enhances the previous version by adding discernible features.
Information radiators
Displays placed in a prominent location to provide team members with up-to-date information at a glance.
Integration
The process or actions required to combine project components and deliver a cohesive product ready for release.
INVEST
A set of quality criteria for user stories ensuring they are Independent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimable, Small, and Testable.
Iteration
An iteration is a fixed timeframe during which development occurs, which can vary in length from project to project.
Iterative development
Iterative development is an approach where software development activities are repeated, and work products may be revised, accommodating planned rework like refactoring.
Impediment
Any obstacle that reduces the team’s efficiency or hinders their goal achievement.
Increment
In Scrum, the subset of the product that has been delivered by the team at the end of a Sprint that provides added value.
Information refrigerators
A display or repository of team information that isn’t readily visible and requires effort to uncover, often within an online tool.
Inspection
The systematic review of progress towards agreed product and Sprint goals, forming the second pillar of empiricism.
Integration testing
A level of software testing where developers verify that individual units work cohesively to achieve the intended outcomes.

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Kaizen
A Japanese term meaning ‘good change’, synonymous with the concept of continuous improvement in lean and Agile methodologies.
Kanban
Kanban is a method for managing and improving work processes in knowledge work environments by visualising the workflow, limiting work in progress, and aiming to finish work before starting new tasks.
Kanban board
A Kanban board is a visual tool representing a workflow, usually segmented into columns to show different stages of the process.

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Lead time
The interval from the initiation of a process, such as a customer placing an order, to its completion, for instance, product delivery. In software, it refers to the period between a requirement request and its fulfilment.
Lean
Lean is a methodology aimed at reducing waste and non-value-adding activities, thereby delivering greater value to customers.
Lean software development
Lean software development is an Agile methodology that focuses on the efficient use of resources and time, eradicating waste and ensuring delivery aligns with the precise needs of the product.
Lean thinking
An approach to organisational activities that seeks to deliver more societal benefits and value to individuals while cutting out wasteful practices.
LeSS (Large-scale Scrum)
LeSS is an approach to scaling Agile development for multiple teams working together on a single product.

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Mad Sad Glad
A retrospective technique that aids in understanding the emotional well-being of the team, encouraging a positive work environment by exploring team members’ feelings and addressing their concerns.
Milestone retrospective
An in-depth examination conducted by a team to discuss and learn from the significant occurrences that have taken place during a project or at its conclusion.
Minimum Marketable Feature (MMF)
The smallest set of functionality within a product that still delivers significant value to the user and can be developed swiftly.
Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
The most basic iteration of a new product that enables a team to gather the maximum amount of validated customer learning with the least effort.
Mob programming
A collaborative approach to software development where the entire team works on the same task, at the same time, in the same space, using a single computer.
Mock objects
Simulated objects that mimic the behaviour of actual software components within a testing environment, commonly used to support automated unit testing.

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Nexus
A framework for scaling Scrum that accommodates up to nine Scrum teams working from a single Product Backlog to deliver an integrated product.

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Open space
An approach to collaboration that brings together individuals to co-create their own learning experiences with just enough structure to maintain progress.

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Pair programming
A technique in which two programmers work together at one workstation, with one ‘driver’ writing code and the ‘navigator’ reviewing each line of code as it is typed.
Personas
Fictional characters created to represent different user types that might use a product in a similar way.
Planning Poker
Planning Poker is a consensus-based estimating technique where team members use cards with numerical values to represent their estimation of effort for user stories.
Product Owner
A Product Owner is the team member who is accountable for managing the Product Backlog and ensuring the team delivers value in line with the product goals.
Project chartering
The creation of a document that provides a high-level overview of a project’s objectives, constraints, and critical success factors, often displayed openly for the team.
Pairing
Extension of pair programming practices to other roles and activities beyond development, where two individuals work together on the same task.
Participatory decision-making
A democratic process where all group members contribute to making decisions that effectively address shared challenges.
Product Backlog item
An element within the Product Backlog representing a feature, enhancement, or requirement necessary for product development.
Product Backlog refinement
An ongoing process of breaking down and clarifying Product Backlog items into smaller, more precise work increments. See backlog grooming.
Product roadmap
A strategic overview that outlines the vision, direction, and progress of a product over time, generally spanning several quarters.
Program Increment Planning (PI Planning)
A method used for coordinating multiple interdependent teams as they plan a deliverable increment of work, also called Big Room Planning.
Pull system
A lean production strategy that focuses on demand-driven movement of resources through the production process, minimising inventory and waste.
Product manager
Product managers focus on external market factors and customer needs and are responsible for the vision, strategic goals, and high-level planning of a product.

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Queue
A temporary storage space for items awaiting the next step in a workflow process. Agile teams aim to reduce queues by minimising batch sizes and addressing bottlenecks.
Quick design session
A collaborative meeting where developers gather to make design decisions, particularly when simple design choices have significant implications.

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Refactoring
Enhancing an existing codebase’s internal structure without modifying its external functionality.
Relative estimation
An Agile estimation approach where tasks or user stories are evaluated in relation to one another instead of through absolute units of time.
Release
The process of delivering a product or solution incrementally; internal releases are for use within the organisation, while external releases are distributed to customers.
Release plan
An Agile planning document outlining the expected work items and iterations required to deliver a product release.
Release Train (RT)
Equivalent to the Agile Release Train in SAFe, coordinating multiple teams’ releases.
Retrospective
A retrospective is a meeting occurring at the end of every Sprint where the team collaborates to pinpoint and prioritise actions to enhance their process.
RAD (Rapid Application Development)
An Agile development approach which facilitates rapid solution-building through direct communication with end-users to satisfy business requirements.
Ready
Similar to the Definition of Done, this is a checklist some teams utilise to ensure backlog items can commence and conclude within the same Sprint.
Requirements
Captured as ‘stories’, these are compiled into a prioritised list known as the ‘Backlog’.
Rules of simplicity
A set of guidelines designed by Kent Beck to determine whether code is sufficiently simple.

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SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework enterprise)
SAFe is an Agile methodology conceived for applying Agile practices and principles to software development at scale.
Scaled Agile
Extending Agile practices to large projects or programmes, for example, through multiple sub-projects or tranches of projects.
Scaling
Scaling is the act of applying established team-based Agile approaches like Scrum and Kanban to larger groups.
Scrum
Scrum is a framework used for managing product development and other knowledge work, based on empirical evidence gathered through experimentation and adjustment.
Scrum artifact
In Scrum, artifacts are designed to maximize transparency of key information so that everybody has the same understanding. Scrum defines three artifacts: Product Backlog, Sprint Backlog, Product Increment.
Scrum board
A Scrum board is a visual tool depicting the work progress of an ongoing Sprint, with items typically displayed across various workflow stages.
Scrum Event
A Scrum event is a formal occasion for evaluating and amending Scrum artifacts. Scrum events include: the Sprint itself, Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum, Scrum Review, Scrum Retrospective.
Scrum Master
The Scrum Master role is tasked with ensuring the team honours Agile values and follows the processes and practices that have been agreed upon.
Scrum of Scrums
A Scrum of Scrums is a method for scaling Scrum to larger groups by structuring them into smaller Agile teams.
Scrum pillars
The three pillars of Scrum support its empirical framework, which is based on empiricism or empirical process control. The three pillars are: transparency, inspection, adaptation.
Scrum team
A Scrum team is a self-organising, cross-functional group responsible for delivering the Product Backlog items, encompassing all skills necessary to deliver end-to-end functionality. A Scrum team includes one Product Owner, one Scrum Master, and between 3-7 Developers.
Scrum values
Scrum values are the principles that guide the Scrum Team’s actions and behaviours, including Commitment, Focus, Openness, Respect, and Courage.
Scrumban
Scrumban is a hybrid framework that combines elements of Scrum and Kanban methods.
Self-organisation
The process of enabling teams to manage their own workload and progress without external assignment or tracking.
Sign up for tasks
A process where members of an Agile development team voluntarily select tasks to work on, rather than assignments being handed down by management.
Simple design
Adherence to a set of principles that guide a team’s software design strategy towards simplicity.
Spike
A type of user story aimed at conducting research or building a technical proof of concept, typically time-boxed to a short duration.
Sprint
A Sprint is a predetermined, fixed period of time during which a Scrum team works to complete selected items from the Product Backlog.
Sprint Backlog
A Sprint Backlog is a selection of Product Backlog items chosen by the team to focus on during a Sprint, representing the work required to achieve the Sprint goal.
Sprint Goal
The primary objective set for a Sprint that provides value and context to the stakeholders.
Sprint Planning
Sprint Planning is a Scrum event that kick-starts the Sprint by determining the scope of work to be undertaken throughout the Sprint.
Sprint Retrospective
A Sprint Retrospective is a meeting to reflect on the recently concluded Sprint, identifying lessons learned to encourage continuous improvement.
Sprint Review
A Sprint Review is a Scrum event conducted at the end of a Sprint where the Increment is reviewed and stakeholders provide feedback.
Stakeholder
Individuals either within or outside the organisation who have a vested interest in the success or failure of a project.
Story mapping
An exercise in which user stories are arranged based on the sequence of activities and implementation sophistication.
Story points
Story points are estimation units used by some Agile teams to appraise the effort required to complete Product Backlog items.
Story splitting
The act of decomposing a user story into smaller, independent stories, each retaining its own measurable business value.
Sustainable pace
A working pace that a team could maintain indefinitely without detriment to performance or quality.
System testing
A stage in software testing ensuring overall system functionality in the intended deployment environment.

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Task
A constituent of Product Backlog items representing the specific actions necessary for their completion, as defined during Sprint Planning.
Task board
A physical or digital visualisation of the work and its stages used by Agile teams to track progress and organise workload.
Test-Driven Development (TDD)
Test-Driven Development incorporates a cycle of writing tests, production code, and design, resulting in reduced defect rates and better code quality.
Technical debt
The future cost incurred from code that is quick to implement in the short term but may be inefficient and costly to amend or extend.
Team
A small, dedicated group of individuals who work together on the same project, typically full-time.
Team room
A private space allocated to a project team for the duration of the project, away from external disturbances.
The Three C’s
A concept encapsulating the idea of ‘Card, Conversation, Confirmation’, highlighting the social dynamic of user stories.
Three Questions
A framework of three questions used to structure daily meetings: What has been completed? What is next? What is impeding progress?
Timebox
A timebox is a predetermined period dedicated to achieving a particular goal, with a focus on steady progression towards task completion. A Sprint is an example of a timebox.
Timeboxing
A technique used to allocate a fixed unit of time for a given activity, thereby helping Agile Scrum teams define, organise, and manage their work.
Transparency
One of the fundamental Scrum pillars is transparency, which ensures all aspects of the project are visible, open for inspection, and not obscured from scrutiny.

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User story
A user story is a representation of a business need formulated in everyday language, specifying the user, their requirement, and the reason.
User story mapping
Arranging user stories in a visual representation to outline user interactions with a product.
User story template
A framework for writing user stories typically following the pattern: ‘As a [role], I want [feature], so that [reason].’

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Value stream map
A tool from Lean methodology used to visualise and analyse the flow of processes to identify and address inefficiencies.
Value stream mapping
Creating a detailed visual representation of the steps involved in a workflow to facilitate improvement.
Velocity
In Agile, velocity is a metric that quantifies the total effort estimates associated with user stories completed in an iteration.
Version control
A system that records changes to a file or set of files over time, enabling collaboration and continuous integration in Agile practices.

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Wait time
In Lean methodology, the duration in a process where items are inert, adding no value as they await further action.
Waterfall
Waterfall is a linear project management methodology characterised by sequential phases and comprehensive upfront requirements gathering, contrasting with Agile approaches.
Work in progress (WIP)
Refers to the number of task increments currently under development by an engineering team. WIP limits may be employed by Agile teams using Kanban to concentrate on a fewer number of tasks at any one time.

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