Agile Glossary

10 Minute Build

When builds are slow, Developers wander off to do new things'

Acceptance Criteria

Team members collaborate to create examples that demonstrate expected behaviors

Agile

Agile is a mindset not a tool for greater speed

Agile Anti-Patterns

In software development work, a design pattern is a description of a solution to a

Agile Architects

Agile Architectural Patterns

Agile Architecture

Agile Architecture is about minimum amount of design upfront and maximum simplicity

Agile Business Intelligence

Business Intelligence (aka BI) is the dark art of extracting knowledge from a database in

Agile Contracts

Traditional fixed price, fixed outcome contracts don't fare well in an Agile world. The

Agile Documentation

Documentation isn't an oxymoron in Agile world. It does require a different approach

Agile Engineering Practices

Agile for Embedded Software

Embedded Software Development is about building software that is installed inside a device

Agile Game Development

**Agile Game Development** is different from classical software development. Building a

Agile Government

Agile is about adapting to changing requirements and needs. Governments, just like anyone

Agile Hardware

Agile approaches have taken over the world of software, because teams that deliver value

Agile Mainframe Development

Agile Outside of Software

In the over 20 years since the Agile Manifesto was written, we've seen Agile approaches

Agile Sales and Marketing

**Sales and Marketing** are challenged in the same way that software development was over

Agile Schools

Scrum in the world of work, allows teams to self-organize around a common goal (Delivering

Agile/Lean UX

Discover why traditional contracts don't work. Move beyond fixed-price, fixed-outcome agreements

Appreciative Inquiry

**Appreciative Inquiry** is an approach to team development and organizational change that

Approval Tests

ARC Motivational Model

**ARC motivation model** is part of Self Determination Theory, which shows there are two

Behaviour Driven Development [BDD]

**Behaviour Driven Development** (or BDD) is an approach that gets team members to

Bottlenecks

A **bottleneck** is a constraint that slows the delivery of value in our system. That is

Bugs

Burndowns

**Burndown charts** graph work remaining vs time. They were originally used for tracking

Business Analyst in Scrum

In traditional approaches, the **Business Analyst** gathers the requirements months or

Case Studies

Causal Loop Diagram

A **Causal Loop Diagram** is a visual representation and reference that helps to

Coaching

**Agile Coaching** is an ill-defined concept. Self-described "Agile Coaches" appeared in

Code Reviews

Traditional approaches put a lot of emphasis on **Code Inspection or Reviews** for finding

Code Smells

A **code smell** is a hint that something might be wrong in your codebase. A smell isn't

Collective Code Ownership

**Collective Code Ownership** is the premise that the whole team owns the code. Anyone on

Colocation

**Colocation** is when team members are in the same physical location so in-person

Community of Practice

**A Community of Practice (CoP)** is a group that brings people with a common cause or

Complexity and the Cynefin Framework

We encounter complexity whenever we're asked to estimate how long it will take to fix a

Continuous Delivery and Deployment

**Continuous Delivery** is the game of delivering features to Production whenever a change

Continuous Integration [CI]

In software development, **Continuous Integration** is the practice of merging all

Core Protocols

A set of **protocols** that can aid teams in improving communications

Cross-Functional Teams

In the Agile world a **cross-functional team** is one that has all the skills it requires

Cross-Skilling

**Cross-skilling** is where a team member decides (without being pushed) to learn a new

Cumulative Flow Diagram [CFD]

A **Cumulative Flow Diagram** is a visual summary of the information contained on the

Cycle Time

**Cycle Time** is the time it takes from the moment a team starts work on an item, until

Daily Scrum

The **Daily Scrum** is the daily meeting where the Scrum Team get ready to collaborate for

Decision Making Tools

Agile Teams need to make small decisions frequently. Widen your toolchain

Definition of Done

**Definition of Done** is the official checklist that Scrum Teams maintain of the

Definition of Ready

**Definition of Ready** is an agreement between the Product Owner and the team that

Dependencies

Developers

If you thought that ScrumMaster was a poorly named role in Scrum, check out

DevOps

**DevOps** (also now DevSecOps) is the practice of Development working more closely with

Distributed Teams

Diversity

**Diversity in Agile** helps reduce the risk of problems created through cognitive and

Dot Voting

**Dot voting** is a mechanism to help an Agile team select a single item from many or

Effective Teams

Calling a group of individuals a "team" is only a label, unless they're organized and

Empathy Map

**Empathy Maps** are a tool to help us record what we understand about our audience. The

Ensemble (formerly Mob) Programming

**Ensemble Programming** (formerly known as **Mob Programming**) is the logical extension

Estimation

An **estimate** is a qualified guess to help people make a decision about doing work. In

Extreme Programming

Facilitation

**Facilitation** is the art of helping a group of people reach agreement or understanding,

Failure Demand

"**Failure demand** is demand caused by a failure to do something or do something right

Failure Modes

Fake Agile

Agile's success is also its Achilles heel. Everyone wants to **do** Agile, but not

Feedback

Forecasting

**Forecasting** in the Agile world asks the difficult questions: How much of our product

Impact Mapping

**Impact Mapping** is a tool to help teams focus their work on the feature by identifying

Impediments

In the context of a Scrum team, _**anything that slows the team’s progress towards

Improvement Experiments

Agile teams attempt to use Retrospectives as a tool for Team Improvement. Yet our

Interruptions

Team members get interrupted throughout their working day. Some of the interruptions are

INVEST

**User Story Splitting** is the art of splitting User Stories or Product Backlog Items

Iterative and Incremental Development

**Iterative and Incremental Development** is fancy language for working in cycles and

Kanban

**Kanban** isn't just a board that you find in JIRA or Trello. It is a method to help

Large Scale Scrum

**LeSS, aka Large Scale Scrum.** The abbreviation leads to some good puns (do more with

Lean Software Development

Lean Startup

**Lean Startup** is a way for a group of people with a product idea to test it with the

Lean Startup Experiments

A core concept of Lean Startup is that we need to validate aspects of your product or

Legacy Code and Systems

Legacy code is often described as code checked into the system without a unit test. A

Liberating Structures

**Liberating Structures** are tools that create balance in self-organization, which is at

Metrics and Measurement

**Metrics** are the tools we use (and misuse) to help us understand how we're evolving.

Minimum Viable Product [MVP]

MVP Is not Minimum Crappy Feature. It is a learning tool'

Morale

Team health checks have been popular in the Agile Community for years. Getting people to

Motivation

Traditional approaches in the workplace assume that there is a strong linkage between

Multitasking

Buried in most job ads is the phrase "Looking for a great multitasker". Too bad they don't

Niko-Niko

Niko-Niko calendars are used to track mood, energy, happiness, etc, but not everyone

Onboarding

**Onboarding** is a term to describe introducing a newly-hired person into an

Organizational Structure

It's strange to start becoming Agile and assume that **Organizational Structure** won't

Pair Programming

**Pair Programming** is when two people write code together on one machine. This

Part-time Team Members

People should be dedicated to one and only one team. The science of team work shows this

Persona

A **Persona** is a fictional character created to represent a group of users of a product.

Personal README

Github style READMEs can be turned to personal use. A Personal README, aka Personal

Portfolio Management

Agile **Portfolio Management** is a tool for a group of teams that have too many major

Prioritization

Product Backlog

The **Product Backlog** is an ordered list of all the work items or value the Product

Product Backlog Refinement

**Product Backlog Refinement** (formerly known as "Product Backlog Grooming") is a session

Product Owner Role

**"The Product Owner** owns the product that the team is building." “The Product Owner is

Production Support

When a team has a product that is live in the field, they need a pattern to handle the

Project vs. Product

Psychological Safety

**Psychological safety** is about being part of a team and knowing that you can share

Pull Requests

Pull Requests are a proposal to merge a set of changes from one branch to another. They

Quality Assurance in Scrum

In traditional approaches, the **QA, Tester, or Quality Assurance** tests the work of

Refactoring

**Refactoring** is the process of restructuring existing code without changing its

Resource Utilization Trap

In many organizations, the people who do the work are treated like economic resources

Roadmaps and Strategy

In traditional approaches, a **Roadmap** is a list of dates and promises that are being

Safety Check

A team **safety check** is a way of understanding the team’s readiness to be open and

Scaled Agile Framework

**Scaled Agile Framework**, aka SAFe, is probably the least Agile approach to getting many

Scaling and Large Teams

When attempting to get many teams to work effectively together in an Agile world, we need

SCARF Model

Carrot and Stick doesn't work. Take the time to understand what does motivate people and you can build a better team.

Scrum

**Scrum** is an _approach_ to applying the Agile mindset. Scrum is a way of organizing a

Scrum Team

The **Scrum Team** is all of the people needed to get the product built and into the

Scrum vs Kanban

**Scrum** is a tool that organizes a team to deliver value to a customer. Along the way,

ScrumMaster Anti-Patterns

An Anti-Pattern is a recurring pattern that frequently shows up, where the behaviour

ScrumMaster Role

The **ScrumMaster** is one of the more poorly-named aspects of Scrum. The intended meaning

Scrummerfall

Security in Scrum

How do we build Secure products in Scrum? In a world where the development team deliver

Self-Organization

A self-organizing team is one where team members make all relevant decisions on how to

Self-Selecting Teams

The default assumption when creating a new team is that the management and team leads will

Servant Leadership

**Servant leadership** is the act of leading through service to others. Okay, so how does

Slack

**Slack**, in the context of Agile/Scrum, is when the time isn't solely focused on

Special Teams

Sometimes organizations form **Special Teams** assigned to tackle technical bugs or other

Spotify Model

The "**Spotify Model**" is often misunderstood and misapplied in organizations. It

Sprint

A **Sprint** is a fixed period, ranging from one week to one month in length, during which

Sprint Backlog

Sprint Goal

**Sprint Goal** is a single product objective shared by the Scrum Team that describes the

Sprint Length

The ScrumGuide says that Sprints "are fixed length events of one month or less to create

Sprint Planning

**Sprint Planning** is an event at the beginning of a Sprint where the Team plans the

Sprint Retrospective

Sprint Review and Retrospective are often confused. The Sprint Review is focused on the

Sprint Review

**Sprint Review** is an event at the end of the Sprint where the Scrum Team review the

Stable Teams

**A stable team** is one in which team membership doesn’t change often and, instead, is

Story Mapping

A **Story Map** is a way to help visualize the flow or story of a product. Across the top

Swarming

If Pair Programming is two people working together on a single problem at the same time

Systems Thinking

**Systems Thinking** takes the view that any problem we're working on is part of a larger,

TDD vs BDD

Test Driven Development \[TDD\] and Behaviour Driven Development \[BDD\] are often

Team Formation Models

**Team Formation Models** are helpful in understanding what state a team is at, and then

Team Launch

The purpose of the team launch or liftoff is to help the team move from a group of

Team Size

The Scrum Guide offers very limited guidance, suggesting 3-9 people per team (exclusive of

Tech Debt Stories

Debt stories tend to backfire, growing more debt instead of reducing it

Technical Debt

**Technical Debt** is a deeply misunderstood term. It was originally coined at the

Test Driven Development [TDD]

**Test Driven Development (TDD)** is the engineering practice where the developer writes

Testing

**Agile Testing** is "collaborative testing practices that occur continuously, from

Theory of Constraints

The **Theory of Constraints** is a system improvement tool. It illustrates how in a system

Trunk Based Development

Git, Mercurial and other **source control** tools provide robust and easy to use

Unit Testing

**Unit Testing** is an approach to test small, isolated chunks of code that prove whether

User Story

In Scrum, a **User Story** is a tool used to provoke, and then summarize, a conversation

User Story Splitting

**User Story Splitting** is the art of splitting User Stories or Product Backlog Items

Vision

Effective Product Vision that inspires teams beyond PowerPoint presentations. Meaningful vision comes from collaboration

When to Use Scrum

Work in Progress

In Scrum, **Work in Progress** is the batch of User Stories or Product Backlog Items that

Work Week

Our modern work week of five days on and two days off is nothing more than an accident of

Working Agreements

A **Working Agreement** is a short set of guidelines created by the Team, for the Team,

Zoom Fatigue

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we learned the hard way that being on Zoom, or any other