Agile glossary of frequently used terms.

In this article, we will have a look at the most frequently used Agile terms that we come across while working in an agile environment.

Scrum

Scrum is an agile software development methodology. It is an iterative and incremental methodology. Projects progress via series of iterations called sprints which are usually 2-4 weeks long.

Sprint

A Sprint is a basic time-boxed unit in Scrum. Scrum team has between 5-10 people but scrum projects can easily scale into hundreds.

Product Backlog

A prioritized and estimated list of all outstanding Product/Project

Requirements
Features
Defects
Epics
User stories
Tasks
Other work items.

Backlog in Jira Agile Dashboard

Please find below the sample agile process of a 4-week sprint in the below figure:

AgileProcess_ScrumTeam

Daily Scrum

It is a brief communication and planning held daily in which scrum team members come together to evaluate the health and progress toward completing their sprint commitments.

Each scrum member tells the rest of the Team:

1. What they completed since the last daily standup?
2. What they plan to complete until the next daily standup?
3.Any impediments, or items standing in their way from completing intended work?

Burndown chart

A simple graphical representation of “Work Remaining” versus “Time Remaining”. As a result, the graph acts as an effective tool for communicating progress.to meet product/project delivery expectations

Velocity:

Velocity = the number of story points a single dedicated scrum team can complete within a single sprint. Oh my! we are NOT talking about Physics vector here 🙂

It is used to measure and predict the number of story points a single dedicated scrum team can complete within a single sprint.Also, it is based on relative story point estimation, static teams, and fixed time-boxed sprints.

It is a predictive metric that is useful for long-term planning and estimation.

Spikes

Spikes are generally created and used for activities like investigation, exploring, research etc. Also, it is used to remove risk and uncertainty in a user story. Therefore, in most cases spikes are created and worked upon to mitigate risk, understanding requirements, determine the best direction for implementing a feature, gaining more knowledge etc.

Retrospective

The retrospective is a regular meeting session usually held at the end of each sprint. where the scrum team along with scrum master and product owner discusses on the following items: