Agile Glossary

Product Owner - This person is the one with the vision of what you are going to do, make, or accomplish. They take into account risks and rewards, what is possible, what can be done, and what the team is passionate about.

Team - The people with the skills to complete the project. Teams should be small, 3 to 9 people is the rule of thumb.

Scrum Master - This is the person who will coach the rest of the team through the scrum framework, and help the team eliminate anything that is slowing them down.

Product Backlog - This is a list at a high level of everything that needs to be built or done to make that vision a reality. This backlog exists and evolves over the lifetime of the product; is the the roadmap. At any point, the Product Backlog is the definitive view of "everything that could be done by the team ever, in order of priority." Only a single Product Backlog exists; this means the Product Owner is required to make prioritization decisions across the entire spectrum. The Product Owner should consult with all stakeholdesr and the team to make sure they are representing both what people want and what can be done.

Sprint Planning - This is the first of the Scrum meetings. The team, the Scrum Master, the Product Owner sit down to plan the Sprint. Sprints are always a fixed length of time that is either one week or two weeks.

Velocity - The rate at which the team can predictably work, calculated by the number of work items/sprint.

Daily Standup - The heartbeat of Scrum. Each day, at the same time, for no more than 15 minutes, the team and Scrum master meet and answer three questions:

1) What did you do yesterday to help the team finish the Sprint? 2) What will you do today to help the team finish the Sprint? 3) Is there any obstacle blocking you or the team from achieving the Sprint Goal?

Sprint Review - This is the meeting where the team shows what they have accomplished during the Sprint. Anyone can come, not only the Product Owner, the Scrum Master, and the team, but stakeholders, clients, whoever. This is an open meeting where the team demonstrates what they were able to move to Done during the Sprint.

Definition of Done - What is totally finished and can be delivered without any more work.

Sprint Retrospective - After the team has shown what they've accomplished during the last Sprint, they sit down and think about what went right, and what could have gone better, and what could be made better in the next Sprint.