Agile dictionary
Agile software development is not a single methodology — it is a grouping of many different methodologies and frameworks. Kanban, scrum, lean, The Aha! Framework for product development, and similar approaches all fall within this category. What do they have in common? A commitment to adaptive planning, iterative development, and continuous improvement.
This dictionary provides a list of agile-related keywords and their definitions to help you better understand these terms and concepts.
A
acceptance criteria | Requirements that must be met for a specific item in the product backlog to be considered complete. Acceptance criteria is helpful for estimating the time and resources needed during sprint planning. Note that although they seem similar, acceptance criteria is different from definition of ready. |
acceptance testing | The fourth stage of software testing, when developers validate that the software addresses users' needs and problems (see also: unit testing, integration testing, and system testing) |
A flexible product development model that blends upfront strategic planning with rapid delivery, helping organizations achieve value-first product development Related: | |
Agile Manifesto | A guiding document that defines agile values and principles for how software development teams should approach their work — with a focus on collaboration, adaptability, and incremental delivery. Related: |
Agile Release Train (ART) | A group of agile teams that work in tandem to deliver incremental value at a set cadence. ARTs are part of the team structure defined in the Scaled Agile Framework® (SAFe®). |
A collection of software development methodologies and frameworks that promote an iterative approach and continuous delivery. Agile teams work in short increments with frequent release cycles. Related: | |
Agnostic Agile | An approach that emphasizes agile principles without being tied to any specific agile framework or methodology. |
artifacts | A scrum term denoting items that represent work to be done to deliver value against the product goal. Scrum artifacts include the product backlog, sprint backlog, and increments. |
B
A list of work items. In scrum, there are two backlogs: the product backlog and the sprint backlog. Related: | |
The process of adding detail and estimates to items in a backlog. During backlog refinement (or "backlog grooming"), large items may be broken down into smaller units. | |
A visual graphic showing work against time. Scrum teams use burndown charts as a reporting tool to understand progress within a sprint. | |
burnup chart | A visual graphic showing the amount of work that has been completed during a sprint. Scrum teams use burnup charts to track progress toward a sprint goal and ensure work falls within the sprint's scope. |
C
A measurement of the amount of work that can be completed during a sprint. Capacity is based on the number of hours an individual or a team has available to complete work during a given sprint. | |
continuous delivery | A DevOps practice that helps teams keep code in a deployable state by automating processes to build, test, and deploy code to an acceptance environment |
continuous deployment | A DevOps practice that represents end-to-end automation of building, testing, staging, and code-deployment processes |
continuous everything | A DevOps principle that helps teams increase agility through automating testing, staging, and deployment processes. It encompasses the practices of continuous integration, continuous delivery, and continuous deployment. |
continuous integration | A DevOps practice that helps teams automate, build, and test processes so they always have code ready for deployment |
Crystal | A collection of agile approaches that can be adapted to any project or software development team, emphasizing the need for custom processes. |
D
A daily standup is one of the five main scrum events. It is a quick meeting with the scrum team to review the day's work, assess progress, and capture any roadblocks. | |
definition of done | An organization's formal definition of when an increment of work meets the quality measures required for release (also referred to as "DoD") |
definition of ready | An organization's formal definition of quality (also referred to as "DoR"). Once an item reaches DoR, it becomes an increment. |
dependency | An event, collaboration, or piece of work that relies on involvement from another team (or multiple). Dependencies must be completed in order for an agile team to finish a sprint item. Related: |
Engineers who complete work during a sprint. Developers, who typically work in groups of three to nine people, are responsible for all aspects of delivering a working and tested increment. | |
DevOps | An approach to software delivery that promotes deep collaboration between development and operations. DevOps focuses on automation and a shortened systems development lifecycle. |
E
A large body of work that describes major areas of functionality. An epic is typically delivered across multiple releases. | |
A prediction made by the scrum team about the amount of effort it will take to complete an increment of work, often measured in user story points or time | |
Extreme Programming (XP) | A software development methodology that promotes collaboration and transparency. It involves sitting together, pair programming, test-first programming, continuous integration, collective ownership, and incremental design. |
F
FAST agile | A lightweight framework aimed at scaling agile in large organizations. It emphasizes networks of self-organizing teams over rigid hierarchies. |
Fibonacci sequence | A numerical sequence where each number is the sum of the previous two (e.g., 1, 2, 3, 5, 8). It is often used in agile estimations to assign story points. |
framework (agile) | An approach to agile software development that emphasizes moving quickly and iteratively. Some of the popular frameworks include kanban, scrum, and lean development. Recently, we released our own: The Aha! Framework for product development. Related: |
I
increment | A scrum artifact that defines the value that will be delivered to customers upon completing a sprint. Increments typically build on each other and are stepping stones to delivering a Complete Product Experience (CPE). Related: |
integration testing | The second stage of software testing, when developers confirm that units are working together to produce the expected result (see also: unit testing, system testing, and acceptance testing) |
iteration | A time-boxed period during which a team works to complete a set of development tasks, typically lasting one to four weeks. Many teams refer to their iterations as sprints. |
iterative development | A process of building a product in small, incremental steps — enabling frequent feedback and continuous improvement. |
K
A pull system used by agile teams to visualize work. Work is only pulled when there is a demand for it, and team members only pull work when they have the capacity to complete the task. | |
A visual tool to track work as it moves through the development process. Kanban boards often organize work by status (such as "Not started," "In progress," "In review," and "Done.") Related: |
N
Nexus | An agile model that is used in tandem with scrum, adding an integration team composed of a product owner, scrum master, and integration team members. |
nonfunctional requirements | Standards for system attributes such as performance and reliability that affect user experience but do not directly impact how features are built. |
P
pair programming | A practice where two developers work together on the same code, typically with one writing and the other reviewing and providing guidance. This encourages collaboration, knowledge sharing, and better code quality. |
A structured event for coordinating agile development across multiple teams. It involves set practices, rules, and roles to help teams reach a shared vision and plan for upcoming work. Related: | |
planning poker | A gamified estimation technique where team members independently assign points to user stories using numbered cards. The team then discusses the scores to drive consensus. |
A prioritized inventory of features, defects, prioritized ideas, or technical work that has yet to be worked on. The product backlog should include work that is considered valuable from the product owner's perspective. | |
Product managers are outwardly focused on the market, customers, positioning, and pricing. They are responsible for setting vision, goals, and major initiatives for the product. They also do high-level product planning and own the product roadmap. Related: | |
Product owners are inwardly focused. They influence the product manager's responsibilities, such as release planning and feature definition. They represent the customer and advocate for the business case on the scrum team. They are the only member of the team who can change the order of features in the product backlog and choose whether to release a sprint. |
R
refactoring | The process of improving the structure, readability, and efficiency of existing code without changing its functionality. It involves making small changes to clean up or optimize the code so it easier to maintain and extend. |
The Responsive Method | A human-centric philosophy based on eight key principles designed to help people and organizations respect and serve others while also staying on track toward a goal Related: |
S
SAFe is a set of guidelines for implementing agile and lean principles at scale. It includes its own set of core principles and guidance for action across three main levels of an organization: team, program, and portfolio. | |
scrum board | This is where the sprint happens. A scrum board is a visualization of all of the work in an ongoing sprint. Items are typically displayed across different workflow stages. This helps teams stay organized, assign work, and track progress. |
scrum of scrums | A timeboxed meeting designed to coordinate the work of multiple scrum teams working on the same project. It helps integrate outputs and eliminate any impediments. |
The scrum team member who helps the development team stay on task, maintain alignment with scrum techniques, and eliminate roadblocks. Scrum masters play the role of coach and motivator — not enforcer. | |
scrumban | An agile methodology that combines elements of scrum with elements of kanban. Scrumban teams blend the structure provided by scrum with the flexibility and workflow visualization of kanban. Related: |
spike | Originating from Extreme Programming, a spike is a type of user story or feature that is created to dedicate time to research. Instead of producing shippable work, spikes focus on finding answers to problems and gathering necessary information for upcoming work. |
A timeboxed iteration of work that typically lasts between one and four weeks. A sprint includes defined features or user stories to complete with the goal of delivering usable functionality to customers. | |
A list of upcoming work to be completed in a sprint — in the form of user stories — that is often displayed on the scrum board. The sprint backlog fills up when the engineering team and the product owner work together to divvy up planned releases into sprint cycles. | |
sprint goal | The stated objective of a sprint. Sprint goals help development teams align on priorities and understand why they are building the current increment. |
The planning meeting at the start of each sprint. The product owner, scrum master, and development team meet to determine the set of items from the backlog that will be completed during the sprint. Related: | |
A separate meeting from the sprint review where the team discusses and documents what went well (and what did not) during the sprint. The goal of a retrospective is to identify opportunities for future improvement. | |
A review meeting that happens after the sprint is complete. The development team typically gives a demo to show what it accomplished, and stakeholders provide feedback to help the product owner decide whether the sprint's objective has been reached. | |
A unit of measurement used to estimate the amount of effort necessary to complete a development task. The number of story points assigned to a user story is based on factors such as the volume of work, complexity, and risk. | |
system testing | The third stage of software testing, when developers ensure code can run in the environment where it will be deployed (see also: unit testing, integration testing, and acceptance testing) |
T
A measurement of system maintenance costs that result from choosing a limited short-term solution over a higher-quality solution that requires more time and resources. Technical debt refers to the overhead of maintaining and eventually reworking such a system. | |
A strategic initiative that describes high-level direction and connects development work to overall goals |
U
The first stage of software testing, when developers verify that code is working correctly at its most foundational level. Unit testing includes testing each unit against possible scenarios that end users might encounter while using the software (see also: integration testing, system testing, and acceptance testing) | |
A product function that delivers new value for customers. User stories are written from the user's perspective following this formula: As a [type of user], I want to [perform some task] so that I can [achieve some goal]. Related: | |
A visual method for organizing and prioritizing user stories along a user journey. This helps product teams build solutions focused on desired customer outcomes, instead of solely on development output or feature specifications. |
W
In scrum, work in progress (or "WIP") refers to the total number of work increments that the engineering team is currently working on. Scrum teams might set WIP limits to focus on fewer tasks at a given time. |
