Agile Vocab Flashcards
3 pillars of an “Empirical” process
- Transparency
- Inspection
- Adaptation
Who is responsible for the Product Backlog?
Product Owner
Agile - Key Concepts
- The creation of a Project Charter is equally important for Agile projects.
- The Product owner is responsible and accountable for maintaining
the product backlog and makes all final decisions regarding prioritization. - Agile is a mindset defined by values, guided by principles, and manifested
through many different practices. - The product backlog is prioritized high to low based on customer value. The primary driver for prioritization is customer value. The Agile mantra is to frequently deliver high-value, working software to the customer.
- The product backlog should be up to date before the next sprint planning meeting; updating the product backlog is called product backlog grooming.
- Whenever possible, a User Story and the acceptance criteria should be written by the customer.
Characteristics of a good user story (INVEST)
Independent
Negotiable
Valuable
Estimable
Small
Testable
backlog grooming
updating the product backlog
4 Value Pairs
- Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
- Working software over comprehensive documentation
- Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
- Responding to change over following a plan
12 Principles of Agile
- Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.
- Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer’s competitive advantage.
- Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.
- Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.
- Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.
- The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.
- Working software is the primary measure of progress.
- Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.
- Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.
- Simplicity - the art of maximizing the amount of work not done - is essential.
- The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.
- At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.
the primary measure of progress
working software
Persona
A fictional user the team creates to represent a user role that would be interacting with the system
Story Maps
Structured way of organizing the product backlog into different levels helping to better visualize and tell a story around the product backlog.
Epic
An oversized backlog item that would need to be broken up into its smaller component user stories
Servant Leadership
Practice of leading through service to the team
Sprint Backlog
The team creates and manages a more detailed list of tasks to be done in the sprint
Definition of Done
Checklist of activities that must be completed in order to deliver a potentially shippable increment of software. Team and product owner decide what is the definition of done
Minimally Marketable Feature
The smallest possible set of functionality that, by itself, describes a distinct feature that is independently deliverable and has value in the marketplace.
Collocation
Having Agile teams working together in one location
Distributed Teams
When team members are dispersed across multiple geographies
Osmotic Communications
Team members who sit in the same room can absorb relevant information. A benefit of collocated Agile teams
Information Radiators
display of information artifacts posted in a spot that is easily visible to passersby interested in getting updates on the team’s progress on a project.
Kanban Board
sign board, it shows the current status of all tasks to be done for a sprint as they move through the different stages of completion.
Sprint Planning - Time
8 hours (2 hours for per week of sprint)
Sprint - Time
2-4 weeks
Daily Scrum - Time
15 min
Sprint Review - Time
4 hours
Sprint Retrospective - Time
3 hours
Sprint Planning Meeting - questions
- 2 parts:
What will be done - Product owner must be present
How will it be accomplished - Initial task breakout for a few days, but not all tasks
Daily Scrum - questions
- 3 questions:
What has been accomplished since the last meeting?
What is planned to be done before the next meeting?
Are there any obstacles (impediments) in the way?
Sprint Planning Meeting
- Features to be done this sprint
- Estimate
- Commit
Sprint Review
- Demo features to all
- Customer Acceptance
- Product owner updates Product Backlog / reprioritize work
- Incomplete work is added to product backlog
Sprint Retrospective
- Team reflects on the recent sprint
- What went well?
- How can we improve?
- Occurs after sprint review and before next sprint planning meeting
The Sprint
- Test/Develop
- Scope and dates are fixed
Scrum Team - Product Owner
- Product owner can contribute as a development team member
- The Product owner is responsible for managing the product backlog
Scrum Team makeup
- 7 ± 2 members
- Collectively responsible for completing the agreed to work
- Self-organizing
- Cross-functional - team has all the skills necessary to create a product increment
- Empowered to make decisions
Scrum Master
- Guides the team through the Scrum process
- Accountable for removing impediments
- Servant leader to the Scrum team
- Advocates for Scrum adoption in the organization
Relative Sizing
A way of estimating the level of effort (or size) of user stories relative to each other. The team decides what is the unit of measurement for relative sizing for estimating work.
Story Points
An arbitrary unit used to measure the effort required to implement a user story
Affinity Estimating
Stories are placed into sizing buckets from small to large. Effective technique for quickly estimating large backlogs.
Value Stream Mapping
Technique used to analyze the value stream of the whole system
Planning Poker
Relative size of user stories are estimated using a numbered card
Velocity
A calculation method that indicates the speed at which the team
completes story points in a sprint. It is not accurate to compare one team’s
velocity against another. It is calculated by taking the number of story points
the team completed per sprint and dividing that by the # of sprints
Burn Rate
The cost to run the team for a sprint. Burn rate is calculated at the sprint level
Adaptive Leadership
is about encouraging teams to experiment, explore,
and make mistakes. It influences change that builds and
enables the capacity of individuals and organizations to thrive.
Servant Leadership
is a theoretical framework that advocates a leader’s
primary motivation and role is service to others. The Agile approach which
employs it differs from the traditional project manager
command and control approach, with Agile, the management style is more
of a support and facilitation role
Collaborative Leadership
is paramount as successful Agile projects revolve
around effective collaboration.
Pollyanna Pixton
the internationally recognized expert on Collaborative Leadership.
key elements for creating an environment that fosters collaborative leadership
- Right People
- Trust First
- Let the team members propose the approach
- Stand Back
Self Awareness
The ability to recognize and understand your moods,
emotions, and drives, as well as their effect on others.
Self Management
The ability to control or redirect disruptive impulses
and moods. The propensity to suspend judgment – to think before acting
Social Awareness
The ability to understand the emotional makeup of other people. Skill in treating people according to their emotional reactions.
Social Skill
Proficiency in managing relationships and building networks.
An ability to find common ground and build rapport.
Conflict Levels
Level 1: Problem to Solve
Level 2: Disagreement
Level 3: Contest
Level 4: Crusade
Level 5: World War
Spike
a time-boxed research activity that helps teams make better decisions & deliver better products
Flow-based agile
does not use the same amount of time for each sprint/feature
Iteration-based agile
uses the same amount of time for each sprint
each time-box results in worked tested software
Iterative Life cycle
the project scope is generally determined early in the project life cycle, but time and cost estimates are routinely modified as the project teams understanding of the project increases. Iterations develop the product through a series of repeated cycles, while increments successfully add to the functionality of the product
Incremental lift cycle
the deliverable is produced through a series of iterations that successfully add functionality within a predetermined time frame. The deliverable contains the necessary and sufficient capability to be considered complete only after the final iteration
Adaptive life cycle
they are agile, iterative or incremental. The detailed scope is defined and approved before the start of an iteration. Life cycles are referred to as agile or change-driven life cycles
Fist of Five
Team members raise their hands and with their fingers show their vote of confidence. There are five levels of confidence, each of which can be represented by the fingers
a method for gaining consensus and agreement, not a method to actually prioritize
Tacit Knowledge
the knowledge you’ve gained through living experience, both in your personal life and professional development. It is often subjective, informal, and difficult to share or express because it is affected by our personal beliefs and values
Explicit Knowledge
words, pictures, drawings, maps–tangible materials that people can see, feel and touch
Calculate Activity Duration
You determine an activity’s duration by subtracting the ES from the EF (or the LS from the LF), then adding one to the number you get
Burndown Chart
a graph to show the progress by plotting the burning down of work during an iteration or other time period
Burnup Chart
a graph to show the progress and gains made by the team over time
Good User Story
Role, Goal, Benefit
Non-Functional Requirement
Describes the behavior of a function (availability, speed, access…)
