Glossary of Agile Terms Flashcards
A method used to communicate with business customers, developers, and testers before coding begins
Acceptance Test Driven Development
To focus on what is said and provide feedback to communicate understanding
Active Listening
A leadership style that helps teams to thrive and overcome challenges throughout a project.
Adaptive Leadership
A method used to quickly place user stories into a comparable-sized group
Affinity Estimation
To develop a goal through periodic experimentation in order to fulfill the need of a complex decision.
Agile
To adapt the project plan continuously through retrospectives in order to maximize value creation during the planning process
Agile Adaption
To help achieve goals that is either personal or organizational.
Agile Coaching
To use the empirical process, observation, and spike introduction while executing a project to influence planning
Agile Experimentation
A statement that reflects Agile Philosophy that includes: individuals and interactions over processes and tools, working software over comprehensive documentation, customer collaboration over contract negotiation, and responding to changes over following a plan.
Agile Manifesto
A document that describes the twelve principles of the Agile Manifesto.
Agile Manifesto Principles
To satisfy customers through early and continuous delivery of products, to test and receive feedback, to inform customers on progress, and to fulfill the customer’s value by completing priority requirements.
Agile Manifesto: Customer Satisfaction
To allow quick responses to changes in the external environment, and late in development to maximize the customer’s competitive advantage.
Agile Manifesto: Welcome Changes
To deliver software frequently to the customer, allowing for a quicker product release, faster provision of value to the customer and shorter delivery timeframe.
Agile Manifesto: Frequent Delivery
To have individuals work together daily on a project to implement osmotic communication, focus, and receive instant feedback to achieve a common goal.
Agile Manifesto: Collocated Team
To give individuals the empowerment, environment, support, and trust needed to complete a task successfully.
Agile Manifesto: Motivated Individuals
The most efficient and effective way to communicate in order to receive direct feedback and influence osmotic communication
Agile Manifesto: Face-to-Face Conversation
Working software enables the measurement of progress, enhance customer satisfaction, and maintain and improve the quality of the software to help support project goals.
Agile Manifesto: Working Software
To help team members establish a healthy work-life balance, remain productive, and respond to changes swiftly for progress during a project.
Agile Manifesto: Constant Pace
To enhance agility and time spent on work requirements in order to retain a well-balanced work environment.
Agile Manifesto: Continuous Attention
Allows team members to focus on what is necessary to achieve the requirements needed to create and deliver value to the project and customer.
Agile Manifesto: Simplicity
A team that knows how to complete tasks effectively, has dedication to the project, and is expert on the process and project.
Agile Manifesto: Self-Organization
This allows a team to learn how to become more effective, what changes need immediate implementation, and behavior that needs adjustment.
Agile Manifesto: Regular Reflection
To pass on and teach based on experience, knowledge, and skills to other individuals in the team or that work for the organization.
Agile Mentoring
A way to complete a goal effectively and efficiently. Examples of Agile Methodologies include XP, Scrum, and Lean.
Agile Methodologies
A workflow depiction of a process or system a team can review before it is turned into code. Stakeholders should understand the model.
Agile Modeling
The most important aspect of the Agile project. Planning happens at multiple levels such as strategic, release, iteration, and daily. Planning must happen up-front and can change throughout the project.
Agile Planning
To make use of the Agile principles through activities.
Agile Practices
A project that occurs based on the Agile Manifesto and Agile Principles.
Agile Projects
Symptoms of problems that affect Agile teams and projects.
Agile Smells
A space that allows team members to establish collaboration, communication, transparency, and visibility.
Agile Space
Themes used to help the team focus on the functions of iteration.
Agile Themes
To increase team morale with software or artifacts.
Agile Tooling
To develop possible solutions by studying the problem and its underlying need and to understand the information provided.
Analysis
After the deadline of iteration is reached, the team and stakeholders conduct a meeting for approval. Stakeholders approve the iteration if the backlog used supports the product increment.
Approved Iterations
Spikes that relate to any area of a system, technology, or application domain that is unknown.
Architectural Spikes
A process or work output Ex. Document, Code
Artifact
Exhibits continuous adaptation to the project and its processes with characteristics that include: mission focused, feature based, iterative, time-boxed, risk driven, and change tolerant.
ASD
These tools allow for efficient and strong testing. Examples: Peer Reviews, Periodical Code-Reviews, Refactoring, Unit Tests, Automatic and Manual Testing.
Automated Testing Tools
To work in a responsive way to deliver the products or services a customer needs and when they want the products or services.
Being Agile
An effective and efficient way of gathering ideas within a short period of time from a group.
Brainstorming
A chart used to display progress during and at the end of iteration. “Burning down” means the backlog will lessen throughout the iteration.
Burn-Down Chart
The rate of resources consumed by the team; also cost per iteration.
Burn Rate
A chart that displays completed functionality. Progress will trend upwards, as stories are completed. Only shows complete functions, it is not accurate at predicting or showing work-in-progress
Burn-Up Chart
An acronym to measure the goals and mission of the project with each letter meaning: Criticality, Accessibility, Return, Vulnerability, Effect, and Recognizeability.
CARVER
A meeting conducted during an Agile project that consists of daily stand-up, iteration planning, iteration review, and iteration retrospective.
Ceremony
To change requirements that increase value to the customer.
Change
A document created during initiation that formally begins the project. The document includes the project’s justification, a summary level budget, major milestones, critical success factors, constraints, assumptions, and authorization to do it.
Charter
An individual involved but not committed to an Agile project
Chicken
A team role that keeps the team focused on learning and the process
Coach
A method of cooperation among individuals to achieve a common goal.
Collaboration
The entire team together is responsible for 100% of the code.
Collective Code Ownership
The entire team is physically present, working in one room.
Collocation
An issue solved through trend analysis because the issue is systematic.
Common Cause
To share smooth and transparent information of needs.
Communication
Decisions created by higher up individuals in the organization and handed over to the team.
Command & Control
To meet regulations, rules, and standards.
Compliance
An environment for the team that is free of distractions and interruptions.
Cone of Silence
Disagreements in certain areas between individuals.
Conflict
An agreement made after a conflict.
Conflict Resolution
To ensure that self-assessment and process improvement occurs frequently to improve the product.
Continuous Improvement
To consistently examine a team member’s work. To build, and test the entire system.
Continuous Integration
To organize work with the goal of higher productivity and teamwork.
Coordination
To measure the cost spent on a project and its efficiency. Earned Value / Actual Cost = CPI
Cost Performance Index (CPI)
Teams that consist of members who can complete various functions to achieve a common goal. Team members are able to do more than one role in a project.
Cross-Functional Team
An adaptable approach that focuses on interaction between people and processes that consists of families that vary based on team size, system criticality, and project priorities.
Crystal Family
A chart that displays feature backlog, work-in-progress, and completed features.
Cumulative Flow Diagram
A method that allows customers to score (total 100 points) different features of a product.
100-Point Method
A series of phases or stages the team has agreed to execute for a project
Workflow
Work-In-Progress- Stories that have started, which are displayed in workflows to show progress and what still needs to be completed.
WIP
A lightweight non-functional UI design that shows the customer the vital elements and how they will interact before coding.
Wireframe
To limit work-in-progress so a team can do the following: maintain focus on completing work, maintaining quality, and delivering value.
WIP Limits
An estimation technique for user stories. The PO presents user stories & discusses challenges. Each story’s estimates plotted, and then the team comes to an agreement on the range of points.
Wide-Band Delphi Estimating
Resistant to change that requires heavy planning and sequential, traditional approach
Waterfall
A space where the team can work and collaborate effectively.
War Room
The team’s work and progress must be transparent to all stakeholders.
Visibility
A geographically distributed group that does not meet physically.
Virtual Team
To ensure the product meets requirements and specifications.
Verification
The total number of features that a team delivers in iteration.
Velocity
The measurement of how far apart data is from each other.
Variance
A tool used to analyze a chain of processes with the desired outcome of eliminating waste.
Value Stream Mapping
To realize the values needed to deliver a project.
Value-Driven Delivery
To allow the PO or customer determine which function to implement first based on the value it delivers.
Value-Based Prioritization
The worth of a product, project, or service.
Value
The way to make sure that the product is acceptable to the customer.
Validation
At least one business requirement that increases the value for the user.
User Story
The active involvement of users in the development cycle of a project so team members can receive feedback about the user’s requirements.
Users Involvement
An exploratory test which uses a test subject to understand the usability of software.
Usability Testing
These tests are used for continuous feedback to achieve quality improvement and assurance.
Unit Testing
To allow communication between parties so their concerns and perspectives are given for effective feedback.
Two-Way Communication
This analysis provides trends that will occur in the future to help control and implement continuous improvement.
Trend Analysis
To show everyone’s involvement and progress to the entire team.
Transparency
A top-down approach that consists of long cycles, heavy planning, and minimal customer involvement.
Traditional Management
A role in XP that measures the team’s progress, and communicates the measurements to the team.
Tracker
To set a fixed delivery date for a project or release.
Time-boxing
A group of stories, iteration, or release’s idea determined by the customer and the team agrees with the idea.
Theme
Explains acceptance test to the customers then consistently measures the product against the test and records results for the team. (XP Role)
Tester
A written acceptance test for a module with the code built to pass the tests in order to ensure correct performance.
Test-Driven Development (TDD)
Technical decisions a team chooses to not implement currently, but must do so or face difficulty in the future
Technical Debt
The number of story points completed during iteration, and used to determine the planned capacity
Team Velocity
An area for team members to collocate, usually a physical location, in some cases a virtual location is created
Team Space
When the team discusses the requirements that will fulfill the customer’s needs.
Team Participation
Formation happens when a team creates ground rules and processes to build bonds and shared goals.
Team Formation
A team that is empowered has collaboration, responsibility, and self-sufficiency
Team Empowerment
Team members function in a way that is collaborative to complete tasks and reach a common goal, mostly achieved with strong communication.
Teamwork
A group of individuals charged with the responsibility of delivery and value of a project.
Team
The smaller jobs to fulfill a user story, usually divided among team members.
Tasks
A model originated in Japan to describe a team with values that include self-organization, empowered to make decisions, belief in vision and success, a committed team, trust, participatory decision making, consensus-driven, and construction disagreement.
Tabaka’s Model
When the team collaborates to focus on a single user story.
Swarming
A maintainable pace of work that is intense yet steady
Sustainability
A unit of measurement to estimate the difficulty of a user story.
Story Point
A prioritization tool that backlogged stories made smaller and organized by user functionality
Story Map
An index card that displays the user story.
Story Card
A curved test used to measure knowledge and understanding, but constructed so the same test-taker will perform similarly each time.
Standardized Test
To ensure stakeholders remain informed and that the achievement of their needs are met.
Stakeholder Management
An individual with an interest in the outcome
Stakeholder
A meeting that occurs after each sprint to show the product or process to stakeholders for approval and to receive feedback.
Sprint Review
A team-member meeting that occurs after each sprint to evaluate the product and process to improve efficiency and effectiveness.
Sprint Retrospective
A document that explains sprint goals, tasks, and requirements and how the tasks will reach completion.
Sprint Plan
A consistent iteration that lasts from one week to one month in order to measure velocity in Scrum.
Sprint
An experiment that helps a team answer, a particular question and determine future actions.
Spike
This occurs when requirements for the specification are incomplete or conflicting.
Specification Breakdown
A cause that occurs once because of special reasons
Special Cause
Communication used conveniently to receive instant feedback, ideas, and requirements from a particular community.
Social Media-Based Communication
Work that is isolated.
Silo
Originated in Japan as a way to understand learning and mastery, Shu – obeying the rules, Ha - consciously moving away from the rules, and Ri – consciously finding an individual path.
Shu-Ha-Ri Model
Leaders collaborate with the team and do anything the team does when needed.
Servant Leadership
Naturally formed teams that interact with minimal management supervision.
Self-Organizing Team
This team has the capability to make their own decisions, empowerment, mutual accountability, and collective ownership of a project, which leads them to be more productive and efficient.
Self-Directing Team
This cycle tends to be long and requires a lot of advanced planning.
Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)
The leader that helps the team to follow Scrum methodology.
Scum Master
Meetings used to organize large projects with scrum masters from different teams.
Scrum of Scrums
A popular Agile methodology
Scrum
The uncontrolled changes or growth in a project’s scope which goes beyond the initial agreement.
Scope Creep
The ratio of earned value to planned value. EV/PV=SPI
Schedule Performance Index
The feeling of workers when their needs are fulfilled. Known as motivators.
Satisfaction
A diagram that correlates different factors and the symptom.
Root Cause Diagram
To investigate beyond the symptoms of the problem and to understand the root cause of the problem.
Root Cause Analysis
To divide the planning phase into stages.
Rolling Wave Planning
A person’s description that includes their function in an Agile project
Role
How much the risk’s consequences will influence the success or failure of a project. Risk Probability (%) x Risk Impact ($) = Risk Severity
Risk Severity
The likelihood that the risk will occur.
Risk Probability
To analyze the consequences of the risk if they occur based on their probability.
Risk Impact
A chart that displays risk and success with feature vs. time.
Risk Burn Down
This spike helps the team remove major risks, and if the spike fails every approach possible, the project is defined as “fast failure”.
Risk-Based Spike
A product backlog adjusted to help balance the risk and value factors of product.
Risk-Adjusted Backlog
The uncertainty of an unwanted outcome related to the project.
Risk
