Scrum Flashcards
What are the three pillars of Scrum?
Transparency, Inspection and adaptation
Iteration
A timeboxed cycle of development on a product or deliverable in which all of the work that is needed to deliver value is performed.
Iteration Plan
A detailed plan for the current iteration
Iteration Planning (Sprint Planning)
A meeting to clarify the details of the backlog items, acceptance criteria, and work effort required to meet an upcoming iteration commitment.
Iteration (Sprint) Review
A meeting held at the end of an iteration to demonstrate the work that was accomplished during the iteration.
Test-Driven Development
A technique where tests are defined before work is begun, so that work in progress is validated continuously, enabling work with zero defect mindset.
Spike
A short time interval within a project, usually of fixed length, during which a team conducts research or prototypes an aspect of a solution to prove its viability.
Spikes are also described as time-boxed research or experiments and are useful for estimation.
impediment
an obstacle that prevents the team from achieving its objectives. It is also known as a blocker.
“Simplicity” in agile
Maximizing the work that is not done
Continuous Integration
Continuous integration aims to merge code and have a working build once a day, then executes automated tests quickly to see if anything is broken. This frequent checking ensures less time passes before a problem is identified. It is designed to merge all changes made to the software and test them automatically, discovering any defects or issues on a daily basis.
Fast Failure
Agile operates on the concept of delivering increments of value. Fast failure means that particular feature or proof-of-concept effort was not successful. By failing fast and in small increments, the project team is able to learn and adjust quickly and at a much lower cost.
Technical Debt
Technical debt, where code may be rushed to production without being simplified or refactored. With each subsequent release it creates more work to build on and work around disorganized code.
What are the 3 C’s on user story creation?
The three C’s on user story creation are: Card, Conversation and Confirmation. Once the user story card is created, have a conversation with developers and testers to ensure understanding, can for any gaps, and estimate the effort required. Finally, confirm the acceptance criteria. You then place it in the backlog for prioritisation in an upcoming sprint
Push + Pull Communication
Push communication is used to send information to specific recipients who need to know. Push Communication is done using letters, faxes, memos, etc.
Pull communication is used for large volumes of information. The methods for this type of communication include internet sites and blogs. Example: Information to public on the website.
Grade and Quality
Quality is the degree to which the product meets the customer’s requirements
Grade is the category assigned to products that have the same functional use but different technical characteristics.
Cycle time
Lead time
Cycle time is from the time you start a task until you complete it. This is represented by the time an item enters the “develop and Unit Test” bin till the time it enters the “Done” bin. It is the time it takes to process an item
A lead time is the total time it takes to deliver an item, measured from the time it is added to the board to the moment it is delivered
Lead time = Response time + cycle time
Root cause analysis
Root cause analysis includes
- Problem identification
- Discovery of underlying causes of a problem
- Development of preventive actions.
Run Rate
Simplified cost calculations
Specifications by Example (SBE)
SBE is a collaborative approach to defining requirements and business-oriented functional tests for software products based on capturing and illustrating requirements using realistic examples instead of abstract statements.
Value Stream Mapping
This is a lean enterprise technique used to document, analyze, and improve the flow of information or materials required to produce a product or service for a customer. It can also help to identify waste across the entire process.
Organizational Structure and Organizational Culture
One cannot do without the other.
Primary measure of progress
Working software
Behaviour-Driven Development (BDD)
This involves a system design and validation practice that uses test-first principles and English-like scripts.
Single loop learning
This is the practice of attempting to solve problems by just using specific predefined methods, without challenging the methods in light of experience
Monte Carlo Analysis
A technique that computes or iterates the project cost or the project schedule many times, using input values selected at random from probability distributions of possible costs or durations.
This way, it is possible to calculate a distribution of possible total project costs or completion dates.
Monte Carlo analysis is a statistical modeling technique for evaluating the effects of various risk and other assumptions on the expected schedule or cost.
Pareto Chart
It is a bar graph. The length of the bars represent frequency or cost (time or money) and are arranged with the longest at the left and the shortest on the right.
Deming Cycle
The Deming Cycle, also known as the PDCA Cycle (Plan, Do, Check, Act), was developed to link the creation of a product with consumer needs and focus the resources of all departments (research, design, production, and marketing) in a cooperative effort to meet those needs.
Business Value (Increase or decrease)
An increase or decrease in BV that an action produce is measured in terms of Customer Satisfaction, Revenue growth, Profitability, Market Share, Wallet Share, Cross-Sell Ratio, Marketing Campaign Response Rate or Relationship Duration.
Caves and Common
While companies are moving toward open, collaborative work environments, organizations also need to create quiet spaces for workers who need uninterrupted time to think and work. Companies are now designing their offices to balance common and social areas sometimes called “caves and common”.
Flow-Based Agile
• Flow-based agile teams use different measurements: lead time (the total time it takes to deliver an item, measured from the time it is added to the board to the moment it is completed), cycle time (the time required to process an item), and response time (the time that an item waits until work starts). Teams measure cycle time to see bottlenecks and delays, not necessarily inside the team.
• In iteration-based agile, the team demonstrates all completed work items at the end of the iteration. In Flow-based agile, the team demonstrates completed work when it is time to do so, usually when enough features have accumulated into a set that is coherent. Teams, including the product owner, need feedback to decide how early to ask for product feedback.
• Flow-based agile has a different approach to standups, focusing on the team’s throughput. The team assesses the board from right to left. The questions are:
◦ What do we need to do to advance this piece of work?
◦ Is anyone working on anything that is not on the board?
◦ What do we need to finish as a team?
◦ Are there any bottlenecks or blockers to the flow of work?
A good way to evaluate a change is try it for an iteration or two first before adopting it permanently. Or, consider a Flow-based approach to try to deliver several features.
Shu-Ha-Ri
This model of skills acquisition describes progression from obeying rules (Shu means to obey and protect), through consciously moving away from the rules (Ha means to change or digress), and finally through steady practice and improvement finding an individual path (Ri means to separate or leave).
Smoke Testing
This is the practice of using a lightweight set of tests to ensure that the most important functions of the system under development work as intended.
