Agile Terms

Iterative Delivery

the phased delivery of value to the customer

Story Point

a unit number used to represent the size & complexity of a story

Unapproved Change Requests

submitted requests that are unapproved and remain unapproved until they are approved

Risk Assessment

the process whereby risks are evaluated & estimated

Scrum Master

Scrum core team role who facilitates creation of the project's deliverables, manages risks, changes & impediments during the conduct daily standup, retrospect Sprint and other Scrum processes

Wing

a tightly aligned & loosely coupled collection of crew whose missions are interconnected

Sprint Deliverables

product increments or deliverables that are completed at the end of each sprint

Opportunities

risks that have positive impacts of the project

Risk Appetite

the amount of uncertainty a stakeholder or org is willing to accept

Agile Manifesto: 4 Key Values

1) individuals & interactions over processes & tools 2) working software over comprehensive documentation 3) customer collaboration over contract negotiation 4) responding to change over following a plan

Project Phases in CA PPM

Initiate--> includes tasks to establish the product vision, establish & prioritize the backlog, determine the release plan & create the product roadmap Sprint Execution--> includes tasks to execute the Sprint, deliver user stories, and groom the backlog, followed by conducting the Sprint demo, Sprint review & Sprint retrospective Close--> includes project closedown activities & approvals

Product Roadmap

a document that maps end-to-end activities, deliverables & groups that are needed to deliver the definition of "done"

Agreed Actionable Improvements

items from the team that address problems & improve processes in future Sprints - primary output of the retrospect Sprint process

Automated Software Tools

tools that are used for scheduling, information collection & distribution

Risk Meeting

used to discuss the risks of the project - is attended by the product owner, the scrum core team and possibly the stakeholders

Agile Manifesto: 12 Guiding Principles

1) satisfying customers through early & continuous delivery of valuable work 2) breaking work into components that can be completed quickly 3) recognizing that the best work emerges from self-organizing teams 4) providing motivated individuals with the environment & support they need 5) creating processes that promote sustainable efforts 6) maintaining a constant pace for completed work 7) welcoming changing requirements, even late in a project 8) assembling the project team & business owners on a daily basis 9) at regular intervals, having the team reflect upon how to become more effective, then adjusting behavior accordingly 10) measuring progress by the amount of completed work 11) continually seeking excellence 12) harnessing change for competitive advantage

Product Vision

a brief statement of the desired future state that would be achieved through the project initiative - may be expressed in any number of ways including financial performance, customer satisfaction, market share, and/or functional capability

Feature

a business need that is represented in user or business terms

Risk Burn Down Chart

a chart that depicts cumulative project risk severity over time - likelihood of the various risks are plotted on top of each other to show cumulative risk on the y-axis - initial identification & evaluation of risks and the creation of this chart of done early in the project

Theme

a collection of related user stories and often are used to organize stories into releases or to organize them so that various sub teams can work on them

Stakeholders

a collective term that includes customers, users & sponsors who interface with the product owner, scrum master & scrum team to provide inputs & facilitate creation of the product, service or other results

Task List

a comprehensive list of tasks that the scrum team has committed to for the current Sprint - contains a description of each task

Self - Organization

a concept that states that employees are self - motivated and seek to accept greater responsibility - deliver greater value when self - organized

Incentive and Penalty Contract

a contract based on the agreement that the supplier will be rewarded with a financial incentive if the products are delivered on time, but will incur financial penalties if the delivery is late

Incremental Delivery Contract

a contract that inspects points at regular intervals - helps the customer or stakeholders make decisions regarding product development at each inspection point - customer can accept the development of the product, decide to stop the development or request product modifications

Joint Venture Contract

a contract that is used when 2 or more parties partner to complete the project - parties involved in the project will achieve some return on investment because the revenues or benefits generated are shared between the parties

Development in Phases Contract

a contract that makes funding available each month or quarter after a release is successfully completed - gives incentive to both customer & supplier and ensures that the monetary risk of the customer is limited to that particular time period since unsuccessful releases aren't funded

Daily Scrum

a daily timebox even of 15 mins or less for the development team to plan the next day of development work during a Sprint - updates are reflected in the Spring backlog

Daily Standup

a daily timebox event of 15 mins where team members gather to report their progress by answering the questions: - what did I complete yesterday? - what will I complete today? - what impediments or obstacles (if any) am I currently facing?

Change Request

a document that contains a call for an adjustment of the system - remain in an unapproved status until they are formally approved

Prioritized Product Backlog

a document that defines the project scope by providing a prioritized list of features of the product or service to be delivered by the project

Length of Sprint

a duration of a Spring for a project - a decision is made on the length of the Sprints for the project based on business requirements, release planning schedule, the product owner & the Scrum team - generally the length is fixed for the project

Value Stream Mapping

a flowchart that illustrates the flow of information necessary to complete a process - used to streamline a process by helping to determine non-value-adding elements

Agile Manifesto

a formal proclamation of 4 key values & 12 principles to guide an iterative and people-centric approach to project management

Company Mission

a framework that formulates the strategies of a company or organization that guide their overall decision making

Burn Down Chart

a graphical representation of outstanding work vs time

Burn Up Chart

a graphical representation of work completed vs time

Probability Impact Grid

a grid where risks are assessed for probability of occurrence & for potential impact on project objectives - numerical rating is assigned for both probability & impact independently - 2 values are multiplied to obtain the severity score that is used to prioritize risks

Portfolio

a group of related programs with the objective to deliver business outcomes as defined in portfolio vision statement - prioritized portfolio backlog incorporates the prioritized program backlogs for all the programs in the portfolio

Program

a group of related projects with the objective of delivering business outcomes, as defined in the program vision statement - prioritized program backlog incorporates the prioritized product backlogs for the projects in the program

Organizational Resource Matrix

a hierarchical depiction of a combination of a functional organizational structure & a project organizational structure - brings together team members from different departments such as IT, Finance, Marketing, Sales, Mfg, and other departments to create cross - functional teams

Impediment

a hindrance or hurdle that reduces the productivity of the Scrum team

Delegating Leader

a leader involved in the majority of decision making, however they delegate some planning & decision - making responsibilities to team members - leadership style is appropriate in situations where the leader is in tune with specific project details & when time is limited

Theory X

a leader who assumes that employees are inherently unmotivated & will avoid work if possible, warranting an authoritarian style of management

Assertive Leader

a leader who confronts issues & displays confidence to establish authority with respect

Laissez-Faire Leader

a leader who doesn't interfere with the daily work activities of the team - team is left unsupervised, therefore it leads to a start of anarchy

Task - Oriented Leader

a leader who enforces the task completion & adherence to deadlines

Directing Leader

a leader who instructs the team members about the tasks that are required & when/how they should be performed

Coach/Supportive Leader

a leader who issues instructions then supports & monitors team members through listening, assisting, encouraging & presenting a positive outlook during times of uncertainty

Autocratic Leader

a leader who makes decisions on their own, allowing team members little, if any, involvement or discussion - leadership style should only be used on rare occassions

Definition of Done

a list of activities that add verifiable & demonstratable value to the product - includes writing code, integration testing, release notes & design documents

Definition of Ready

a list of activities, priorities and acceptance criteria that the team has agreed must be complete before a story can be presented to a Scrum team for an upcoming Sprint

Solution Backlog or Product Backlog

a list of functional & non - functional requirements for the product - may include features, user stories, enhancements, defects & technologies

Effort Estimated Task List

a list of tasks associated with the committed user stories included in a Sprint - effort is expressed in terms of the estimation criteria that were agreed upon by the team - list is used by the Scrum team during Spring planning meetings to create the Sprint backlog & the Spring burn down chart

Sprint Backlog

a list of the tasks to be executed by the Scrum team in the upcoming sprint

Skills Requirement Matrix

a map that depicts the skills, capabilities & interest level of team members on a project - skill gaps within the team are identified & those who need further training in a particular area or competency - known as competency framework

Scrum of Scrums

a meeting attended by all teams to scale Scrum to large projects - generally is facilitated by the Chief Scrum Master and the intent is to focus on areas of coordination & integration between the Scrum teams - held at predetermined intervals or when required by the Scrum teams

Backlog Grooming

a meeting for adding new user stories & epics, extracting stories from existing epics & estimating the effort for existing stories -also called backlog maintenance

Prioritized Product Backlog Review Meeting

a meeting that is held during the groom prioritized product backlog process to help the Scrum team review & gain consensus about the prioritized product backlog - also referred to as a prioritized product backlog grooming session

Focus Group Meeting

a meeting where individuals experience a guided session to provide their opinions, perceptions or ratings of a product/service/desired result - members have the freedom to ask questions & obtain clarifications on subjects or concepts - focus groups lead to a higher quality product & contribute to meeting the expectations of the users through questioning, constructive criticism & feedback

Brainstorming

a meeting where stakeholders & members of the Scrum core team openly share ideas through discussions & knowledge, which may be facilitated

Convene Scrum of Scrums

a meeting where the Scrum Masters or Scrum team representatives meet for the Scrum of Scrums meetings - held at predetermined intervals or whenever it is required to collaborate & track their respective progress, impediments & dependencies across teams

Estimating

a method for determining the size effort of an epic, user story or task - methods include t-shirt sizing, planning Poker or using Fibonacci number scheme

Agile Scrum

a method of Agile that utilizes teams of 7-10 resources & delivers pieces of product functionality to 2-4 week iterations called Sprints

Net Present Value

a method used to determine the current net value of a future financial benefit, given an assumed inflation or interest rate

Empirical Process Control

a model to help make decisions that is based on observation & experimentation rather than on detailed upfront planning - model relies on the 3 main ideas of transparency, inspection & adaptation

Utility Function

a model used for measuring stakeholder risk preference or attitude toward risk - defines the stakeholders' level or willingness to accept risk

Sustainable Pace

a pace at which the team can work & main comfortably - translates to increased employee satisfaction, stability & increased estimation accuracy - can lead to increased customer satisfaction

Plan & Estimate Phase

a phase that consists of planning & estimating tasks - include create user stories, approve, estimate, commit user stories, create tasks, estimate tasks & create Sprint backlog

Initiate Phase

a phase that consists of the following processes: - create project vision - identify Scrum Master & stakeholders - develop epics - create prioritized product backlog - conduct release planning

Obstacle Board

a physical board located in the Agile team room that lists details of any obstacles including the description, owner & status

Piloting Plan

a plan used to map out a detailed pilot deployment - includes scope & objectives of the deployment, target deployment user base, deployment schedule, transition plans, required user prep, evaluation criteria for the deployment & other key elements related to the deployment - plan is shared with stakeholders

Timebox

a previously agreed upon period of time when a person or team works towards completion of a goal - approach consists of stopping when the time reaches the limit, and then evaluation what was accomplished - provides structure that is needed for Scrum projects because they have an element of uncertainty, are dynamic in nature & are prone to frequent changes

Colocation

a process whereby all Scrum core team members, located in the same work place, leverage the advantage of better coordination, problem solving, knowledge sharing & learning

Adaptation

a process whereby the Scrum core team & stakeholders learn through transparency & inspection, and then adapt by making improvements to their work

100 - Point Method

a process whereby the customer is given 100 points that they use to vote for the features the feel are most important

Form Scrum Team

a process whereby the team members are identified - product owner has the primary responsibility of selecting team members, but often does so in collaboration with the Scrum Master

JIRA

a proprietary issue tracking product developed by Atlassian that provides bug tracking, issue tracking & project management functions - enables crews to assign, prioritize, and/or analyze Sprint backlog items

Estimate Range

a range that is based on the level of confidence the team has in each estimate - understood not to be precisely accurate - precise figures may give an impression of being highly accurate when they actually aren't

Expected Monetary Value (EMV)

a risk assessment technique whereby the potential financial impact of a risk is determined based on its EMV - calculated by multiplying the monetary impact by the risk's probability, as approximated by the customer

Risk Averse

a risk that the stakeholder is unwilling to accept no matter what the anticipated benefit or opportunity - one of the categories of utility function

Non-Core Role

a role that isn't required for the Scrum project - examples include team members interested in the project & have no formal role on the project team or those who interface with the team & aren't responsible for the success of the project

Development Team

a role within a Scrum team accountable for managing, organizing & developing the work required to create a releasable increment of product during every Sprint

T-Shirt Sizing

a rough order of magnitude estimating technique used to provide a rapid, high - level estimate to epics

Scrum Team

a scrum core team role that creates the deliverables of the project & contributes to realizing business value for stakeholders & the project

Four Questions per Team

a set of questions asked during Scrum of Scrums where each Scrum team representative provides updates about their team, questions include: - what has my team been working on since the last meeting? - what will my team do until the next meeting? - what were other teams counting on our team to finish that remains undone? - what is our team planning on doing that might affect other teams?

Done Criteria

a set of rules that are applicable to user stories and is critical because a clear definition of 'done' removes ambiguity from requirements & helps the team adhere to mandatory quality norms - definition is used to create the 'done' criteria that are an output of the create prioritized product backlog process - user story is considered 'done' when it's demonstrated to & approved by the product owner, who judges it on the basis of the 'done' criteria & the user story acceptance criteria

Fist of Five

a simple & quick mechanism to achieve consensus in a group & drive discussion - after initial discussion on a given proposal or pending decision, the Scrum team members vote on a scale of 1 - 5 by using their fingers

Cumulative Flow Diagram

a simple visual representation of project progress at a particular point in time - a useful tool for reporting & tracking overall project performance, not daily updates for individual Sprints

Risk Breakdown Structure

a structure where risks are grouped based on their categories or commonalities - example: risks are categorized as financial, technical or safety related

SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats)

a structured approach to project planning that helps evaluate the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats related to a project - helps to identify the internal & the external factors that impact the project

Dispersed Agile Team

a team that's developing an iterative solution for a project whose team members are dispersed across a country or globe - pertains to a project or program that is comprised of many teams that are geographically dispersed working on one or more related solutions

Pareto Analysis

a technique for assessing risk by magnitude - helps Scrum team address the risks in order of their potential impacts on the project

Refactoring

a technique that helps to improve the maintainability of the existing software code, making it simpler, more concise & more flexible - improves the design of the code without changing the behavior of the code - involves: - eliminate repetitive & redundant code - break methods & functions into smaller routines - clearly define variables & method names - simplify the code design - make the code easier to understand & modify

Monopoly Money

a technique that involves giving the customer Monopoly money or false money, equal to the amount of the project budget & asking them to distribute it among the user stories under consideration - customer prioritizes based on what they are willing to pay for each user story

Conflict Management

a technique used by team members to manage any conflicts that arise during a Scrum project - sources of conflict may included schedules, priorities, resources, reporting hierarchy, technical issues, procedures, personality & costs

Planning Poker

a technique used to balance group & individual thinking to estimate relative sizes of user stories or the effort required to develop them - also called Estimation Poker

Gap Analysis

a technique used to compare the current, actual state & some desired state to determine how to bridge the gap between them

Speed Boat

a technique used to conduct the retrospect Sprint meeting - team members play the role of the crew on a speed boat - boat must reach island (project vision) using sticky notes to record engines (items that help reach the vision) and anchors ( items that hinder them) - timebox exercise for a few minutes

Story Mapping

a technique used to provide a visual outline of the product & its key components - commonly used to illustrate product roadmaps which depicts the sequence of product development iterations & identifies features that will be included in the first, second, third & subsequent releases

Affinity Estimation

a technique used to quickly estimate a large amount of user stories using categories - categories are S, M, L or numbered using story point values to indicate relative size - key benefits = transparency, visibility & ease

Voice of the Customer

a term used to describe the explicit & implicit requirements of the customer - must be understood prior to the designing of a product or service - product owner is the representative

Sprint

a timebox iteration of 1 - 6 weeks in duration - when the scrum team works on and creates the Sprint deliverables

Retrospect Sprint Meetings

a timebox meeting for 4 hours, for a 1-month sprint and conducted as part of the retrospect sprint process - length may be scaled relative to the length of the sprint - during meeting, scrum team reviews & reflects on the previous sprint such as processes followed, tools employed, collaboration and communication mechanisms and other aspects relevant to the project

Sprint Review Meeting

a timebox of 4 hours for a 1 - month Sprint and can be scaled according to the length of the Sprint - scrum team presents the deliverables of the current Sprint to the product owner, who may accept or reject the deliverables

Scrum Board

a tool used by the scrum team to plan & track progress during each Sprint - contains 4 columns to indicate the progress of the tasks for the Sprint - To Do--> tasks not yet started - In Progress--> tasks started but not completed - Testing--> tasks completed but in the process of being tested - "Done"--> tasks that have been completed & successfully tested

Transparency

allows all facets of the Scrum processes to be observed by anyone - sharing all information leads to a high trust environment

Sprint Retrospective

an activity that occurs at the end of a Sprint cycle where the scrum team discusses & documents what worked, what didn't work & how they will approach problems in the future

Explorer/Shopper/Vacationer/Prisoner (ESVP)

an exercise that is conducted at the start of the retrospect Sprint meeting to understand the mindset of participants & set the tone for the meeting - attendees are asked to anonymously share their outlook during the meeting

Customer

an individual or org that acquires the project's product, service or other result - can be internal or external

Plan-Do-Check-Act/Plan-Do-Study-Act Cycle

an iterative method that focuses on continuous improvement

Agile

an iterative type of development - includes Scrum, Extreme Programming (XP) & Kanban

Scrum Guidance Body

an optional role that consists of a group of documents or a group of experts who are involved with defining objectives related to quality, government regulations, security & other key organizational parameters

Risk

an uncertain event or set of events that affect the objectives of a project & contribute to its success or failure

Three Daily Questions

asked during the daily standup meeting that each team member answers: - what did I complete yesterday? - what will I complete today? - what impediments or obstacles (if any) am I currently facing?

Approved Change Requests

changes that are approved to include in the prioritized product backlog -originate from the program or portfolio managers -inputs are added to the list of approved project changes for implementation in future Sprints

Sprint Planning Meeting

conducted at the beginning of a sprint, as part of the create Sprint backlog process - a timebox of 8 hours for a 1 - month Sprint and is divided into 2 parts: Objective definition and task estimation

Release Content

consists of essential information about the deliverables that assist the customer support team

Team Calendar

contains information about availability of team members including information related to employee vacation, leaves, important events & holidays

Minimum Acceptance Criteria

created by the business unit & become part of the acceptance criteria for a user story - functionality defined by the business unit must satisfy these minimum acceptance criteria if it's to be accepted by the respective product owner

Estimation Criteria

criteria that are used to maintain relative estimation sizes & minimize the need for re-estimation - can be expressed in numerous ways such as story points & ideal time

Mandatory Dependencies

dependencies that are inherent in the nature of the work (physical limitation), contractual obligations or legal requirements

Personas

detailed fictional characters that represent the majority of users & stakeholders who will use the end product - they are created to identify the needs of the target user base

Discretionary Dependencies

determined by the Scrum team based on past experiences or best practices in a particular field or domain - placed in the workflow by choice

Probability Trees

diagrams whereby potential events are represented with a branch of each possible outcome - probability of each is indicated on the appropriate branch & the values are used to calculate the overall impact of risk occurrence in a project

Task Estimation Workshop

enables the scrum team to estimate the effort required to complete a task or set of tasks, and to estimate the effort & other resources required to carry out the tasks within a given Sprint

Wing Captain

establishes wing priorities and vision, coordinates between crews & interfaces with other wings

Risk-Based Spikes

experiments that involve research or prototyping to better understand potential risks - in a spike, an intense 2 - 3 day exercise is conducted to help the team determine the uncertainties that could affect the project - ideally this is done at the beginning of a project before the develop epics or create prioritized product backlog processes

Project Vision Statement

explains the business need & intent of the project - key output of the create project vision process is a well-structured project vision statement

Company Vision

focuses on the potential inherent in the company's future or what they intend to be - understanding this helps the project keep its focus on the org's objectives & the future potential of the company -product owner takes guidance & direction from the company vision to create the project vision statement

User Stories

functional increments that are created when the team divides up the work after consulting with the customer or product owner - short, simple, easy-to-understand, and adhere to a specific, predefined structure

User Story Workshops

held as part of the develop epics process - Scrum master facilitates & the Scrum core team attends; stakeholders are possibly invited

User Group Meeting

held for relevant stakeholders, primarily users or customers of the product - meeting provides the Scrum core team with first-hand information about user expectations to help with formulating the acceptance criteria for the product, and to provide valuable insights for developing epics

Joint Application Design Sessions

highly structured, facilitated workshop that hastens the create project vision process - enables the stakeholders & other decision makers to come to a consensus on the scope, objectives & other specifications of the project

Release Notes

include external or market-facing shipping criteria for the product

Risk Tolerance

indicates the degree, amount, or volume of risk the stakeholders will withstand

Vendor

individuals or organizations that provide products & services that aren't within the core competencies of the project org

Resolved Issues

issues that impact the project, which are discussed during Scrum or Scrums - discussion & resolution of issues helps to improve coordination between teams & reduce the need for redesign & rework

External Dependencies

items related to tasks, activities or products that are outside the scope of the work by the Scrum team - needed to complete a project task or create a project deliverable - external dependencies are usually outside the Scrum team's control

Assigned Action Items & Due Dates

items that are used to implement the improvements considered by the Scrum team - after agreed actionable improvements have been elaborated & refined, each action item has a defined due date for completion

Rejected Deliverables

items that don't meet the defined acceptance criteria - list of rejected deliverables is maintained & updated after each Sprint review meeting

Accepted Deliverables

items that meet the user story acceptance criteria & are accepted by the product owner and may be released to the customer

Epics

large unrefined user stories in the prioritized product backlog - estimated by using t-shirt sizes - written in the initial stages of a project when most user stories are high-level functionalities or product descriptions - requirements are broadly defined

Theory Y

leader who assumes that employees are self - motivated & seek to accept greater responsibility - involves a more participative management style

Risk Checklists

lists that include key points to be considered when identifying risks, common risks in scrum projects or categories of risks that are addressed by the team

Risk Prompt Lists

lists that stimulate thought about the source of the risk - lists for industries & project types are available publicly

Organizational Deployment Methods

mechanisms of each org that are based on industry, target users & positioning - depending on the product being delivered, deployment can take place remotely or involve the physical shipping or transition of an item

Release Prioritization Methods

methods used to develop a release plan - industry & organization specific and are determined by senior management

Scrum Team Representatives

nominated by the team to represent them in Scrum of Scrums - whoever fills the role are determined based on current issues & circumstances

Better Team Coordination

occurs during the Scrum of Scrums which facilitates coordination of work across multiple Scrum teams - important when tasks involve inter-team dependencies - incompatibilities & discrepancies between the work & deliverables of the teams are exposed which provides team with the opportunity to showcase their achievements & provide feedback to other teams

Collaboration

occurs when a team works together to play off each other's contributions to produce something greater - an extremely important aspect in Scrum and occurs when Scrum core team works together & interfaces with the stakeholders to create and validate the deliverables of the project & to meet the goals outlined in the project vision

Business Needs

outcomes that the project is expected to fulfill, as documented in the project vision statement

Collaboration Plan

outlines how the various decision makers, stakeholders & team members engage & collaborate with each other

Release Plan Schedule

outlines the deliverables, planned intervals & dates for releases - schedule is one of the outputs of the release planning process - may not be a release scheduled at the end of each Sprint interation

Relative Sizing/Story Points

points that are used to estimate the overall size of a user story or feature - values are based on an assessment of the size of a user story with consideration of risk, amount of effort required & level of complexity

User Story Acceptance Criteria

provide objectivity to the user story that is considered "done" during the Spring review - criteria provide clarity to the team about what is expected of a user story

Retrospect Sprint Logs

records of the opinions, discussions & actionable items raised in a retrospect Sprint meeting - scrum master creates the log with inputs from the scrum core team members

Product

refers to a product, service or other deliverable that provides value to the customer

Rapid Product Development

refers to the alternatives to the conventional waterfall model of project management & puts less emphasis on planning and more emphasis on process

Proposed Non-Functional Items for Product Backlog

requirements that aren't fully defined in the early stages of the project & can surface during the Sprint review or retrospect Sprint meetings - items are added to the prioritized product backlog as the are discovered

Coach

responsible for coaching & supporting wings & crews in transforming their behaviors towards a more Agile model - a hands-on coach to the wings with the intent to support ideation & development of changes required for a stronger Agile model

Program & Portfolio Risks

risks that are related to a portfolio or program that will impact projects that are part of the respective portfolio or program

Mitigated Risks

risks that are successfully addressed or mitigated by the Scrum team during the project

Threats

risks that negatively affect the project

Core Roles

roles that are mandatory for creating the product - committed to the project & are ultimately responsible for the success of each Sprint & the project as a whole

Communication Plan

specifies the records that must be created & maintained throughout the project - a variety of methods are used to convey important project info to stakeholders - defines these methods & who is responsible for various communication activities

Business Justification

states the reasons for undertaking a project - answers "Why is this project needed?" and drives the decision making for the project

Approved, Estimated & Committed User Stories

stories that have high-level estimates from the prioritized product backlog & create user stories processes - estimates are used by product owners to approve user stories for the Sprint - Once approved, user stories are estimated by the team - team commits to a subset of approved & estimated user stories they can complete in the next Sprint - user stories become part of the backlog

MoSCoW Prioritization Technique

technique whereby the features of a product are prioritized - derives its name from the list of letters of the phrases: must have, should have, could have, won't have

Quality

the ability of the completed product or deliverables to meet the acceptance criteria & achieve the business value expected by the customer

Risk Attitude

the amount of risk the stakeholders consider acceptable - a determining factor about whether to take action to mitigate potential adverse risks

Risk Seeking

the attitude of the stakeholder to accept risk, even if it delivers a marginal increase in return or benefit to the project - one of the categories of utility function

Working Deliverables Agreement

the deliverables that meet the acceptance criteria & receive formal business sign-off/approval by the customer or sponsor

Internal Dependencies

the dependencies between tasks, products or activities that are under the control of the Scrum team

Scrum Guidance Body Expertise

the documented rules & regulations, development guidelines or standards and best practices

Points for Cost Estimating

the estimated cost to implement a user story in the form of story points, rather than monetary units - cost estimation accomplished through the use of relative units (effort estimates) rather than absolute units (actual costs incurred)

Return on Investment

the expected net income from a project - used to justify the project - calculated by deducting the expected costs or investment from its expected revenue, and dividing the net profit by the expected costs, to obtain the return rate

Working Deliverables

the final shippable deliverables from the project

Performing Stage

the final stage of team formation when the team becomes cohesive & operates at the highest performance level - members evolved into an efficient product team

Forming Stage

the first stage of team formation where group members explore as a way to get to know one another - focus on similarities & differences and first impressions are key as people try to figure out the similarities & differences

Crew

the fundamental unit responsible for a dedicated mission - crew is an autonomous, self-steering team comprised of individuals from different disciplines

User

the individual or org that directly uses the project's product, service or other results - can be internal or external users - customers & users are sometimes the same

Sponsor

the individual or organization that provides resources & support for the project - also the stakeholder

Team Expertise

the knowledge & skills of the Scrum team members to understand the user stories & tasks in the sprint backlog so they can create the final deliverables

Risk Threshold

the level where a risk is acceptable to the stakeholder's organization - risk will fall above or below the risk threshold - if below: the stakeholder or org is more likely to accept the risk

War Room

the location where the Scrum team members work - designed so the team can move around freely, work & communicate easily because they are located in close proximity

Number of Stories

the number of user stories that are delivered as part of a single Sprint - can be expressed in terms of a simple or weighted count

Product Owner

the person who is responsible for maximizing business value for the project - responsible for articulating customer requirements & maintaining business justification for the project

Wideband Delphi Method

the process whereby a group determines how much work is involved & how long it will take to complete - individuals within a team anonymously provide estimations for each feature, and the initial estimates are plotted to a second round of estimation - process is repeated until the estimates of individuals are close to each other and a consensus for the final estimate can be reached

Paired Comparison

the process whereby a list of user stories in the prioritized product backlog is prepared - each user story is taken individually & compared with the others in the list, one at a time - each time 2 user stories are compared, a decision is made about which is more important - creates a prioritized list of user stories

Ship Deliverables

the process whereby accepted deliverables are delivered or transitioned to relevant stakeholders - formal working deliverables agreement documents the successful completion of the Sprint

Continuous Value Justification

the process whereby assessment of the business value is justified & whether it is viable for the project to continue to exist

Kano Analysis

the process whereby classifying features or requirements are based on 4 categories of customer preference: - Exciters/Delighters - Satisfiers - Dissatisfiers - Indifferent

Market Study

the process whereby customers' preferences for a product are researched & analyzed using extensive data on market trends, market segments & marketing processes

Dependency Determination

the process whereby dependencies in the project are identified - after Scrum team has selected user stories for a given Sprint, they consider dependencies, including those related to the availability of people & technical dependencies - by properly documenting dependencies, it helps Scrum teams determine the relative order in which tasks should be executed to create the Sprint deliverables - highlight the relationship & interaction between tasks within the Scrum team working on a given Sprint & with other Scrum teams in the project

Decomposition

the process whereby high-level tasks are broken down into lower-level, more detailed tasks -user stories are decomposed into tasks by members of the Scrum team - prioritized product backlog user stories should be sufficiently decomposed to a level that provide the Scrum team adequate information to create deliverables from the tasks mentioned in the task list

Simple Schemes

the process whereby items are labeled priority 1, 2, 3 or high, medium, low - simple & straightforward approach but can be problematic because there's a tendency to label everything as priority 1 or high

Inspection

the process whereby project deliverables are monitored to ensure they conform to the requirements

Risk Prioritization

the process whereby risks are prioritized for specific action in the prioritized product backlog - an important step of risk management

Identify Scrum Master & Stakeholders Process

the process whereby the Scrum Master & the stakeholders are identified using specific selection criteria

Team Building Plan

the process whereby the Scrum Master identifies potential issues that could surface with the team & tries to address them - process helps to maintain an effective team

Create Sprint Backlog

the process whereby the Scrum core team holds Sprint planning meetings where the group creates a Sprint backlog - backlog contains tasks to complete in the Sprint

Conduct Release Planning

the process whereby the Scrum core team reviews the high-level user stories in the prioritized product backlog to develop a release planning schedule - is a phased deployment schedule that can be shared with the stakeholders - length of Sprints are determined during this process

Estimate Tasks Process

the process whereby the Scrum core team, in a task estimation workshop, estimates the effort required to accomplish each task in the task list - output of the process is an effort estimated task list

Retrospect Sprint

the process whereby the Scrum master & team meet to discuss the lessons learned in the sprint - lessons learned are documented & applied to future Sprints

Demonstrate & Validate Sprint

the process whereby the Scrum team demonstrates the Sprint deliverables to the product owner & relevant stakeholders in a Sprint review meeting

Quality Control

the process whereby the Scrum team executes the planned quality activities during the creation of deliverables - includes learning from each set of activities to achieve continuous improvement

Create Deliverables

the process whereby the Scrum team works on the tasks in the Sprint backlog to create Sprint deliverables

Risk Identification

the process whereby the appropriate strategy is developed to deal with a risk - an important step in risk management

Risk Mitigation

the process whereby the appropriate strategy is developed to deal with a risk - important step in risk management

Create Tasks

the process whereby the approved, estimated & committed user stories are broken down into specific tasks & compiled in a task list - task planning meeting is held for this

Quality Management

the process whereby the customer becomes aware of problems early in the project & helps to recognize whether the project is going to work - facilitated through 3 interrelated activities: quality planning, quality control & quality assurance

Planning Sprint

the process whereby the development team determines how to turn solution backlog into an increment of potentially shippable solution (deliverable solution)

Create Prioritized Product Backlog

the process whereby the epics are refined, elaborated on & then prioritized to create a prioritized product backlog - "done" criteria are identified during this process

Risk Communication

the process whereby the findings from the first four steps of risk management is communicated to the appropriate stakeholders - during the process, determine the stakeholders perception about the uncertain events

Relative Prioritization Ranking

the process whereby the list of user stories are prioritized - an effective method for identifying the user stories for each iteration or release of the product

Prioritization

the process whereby the order of items are separated into what will be done now from what will be done later

Retrospect Project

the process whereby the organizational stakeholders & scrum core team members meet to retrospect the project - identify, document & internalize lessons learned which often lead to the documentation of agreed actionable improvements, to be implemented in future projects

Customer Value-Based Prioritization

the process whereby the prioritization is paced primarily on the customer & strives to implement user stories with the highest value - high value user stories are identified & moved to the top of the prioritized product backlog

Groom Prioritized Product Backlog

the process whereby the prioritized product backlog is continuously updated & maintained

Quality Assurance

the process whereby the processes & standards that govern quality management in a project are evaluated for relevancy - activities are carried out as part of the work

Approve, Estimate & Commit User Stories

the process whereby the product owner approves user stories for a Sprint - Scrum master and team estimate the effort required to develop the functionality described in each user story - Scrum team then commits to delivering the customer requirements in the form of approved, estimated & committed user stories

User Story Writing Expertise

the process whereby the product owner develops the user stories that form the initial prioritized product backlog for the project - expertise is based on their interaction with the stakeholders, their business knowledge & expertise, and input from the team

Create Project Vision

the process whereby the project business case is reviewed to create a project vision statement that serves as the inspiration & provides focus for the project - product owner is identified in this process

Planning for Value

the process whereby the project is justified & confirmed - created by stakeholders (sponsor, customers or users)

Develop Epics

the process whereby the project vision statement serves as the basis for developing epics - user group meetings may be held to develop epics

Scrum Team Lessons Learned

the process whereby the scrum team learns from mistakes made during a sprint with the intent of improving their performance in future sprints

Target Customers for Release

the process whereby the stakeholders choose to limit releases to a subset of users - release plan specifies the target customers for release

Continuous Improvement

the process whereby the team learns from experience & stakeholder's engagement to keep the prioritized product backlog updated with any changes in requirements of the project

Quality Planning

the process whereby these items are completed to ensure quality: - product identification & definition - acceptance criteria - development methods - scrum team responsibilities

Create User Stories

the process whereby user stories & their related user story acceptance criteria are created - written by the product owner & are designed to ensure that the customer's requirements are clearly depicted & understood by stakeholders

Sprint Velocity

the rate at which the team will complete the work in a Sprint - usually expressed in the same units as those used for estimating, such as story points or ideal time

Business Requirements

the requirements that define what must be delivered to fulfill the business needs & provide value to the stakeholders -include the sum of insights gained from various tools such as user or customer interviews, questionnaires, join application design sessions, gap analysis, Strengths/Weaknesses/Opportunities/Threats (SWOT) analysis, and meetings - help to provide a better perspective about the business requirements & in creating the prioritized product backlog

Storming Stage

the second stage of team formation where the team begins to accomplish the work - power struggles can occur & often there is chaos or confusion among team members

Risk Neutral

the state whereby the stakeholder is either risk averse or risk seeking - a decision not affected by the level of uncertainty of the outcome - when 2 possible scenarios carry the same level of benefit, the risk-neutral stakeholder will not be concerned about risk - one of the categories of utility function

Norming Stage

the third stage of team formation when the team begins to mature, sort out their internal differences & find solutions to work together - considered a period of adjustment

Scope

the total sum of the product increments & the work required for developing the final product

Velocity

the total that results when the team adds up effort estimates associated with user stories that were completed during the iteration

Opportunity Cost

the value of the next best business option or project that was discarded in favor of the chosen project

Technical Debt

the work the teams prioritize as low, omit or do not complete as they work towards the primary deliverable - debt accrues & must be paid in the future - referred to as design debt or code debt

Release Planning Sessions

used to create a release plan schedule - enables the Scrum team to have an overview of the releases delivery schedule so they can align with the expectations of the project owner & relevant stakeholders

Retrospect Project Meeting

used to identify how team collaboration & effectiveness can be improved in future projects - positives, negatives & potential opportunities for improvement are discussed - not a timebox meeting - can be conducted in person of in a virtual format

Design Patterns

used to record a resolution to a design problem in a specific field of expertise - resolution can be reused to improve decision making & productivity

Sprint Tracking Tools

used to track the progress of a Sprint & identify when the scrum team will complete the tasks in the Spring backlog - variety of tools are used to track the work in a sprint, but most common is a Scrum board (task board or progress chart)

Index Cards

used to track the user stories throughout the project - increases visibility & transparency and facilitates early discovery of any problems - often called story cards

Task Planning Meeting

where the Scrum team plans the work to be done in the Sprint and the team reviews the committed user stories at the top of the prioritized product backlog - standard length is limited to 2 hours per week of Sprint duration to ensure group stays on topic