Scrum Vocabulary

Fail Fast

"A property of a system or module with respect to its response to failures. A fail-fast system is designed to immediately report at its interface any failure or condition that is likely to lead to failure." (Wikipedia)

Scrum (definition)

A Rugby play in which, typically, three members of each team line up opposite one another with a group of two and a group of three players behind them, making an eight-person, three-two-three formation on each side; the ball is then rolled between the opposing front lines, the players of which stand with arms around a teammate's waist, meeting the opponent shoulder to shoulder, and attempt to kick the ball backward to a teammate. (2) (British) a place or situation of confusion and racket; hubbub.

Task Board

A chart that presents, at minimum, "to do", "in progress", and "done" columns for organizing a team's work. Some teams include their backlog as a column on the task board, while others limit it to work to be performed during the current iteration. Ideally, the task board is a physical thing, consisting of note cards or sticky notes affixed to a wall. The task board may illustrate tasks or other forms of work such as user stories. In Scrum, the task board is often used to illustrate the tasks for the current sprint, populated with tasks for the current sprint, while other Scrum teams may populate it with user stories.

Backlog

A collection of stories and tasks the Sprint team will work on at some point in the future. Either the Product Owner has not prioritized them or has assigned them lower priority. Teams or organizations may use the term "backlog" in one of the following four ways: Stories or tasks that are likely to be considered in the next iteration are planning game. Stories or tasks that are definitely planned to be worked on in the next iteration (rather than just being available for consideration). Stories or tasks that are assigned to the current iteration, but are not being worked on, yet. As the team has time, these will be worked on after the higher priority items are completed. In a very fluid team, the planning game may assign more stories than can be done during the iteration. The backlog consists of stories and tasks that may slip into the next iteration.

Sprint Backlog

A list of features, user stories or tasks that are pulled from the product backlog for consideration for completion during the upcoming sprint. Product backlog features and user stories are broken down into tasks to form the sprint backlog during the sprint planning meeting.

Sprint Review

A meeting held at the end of each sprint in which the Scrum team shows what they accomplished during the sprint; typically this takes the form of a demo of the new features. The sprint review meeting is intentionally kept very informal. With limited time allocated for Sprint review prep. A sprint review meeting should not become a distraction or significant detour for the team; rather, it should be a natural result of the sprint.

Itereation/Sprints

A period of time (day, week, month, Quarter, Semester) during which the Scrum team produces an increment of completed product. All system lifecycle phases (requirements, design, and test) must be completed during the iteration and then (empirically) demonstrated for the iteration to be accepted as successfully completed. At the beginning of the iteration, the business or the product owner identifies the next (highest priority) chunk of work for the team to complete. The Scrum team then estimates the level of effort and commits to completing a segment of work during the iteration. During the iteration, the team is not expected to change objectives or respond to change requests. However, at the front end of the next iteration the business or product owner is free to identify any new segment of work as the current highest priority.

Burndown Chart

A publicly displayed chart that depicts the total task hours remaining per day. It shows where the team stands regarding completing the tasks that comprise the backlog items that achieve the goals of the sprint. The X-axis represents days in the sprint, while the Y-axis is effort remaining (usually in ideal engineering hours). To motivate the team, the sprint burndown chart should be displayed prominently. It also acts as an effective information radiator. A manual alternative to this is a physical task board. Ideally, the chart burns down to zero by the end of the sprint. If the team members are reporting their remaining task hours realistically, the line should bump up and down.

Story/User

A requirement, feature and/or unit of assignment/project value that can be estimated and tested. Stories describe work that must be done to create and deliver a feature for a product. Stories are the basic unit of communication, planning, and negotiation between the Scrum Team, Business Owners, and the Product Owner. Stories consist of the following elements

Fibonacci Sequence

A sequence of numbers in which the next number is derived by adding together the previous two (e.g. 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34...). The sequence is used to size stories in Agil estimation techniques such as Planning Poker.

Spike

A story or task aimed at answering a question or gathering information, rather than implementing product features, user stories, or requirements. Sometimes a user story is generated that cannot be estimated until the development team does some actual work to resolve a technical question or a design problem. The solution is to create a "spike," which is a story whose purpose is to provide the answer or solution. Like any other story or task, the spike is then given an estimate and included in the sprint backlog.

Retrospective

A time boxed meeting held at the end of the iteration, or at the end of a release, in which the team examines its processes to determine what succeeded and what could be improved. The retrospective is key to a Scrum team's ability to "inspect and adapt" in the pursuit of "continuous improvement." The retrospective differs from other methodologies' "Lessons Learned" exercises, in that the goal is not to generate a comprehensive list of what went wrong. A positive outcome for a retrospective is to identify one or two high-priority action items the team wants to work on in the next iteration or release. The emphasis is on actionable items, not comprehensive analysis. Retrospectives may take many forms, but there is usually a facilitator, who may or may not be a member of the team, and the process is typically broken down into three phases: data gathering, data analysis, and action items.

Stakeholder

Anyone external to the team with a vested interest in the outcome of the team's work. In education, it could be the administration, Superintendent, Schoolboard, parents, teachers, Department of Education, etc.

Big Visible Charts/The Flip

Big visible charts are exactly what you would think they would be: Big charts posted near the Scrum team that describes in different ways the team's progress. Big visible charts not only can be useful tools for the team but also make it easier for any stakeholder to learn how the team is progressing. Big visible charts are an important tool for implementing the essential values of transparency and communication.

Sprint Backlog Meeting

Each sprint begins with a two-part sprint planning meeting, the activity that prioritizes and identifies stories and concrete tasks for the next sprint. As a general rule of thumb, the number of weeks in a sprint multiplied by two hours equals the total length of the spring planning meeting.

Impediment/Obstacle

In Scrum: Anything that prevents a team member from performing work as efficiently as possible is an impediment. Each team member has an opportunity to announce impediments during the daily standup meeting. The Scrum Master is charged with ensuring impediments are removed. Scrum Masters often arrange sidebar meetings when impediments cannot be resolved on the spot in the daily Scrum meeting.

Product Owner

In school it is the teacher, the one of the key roles in Scrum. The product owner is the primary business representative who represents the business stakeholders' "voice of the customer" and the "voice of the business" to the sprint team. The responsibilities of the Product Owner include: Establishing, nurturing, and communicating the product vision Creating and leading a team of developers to best provide value to the customer Monitoring the project against its goals and an investment vision Making decisions about when to create an official release The product owner is a role rather than a position. Consequently, several people likely participate in the product owner role for larger projects.

Pig

Scrum Slang. Someone who is responsible for doing a task on an active iteration. It comes from the joke, "A chicken and pig talk about breakfast. The chicken says, 'Let's have bacon and eggs.' The pig replies, 'That's fine for you. You are just making a contribution, But I have to be fully committed." Pigs are actively involved in the project.

Scrum

Scrum is an agile software development model based on multiple small teams working in an intensive and interdependent manner. The term is named for the scrum (or scrummage) formation in rugby, which is used to restart the game after an event that causes play to stop, such as an infringement.

What is scrum?

Scrum is an agile software development model based on multiple small teams working in an intensive and interdependent manner. The term is named for the scrum (or scrummage) formation in rugby, which is used to restart the game after an event that causes play to stop, such as an infringement. A framework for the iterative development of complex products. Scrum is the most widely recognized Agile framework. Scrum is comprised of a series of short iterations - called sprints - each of which ends with the delivery of an increment of working software.

Chicken

Scrum slang for someone who is interested in a project but has no responsibility for working on a task in the active literation. They may observe team meetings but cannot vote or talk.

Daily Scrum

Standup meeting

Task

Tasks are descriptions of the actual work that an individual or pair does in order to complete a story. They are manageable, doable, and trackable units of work. Typically, there are several tasks per story. Tasks have the following attributes, and all tasks must be verified complete - not just "done"

Scrum Master

The Scrum Master is responsible for maintaining the Scrum process and the overall health of the team. The Scrum Master assures that the team is fully functional and productive. The Scrum Master performs this role by administering the Scrum ceremonies, facilitating the organic self-organization of the team, and removing any obstacles that may be impeding the team's progress.

Sprint

The Scrum term for iteration. The sprint/Iteration starts with a sprint planning meeting. At the end of the sprint there is a sprint review meeting, followed by a sprint retrospective meeting.

Shipping Date

The date the final project is due and ships (turned into the product owner)

Done

The exact criteria for what constitutes "Done" varies to meet the specific needs of different organizations and initiatives. We will use what Mr. Burda and his classes have come with as their definition, "The definition of DONE is what was to be done has been done and what was to be learned has been learned. Learning tasks are owned by the whole team and not by individual team members."

Scrum Team

The scrum team is a cross-functional group that is responsible for delivering the product. The team usually includes people skilled to understand what is needed... The scrum team is encouraged to be self-organizing and to take collective responsibility for all work commitments and outcomes. Scrum teams respond to requirements (often presented as user stories) by collectively defining their tasks, task assignments, and level of effort estimates. In scrum, the team is one of three roles; the other two being Scrum Master and product owner.

Velocity

Velocity measures how much work a team can complete in the iteration. Velocity is often measured in stories or story points. Velocity may also measure tasks in hours or an equivalent unit. Velocity is used to measure how long it will take a particular team to deliver future outcomes by extrapolating on the basis of its prior performance. This works in Scrum development, when work is comprehensively completed after the iteration.