Appendix B: Terminology

Burn Down
The trend of work remaining across time in a Sprint, a Release, or a Product. The source of the raw data is the Sprint Backlog and the Product Backlog, with work remaining tracked on the vertical axis and the time periods (days of a Sprint, or Sprints) tracked on the horizontal axis.

Daily Scrum
A short meeting held daily by each Team during which the Team members inspect their work, synchronize their work and progress and report and impediments to the Scrum Master for removal. Follow-on meetings to adapt upcoming work to optimize the Sprint may occur after the Daily Scrum meetings.

Development Team
Another name for the Team role.

Done
Complete as mutually agreed to by all parties and that conforms to an organization’s standards, conventions, and guidelines. When something is reported as “done” at the Sprint Review meeting, it must conform to this agreed definition.

Estimated Work Remaining (Sprint Backlog items)
The number of hours that a Team member estimates remain to be worked on any task. This estimate is updated at the end of every day when the Sprint Backlog task is worked on. The estimate is the total estimated effort remaining, regardless of the number of people that perform the work.

Increment
Product functionality that is developed by the Team during each Sprint that is potentially shippable or of use to the Product Owner’s stakeholders.

Increment of Potentially Shippable Product
Functionality
A complete slice of the overall product or system that could be used by the Product Owner or stakeholders if they chose to implement it.


Sprint
An iteration, or one repeating cycle of similar work, that produces increment of product or system. No longer than one month and usually more than one week. The duration is fixed throughout the overall work and all teams working on the same system or product use the same length cycle.

Product Backlog
A prioritized list of requirements with estimated times to turn them into completed product functionality. Estimates are more precise the higher an item is in the Product Backlog priority.. The list emerges, changing as business conditions or technology changes.

Product Backlog Item
Functional requirements, non-functional requirements, and issues, prioritized in order of importance to the business and dependencies, and estimated. The precision of the estimate depends on the priority and granularity of the Product Backlog item, with the highest priority items that may be selected in the next Sprint being very granular and precise.

Product Owner
The person responsible for managing the Product Backlog so as to maximize the value of the product. The Product Owner is responsible for representing the interests of everyone with a stake in the project and its resulting product.

Scrum
Not an acronym, but mechanisms in the game of rugby for getting an out-of-play ball back into play.

Scrum Master
The person responsible for the Scrum process, its correct implementation, and the maximization of its benefits.

Sprint Backlog
A list of the Team’s work for a Sprint. This is often decomposed into a set of more detailed tasks. The list emerges during Sprint Planning and may be updated by the team during the Sprint with items being removed or new tasks being added as needed. Each Sprint Backlog task will be tracked during the Sprint and will show the estimated effort remaining.

Sprint Backlog Task
One of the tasks that the Team or a Team member defines as required to turn committed Product Backlog items into system functionality.

Sprint Planning meeting
A meeting time boxed to four hours (for a two week Sprint) that initiates every Sprint. The meeting is divided into two two-hour segments, each also time boxed. During the first part the Product Owner presents the highest priority Product Backlog to the team. The Team and Product Owner collaborate to help the Team determine how much Product Backlog it can turn into functionality during the upcoming Sprint. During the second part, the Team plans how it will achieve this by designing and decomposing the work so they understand how they will meet the Sprint Goal.

Sprint Retrospective meeting
A meeting facilitated by the Scrum Master at which the complete Team discusses the just-concluded Sprint and determines what could be changed that might make the next Sprint more enjoyable or productive.

Sprint Review meeting
A time-boxed two hour meeting (for a two week Sprint) at the end of every Sprint where the Team collaborates with the Product Owner and stakeholders and they inspect the output from the Sprint. This usually starts with a review of completed Product Backlog items, a discussion of opportunities, constraints and risks, and a discussion of what might be the best things to do next (potentially resulting in Product Backlog changes). Only completed product functionality can be demonstrated.

Stakeholder
Someone with an interest in the outcome of a project, either because they have funded it, will use it, or will be affected by it.

Team
A cross-functional group of people that is responsible for managing themselves to develop an increment of product every Sprint.

Time box
A period of time that cannot be exceeded and within which an event or meeting occurs. For example, a Daily Scrum meeting is time boxed at fifteen minutes and terminates at the end of fifteen minutes, regardless. For meetings, it might last shorter. For Sprints, it lasts exactly that length.