Scrum Glossary: A Comprehensive Guide to Scrum Terms
Scrum Framework
Core Roles
Product Owner
The Product Owner champions the stakeholders’ interests and ensures the Development Team’s work delivers maximum value. They are responsible for maintaining and prioritizing the Product Backlog.
Scrum Master
The Scrum Master is a servant-leader who ensures the Scrum process is understood and correctly implemented. They guide the team, remove impediments, and facilitate Scrum events.
Development Team
A cross-functional team responsible for delivering potentially shippable product increments at the end of each Sprint. They are self-organizing and collaborate to achieve the Sprint Goal.
Scrum Artifacts
Product Backlog
A prioritized list of desired product features, functionalities, and bug fixes. It serves as a single source of requirements for the product.
Sprint Backlog
A subset of the Product Backlog, containing the items the Development Team commits to delivering during a specific Sprint. It includes tasks and estimates for completing the selected items.
Sprint Burndown Chart
A visual representation of the remaining work in a Sprint, updated daily. It helps track progress and identify potential issues.
Scrum Events
Sprint
A time-boxed iteration (typically 1-4 weeks) during which the Development Team works on a set of items from the Sprint Backlog. It’s also known as a Time-box.
User Story
A concise description of a desired feature from a user’s perspective. It follows a specific structure: “As a <user type>, I want to <do some action> so that <desired result>.” User stories should be independent, negotiable, valuable, estimable, small, and testable (INVEST).
Other Important Terms
Theme
A high-level objective that can span multiple projects and products. Themes provide strategic alignment and communicate a clear direction. They can be broken down into sub-themes for specific products.
Epic
A large user story that needs to be broken down into smaller, more manageable stories. Epics are often used in product roadmaps and for features that require further analysis before implementation.
Spike
A time-boxed period dedicated to research, exploration, or prototyping to reduce uncertainty or gain knowledge. Spikes can be planned between Sprints or incorporated as Sprint objectives. They may not always result in shippable functionality.
Tracer Bullet
A type of spike that focuses on developing a narrow, production-quality implementation of a feature using the current architecture and technologies. It serves as a foundation for future iterations.
Point Scale/Effort/Story Points
An abstract point system used to estimate the relative effort or complexity of user stories. Common scales include Fibonacci sequence (1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13…), linear scale (1, 2, 3, 4…), powers of two (1, 2, 4, 8…), and clothes sizes (XS, S, M, L, XL).
Tasks
Smaller units of work within a user story, typically estimated in hours. Tasks should be concise and ideally take no more than a day to complete.
Definition of Done (DoD)
A set of criteria that must be met for a product backlog item to be considered complete. It ensures consistency and quality across the team’s work.
Velocity
A measure of the total effort a team can complete in a Sprint, calculated by summing the story points of completed items from the previous Sprint. It helps the team estimate their capacity for future Sprints.
Impediment
Any obstacle that hinders the team’s progress. The Scrum Master is responsible for identifying and removing impediments.
Sashimi
A term used to indicate that a piece of work is “done” according to the team’s Definition of Done.
Abnormal Termination
The Product Owner has the authority to cancel a Sprint if circumstances make it necessary. This decision is usually made in consultation with the team, Scrum Master, and stakeholders. A new Sprint Planning meeting is held after termination to review the reasons and plan the next steps.
Planning Poker
A collaborative estimation technique used during Sprint Planning to estimate the effort required for user stories. Team members use cards representing story points to reach a consensus on the estimates.