Scrum Lexicon

The Scrum Team is cross-functional, self-organizing team with all the necessary competences to solely decide upon the best ways to accomplish their work.

SM The Scrum Master is a servant - leader for the Scrum Team. The Scrum Master is responsible for ensuring Scrum is understood and enacted, and to help the team to be fully functional and productive.

PO The Product Owner is responsible for maximizing the value of the product, optimising the value of the team's work and communicating the vision of it.

Product Backlog contains a prioritized list of features that sholud be done within a product. It is mostly organized in the order in which they will be worked on.

User Story User stories are a convenient technique for expressing the desired business value, for many types of product backlog items. User stories are defined in a way that they are understandable to both business people and technical people. User stories are a placeholder for a conversation.

Release Planning is a longer-term planning, that enables a team to answer questions like “When will we be done?” or “Which features will be delivered by a certain date?” or “How much will this cost?” Release planning must balance customer value and quality against the constraints of scope, schedule, and cost.

Sprint The heart of Scrum is a Sprint, a time-box of two to four weeks during which a “Done”, useable, and potentially shippable product increment is created.

Sprint Goal The sprint goal summarizes the business purpose and values of a sprint.

Sprint Planning A scrum event during which the Scrum team agrees on a sprint goal, and determines what subset of the product backlog it can deliver during the next sprint. During sprint planning, a sprint backlog is produced to help the team acquire confidence in delivering the committed product backlog items.

Sprint Review is held at the end of a Sprint to inspect the increment, gather feedback and adapt the Product Backlog if needed.

Sprint Retrospective A team session at the end of a Sprint when the team members discuss and agree upon ways they could improve their practices, teamwork, environment, or organization for the next Sprint.

Daily Scrum The Daily Scrum is a 15minute time-boxed event for the team to synchronize activities and create a plan for the next 24 hours. During the meeting, the Development Team members explain:

What did I do yesterday that helped the Development Team meet the Sprint Goal?
What will I do today to help the Development Team meet the Sprint Goal?
Do I see any impediment that prevents me or the Development Team from meeting the Sprint Goal?

Definition of Ready The Definition of Ready is what is needed for a user story to come into the sprint.

Definition of Done The Definition of Done is what is needed for a user story to come out of the sprint.

Agile Coach The person who works with multiple teams to help the team members understand, implement, and improve their use of Agile.

All the terminology is taken from the Scrum Guide and interpreted in a simpler or abbreviated manner. Scrum is completely defined in that document, written by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland, the creators of Scrum. The Scrum Guide is maintained independently of any company or vendor. It is translated and available in over 30 languages. You can read and download the Scrum Guide here.

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