Scrum Glossary

Glossary of Scrum Terms

This glossary is meant to represent an overview of Scrum-related terms. Some of the mentioned terms are not mandatory in Scrum, but have been added because they are commonly used in Scrum. To learn more about the Scrum framework, to identify which of these terms are required elements of Scrum and to understand how the mentioned elements are connected, we highly recommend that you reference the Scrum Guide™.

To learn more about terms specific to software development teams using Scrum and agile software development techniques, reference the Professional Scrum Developer glossary.

B

Burn-down Chart: a chart showing the evolution of remaining effort against time. Burn-down charts are an optional implementation within Scrum to make progress transparent.

Burn-up Chart: a chart showing the evolution of an increase in a measure against time. Burn-up charts are an optional implementation within Scrum to make progress transparent.

D

Daily Scrum: daily time-boxed event of 15 minutes, or less, for the Development Team to re-plan the next day of development work during a Sprint. Updates are reflected in the Sprint Backlog.

Definition of Done: a shared understanding of expectations that software must live up to in order to be releasable into production. Managed by the Development Team.

Development Team: the role within a Scrum Team accountable for managing, organizing and doing all development work required to create a releasable Increment of product every Sprint.

E

Emergence: the process of the coming into existence or prominence of new facts or new knowledge of a fact, or knowledge of a fact becoming visible unexpectedly.

Empiricism: process control type in which only the past is accepted as certain and in which decisions are based on observation, experience and experimentation. Empiricism has three pillars: transparency, inspection and adaptation.

Engineering standards: a shared set of development and technology standards that a Development Team applies to create releasable Increments of software.

F

Forecast (of functionality): the selection of items from the Product Backlog a Development Team deems feasible for implementation in a Sprint.

I

Increment: a piece of working software that adds to previously created Increments, where the sum of all Increments -as a whole - form a product.

P

Product Backlog: an ordered list of the work to be done in order to create, maintain and sustain a product. Managed by the Product Owner.

Product Backlog refinement: the activity in a Sprint through which the Product Owner and the Development Team add granularity to the Product Backlog.

Product Owner: the role in Scrum accountable for maximizing the value of a product, primarily by incrementally managing and expressing business and functional expectations for a product to the Development Team(s).

R

Ready: a shared understanding by the Product Owner and the Development Team regarding the preferred level of description of Product Backlog items introduced at Sprint Planning.

S

Scrum: a framework to support teams in complex product development. Scrum consists of Scrum Teams and their associated roles, events, artifacts, and rules, as defined in the Scrum GuideTM.

Scrum Board: a physical board to visualize information for and by the Scrum Team, often used to manage Sprint Backlog. Scrum boards are an optional implementation within Scrum to make information visible.

Scrum Guide™: the definition of Scrum, written and provided by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland, co-creators of Scrum. This definition consists of Scrum’s roles, events, artifacts, and the rules that bind them together.

Scrum Master: the role within a Scrum Team accountable for guiding, coaching, teaching and assisting a Scrum Team and its environments in a proper understanding and use of Scrum.

Scrum Team: a self-organizing team consisting of a Product Owner, Development Team and Scrum Master.

Scrum Values: a set of fundamental values and qualities underpinning the Scrum framework; commitment, focus, openness, respect and courage.

Self-organization: the management principle that teams autonomously organize their work. Self-organization happens within boundaries and against given goals. Teams choose how best to accomplish their work, rather than being directed by others outside the team.

Sprint: time-boxed event of 30 days, or less, that serves as a container for the other Scrum events and activities. Sprints are done consecutively, without intermediate gaps.

Sprint Backlog: an overview of the development work to realize a Sprint’s goal, typically a forecast of functionality and the work needed to deliver that functionality. Managed by the Development Team.

Sprint Goal: a short expression of the purpose of a Sprint, often a business problem that is addressed. Functionality might be adjusted during the Sprint in order to achieve the Sprint Goal.

Sprint Planning: time-boxed event of 8 hours, or less, to start a Sprint. It serves for the Scrum Team to inspect the work from the Product Backlog that’s most valuable to be done next and design that work into Sprint backlog.

Sprint Retrospective: time-boxed event of 3 hours, or less, to end a Sprint. It serves for the Scrum Team to inspect the past Sprint and plan for improvements to be enacted during the next Sprint.

Sprint Review: time-boxed event of 4 hours, or less, to conclude the development work of a Sprint. It serves for the Scrum Team and the stakeholders to inspect the Increment of product resulting from the Sprint, assess the impact of the work performed on overall progress and update the Product backlog in order to maximize the value of the next period.

Stakeholder: a person external to the Scrum Team with a specific interest in and knowledge of a product that is required for incremental discovery. Represented by the Product Owner and actively engaged with the Scrum Team at Sprint Review.

V

Values: When the values of Commitment, Courage, Focus, Openness and Respect are embodied and lived by the Scrum Team, the Scrum pillars of transparency, inspection, and adaptation come to life and builds trust for everyone. The Scrum Team members learn and explore those values as they work with the Scrum events, roles and artifacts.  Download the Scrum Values Poster

Velocity: an optional, but often used, indication of the average amount of Product Backlog turned into an Increment of product during a Sprint by a Scrum Team, tracked by the Development Team for use within the Scrum Team.