Agile Glossary

Acceptance Criteria act as indicators of what "done" means for a specific user story. (That is, Acceptance Criteria work in conjunction with the Definition of Done; Acceptance Criteria are user-story-specific, while the Definition of Done is global.) To cite a more formal definition, from (IEEE 610): 1. The external quality characteristics specified by the product owner (or a proxy for the PO) from a business or stakeholder perspective. Acceptance criteria define desired behavior and are used to determine whether a product backlog item has been successfully developed. 2. The exit criteria that a component or a system

Team members with different perspectives (for example, customer, development, testing) collaborate to write acceptance tests in advance of implementing a particular functionality. The discussions that occur to generate acceptance tests are often referred to as the "three amigos," representing the three perspectives of customer (what problem are we trying to solve?), development (how might we solve this problem?), and testing (what about…). These acceptance tests represent the user’s point of view and act as a way to describe how the system will function, as well as serve as a way of verifying that the system functions as intended.

A technique that enables rapid estimation of a potentially large set of work items with little discussion about each item. A common approach is to write all work items on index cards or Post-it Notes, and either slide them across a table top (if using index cards) or move them across a white board (if using Post-it Notes). The most common sizing construct is T-shirt sizing, where there might be columns for Extra-Small, Small, Medium, Large, and Extra-Large

A method of categorizing a group of items by themes (things they have in common). Items with a higher degree of correlation (affinity) are clustered together, while items with a lower level of correlation are further apart. See also affinity estimation

Pertaining to the Agile Manifesto and the set of values and principles on which the Agile Manifesto is based, as well as Lean thinking, a set of principles and practices that maximize customer value while minimizing waste and reducing time to market. Lean thinking includes five elements: the goal, kaizen (continuous improvement), product development flow, respect for people and Lean-Agile Leadership. One of the biggest differences between Agile development and Waterfall development is a recognition that there are a great many unknowns whenever a new software development undertaking begins, and that it is not realistic to make a plan in advance which can possibly account for all of those unknowns. To speed the process of discovery along, Agile development focuses on incremental delivery over short time periods, which shortens the feedback loop, and helps teams gain valuable insights from customers and stakeholders on the most recently built portion of the product (what Scrum calls the "Product Increment").

An output from human activity, such as a product, along with things that can potentially support or constitute a product, such as code, test scripts, user manuals, and so on. In Scrum, there are three artifacts: Product Backlog; Sprint Backlog; and the Increment.