‘Scrum’ Vocab You Must Know

The information below may not be the standard definition of Scrum terms you will read on some websites. It is rather a practical experience. The tools may be used in more ways and you can go to the links in the post to explore further. We are not going to talk about the most common software like Word, Excel, etc. These are some of the best in their class tools you must know for a successful career in IT. Anything specific to the domain or industry may also be mentioned.

Backlog – All user stories combined together that need to be finished for successful project completion. Sprints are decided by taking up user stories from the backlog.

MVP (Minimum Viable Product) – A version of the product that could be shipped out to the user community. Depending on the product type, each sprint could be generating an MVP or some sprints together may build one. As MVP is finalized and tested, it should be released to the users in Production environments.

Epic – A single body of work that may define a single feature or business requirement. Epic is then broken into multiple user stories or stories. A whole project may only have 5-10 epics.

Stories – A detailed sub-feature or requirement that can be taken up in a Sprint and finished. In a typical sprint, you may be working on many stories but maybe targeting only a couple of epics. Epics span beyond multiple sprints.

Story Points – Effort involved in finishing a story. Typically an agreement is reached on how many man-hours would be considered as 1 story point (6-8 hours in general for 1 story point). Efforts and schedules are then calculated based on story points.

Sprint – A duration of 2-4 weeks typically in which certain user stories are targeted for completion. Anything which is decided but not completed in a Sprint, goes back to the backlog.

Iteration – A fixed time duration in which development takes place. By definition, an iteration may have many sprints in it but nowadays the term is used interchangeably with Sprints.

Definition of Done (DOD) – Extremely important to get an agreement on with the Product Owner. Before starting to work on a user story, DOD is finalized and stays the same for that sprint. If there is a change in DOD, the user stories are calculated again and the story may move to the backlog if it can’t be completed in the same sprint. To avoid issues later, Scrum Masters should not take up a user story in a sprint unless DOD is finalized.

Standup – A short call every day involving all the participants. The idea is for everyone to answer only answer 3 questions for themselves – What I did yesterday? What will I do today? What help do I need? If more detailed discussions are needed, they should be taken up in separate meetings involving only the concerned. Standup Meetings (or Stums as they are fondly called) can be held at a team level or project level. This is the best way for management to gauge a project pulse.

Retrospective – Happens after each sprint to understand what mistakes happened and what worked really well. An Action plan is arrived at to ensure that mistakes don’t recur and what worked becomes SOP (standard operating procedure). This meeting involves the whole team and is 1-2 hour long.

Product Owner– The one responsible for all functional requirements and their delivery to the business. This person should guide the team by making all final decisions with respect to the form, fit, and function of the product

Scrum Master – Responsible for keeping the project going well w.r.t Agile methodology and doing the report outs accordingly. He would be managing project status in the Agile documentation tool like JIRA or so. In many cases, Project Managers take up the role of Scrum Masters, although it is not what I would recommend for strategic projects.

Also read, IaaS, PaaS, SaaS – What to use when?

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