Alphabetical Glossary of Terms
B
Backlog Refinement: a meeting to break down large Product Backlog Items into smaller deliverables or problems to be solved. It is common for enterprises to separate higher-order strategic backlog prioritization (Epic Backlog Refinement) and team-level execution prioritization (Scrum Team Backlog Refinement).
C
Customer Scrum Master: The customer representative responsible for the efficient and effective flow of value through the Developers, the escalation path for the Vendor Scrum Master. May not need to be dedicated to a single Scrum team. The name of the Customer Scrum Master should be recorded on each Schedule C.
D
Daily Scrum: coordinated planning, with accountability and commitment to deliver something of value for the day, where Developer impediments are handed off to the Vendor Scrum Master and/or escalated to the Customer Scrum Master for removal.
Developers: all team members responsible for delivering a solution, specifically not just “Software Developers.” This should be a static set of people (and therefore fixed cost, fixed backlog item difficulty estimation) for the duration of Schedule A.
E
Epic: A large Product Backlog Item that may serve as the parent container for other smaller Product Backlog Items.
Epic Backlog Refinement: a meeting of the Scrum Team and strategic leadership/executives to break very large Product Backlog Items/Epics into smaller blocks of strategic value delivery for consumption by the Scrum Teams in Scrum Team Backlog Refinement.
F
Failure Modes:
- Incompetent Vendor: a vendor team simply incapable of delivering any required value.
- “Sandbagging” or “Doubling:” a vendor works 5 hours for one customer, and then 5 hours for another, billing each for an 8-hour day.
- “Team Packing:” when a vendor bills a customer for people who are not part of the value delivery stream in any manner.
- Rate Card Manipulation: the vendor promises work will be done with inexpensive talent but then bills for expensive talent during delivery, for the same scope and schedule, potentially still using less expensive talent to widen the bill rate/pay rate gap margin.
M
Minimum Velocity for Sprint Payment: variable defined on Schedule A, defines how many Story Points from Stories on the Sprint Backlog must be accepted as Done for the Vendor to bill for the Sprint.
P
Product Backlog: all things needed or desired to improve the product, change the business functions/outcomes, or otherwise deliver value that a particular group of people will work on.
Product Backlog Item: any item on the Product Backlog.
Product Owner: The customer representative responsible for all items and all priorities, on all backlogs. May assign a decision-making delegate, name of the Product Owner (PO) and their delegate(s) should be recorded on each Schedule C.
R
Renewal Period: variable defined on Schedule A, defines how many Sprints the current Schedule A will be good for, before requiring a superseding (but potentially identical) Schedule A to be agreed to.
Retrospective: a deep inspection of the flow of work through the team to uncover opportunities for improvement, specifically the discovery of regular dependencies that result in potential opportunities for better partnership with other teams, refactoring of the team, or improvements to the Definition of Done.
S
Schedules: agreements designed to be updated and superseded by specific parties, without needing to rewrite the whole contract or contract header (company names, accounts payable/receivable/payment terms/etc.).
- A: Agile Variables: including Sprint Cost, Sprint Length, Sprints Paid Upfront, Minimum Velocity for Payment, Expiry
- B: Base terms, Accountabilities, Events, & signatory authorities for superseding different Schedules
- C: Current Sprint Backlog: including each Product Backlog Items’ Story Points (difficulty/uncertainty/complexity rating)
- D: Definition of Done: the binary/boolean criteria by which all value delivery must pass, in order to be considerable as complete, if/when accepted by the Product Owner
- E: Epics Backlog: The large, strategic Product Backlog Items that direct and guide the general theme of value to be delivered
Scrum Team: The Product Owner, Developers, Vendor Scrum master, and Customer Scrum Master, everyone in the team, typically 10 or fewer people.
Scrum Team Backlog Refinement: a meeting for the Scrum Team to break down large Product Backlog Items into smaller deliverables or problems to be solved within a single Sprint, where the Developers estimate the difficulty, uncertainty, or complexity of delivering the item inside one Sprint, recorded as Story Points.
Sprint: a time box of up to 4 weeks in which all the other events are contained, results in a deployed solution, viable per the Definition of Done (the latest Schedule D), potentially releasable on the Product Owner’s authority to a customer.
Sprint Cost: variable defined on Schedule A, fixed cost of running that particular team for the Sprint Length.
Sprint Length: variable defined on Schedule A, fixed duration defining the length of the Sprints, from 1 day to 4 weeks. Typically 2 weeks.
Sprints Paid Upfront: variable defined on Schedule A, the number of Sprints the customer will pay for upfront so the vendor has stability, and/or can secure longer-term talent. This is the equivalent to the amount the customer is willing to burn
Sprint Planning: a meeting held at the beginning of each Sprint to create a plan to deliver value that offsets the cost of the Sprint, captured on a signed Schedule C.
Sprint Review/Demo: a demonstration of new solutions built by the team(s) this Sprint. This is not a review of software code, nor materials used, nor time spent; it is a review of tangible progress the team has made toward solving one or more problems, worth more than the cost of the Sprint, or taken as a strategic loss.
Story Points: an estimation of a Product Backlog Item given by the people who will deliver the solution, describing the difficulty, uncertainty, or complexity of delivering the Product Backlog Item within one Sprint for that team.
V
Velocity: the average number of Story Points (defined as the team’s estimation of the difficulty, complexity, or uncertainty of being able to deliver the particular Product Backlog Item inside 1 Sprint) a fixed team completes averaged over a number of Sprints (minimum 3, industry standard is 5).
Vendor Scrum Master: the vendor representative responsible for the efficient and effective flow of value through the Developers. The name of the Vendor Scrum Master should be recorded on each Schedule C.
