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Agile Resources - Terms & Definitions

The terms below are commonly used in Agile teams across FAS.


Agile Values & Principles Team Member Roles Roadmaps, PIs, and Sprints Metrics Team Profiles Jira and Confluence Resources

Agile Terms & Definitions

  • Agile Application Lifecycle Management (Agile ALM): Using Agile development techniques within application lifecycle management.
  • Backlog: The product backlog is a holding area for a collection of issues aligned to the Portfolio, Program, or Team levels to be prioritized, selected, and worked from.
  • Board: A board displays issues from one or more projects, giving you a flexible way of viewing, managing, and reporting work in progress.
  • Confluence: Confluence enables teams to collaborate in a Wiki-like Web environment ideal for creating and sharing requirements documentation, files, illustrations, and more.
  • Customers: Customers are the ultimate economic buyer of every product solution. They are an integral part of the Lean-Agile development process and Value Stream, and have specific responsibilities.
  • Issue: In Jira, an issue can represent a story, software bug, project task, risk, or another issue type in your project.
  • Issue Type: An Issue Type provides a hierarchy to organize work across teams, projects, and the enterprise. An Issue Type is a container for work classification, relevant information, and details. Issue Types help articulate the intended value, outcomes, goals, activities and/or tasks for the teams that will perform the work. Examples of Issue Types include: Theme, Initiative, Portfolio Epic, Capability, Epic, Story, Defect, Risk, etc.
  • Jira: A powerful work management tool for all kinds of use cases, from requirements and test case management to agile software development.
  • Jira Reports and Metrics: Jira provides multiple reports including burndown, cumulative flow diagram, velocity charts and more.
  • Lean-Agile Mindset: The Lean-Agile Mindset is the combination of beliefs, assumptions, and actions of leaders and practitioners who embrace the concepts of the Agile Manifesto and Lean thinking and provides the leadership foundation for adopting and applying Agile principles and practices.
  • Product Manager (PM): The Product Manager is the content authority for the program level. They are responsible for the program backlog, prioritizing and accepting features, and works closely with the funding lead (Epic owner).
  • Product Owner (PO): The Product Owner is the content authority for the team level. They are responsible for the team backlog, prioritizing and accepting stories, and representing the customer to the Agile team.
  • Program Increment (PI): The largest plan-do-check-adjust cycle in Agile at scale. A PI is to the Agile Release Train or Solution Train as an iteration is to the Agile team: a cadence-based interval for building and validating a full system increment, demonstrating value and getting fast feedback.
  • Project: A Jira project is a collection of issues used to coordinate the development or management of a product, service, or activity.
  • Release: In agile software development, a release is a deployable software package that, ultimately, may be released on demand and/or as determined by the needs of the program or product.
  • Scrum: A lightweight process that allows a cross-functional team to self-organize, make changes quickly and deliver value in accordance with agile principles.
  • Scrum Master (SM): The Scrum Master is the facilitator for an agile development team and manages the process and how information is exchanged. A Scrum Master plays a vital role in pulling different elements together to ensure a project stays on time and moving in the right direction. They also work to clear obstacles impeding the team's progress, facilitate a good relationship between the team and product owners and protect team members from outside distractions.
  • Space: A Confluence Space is a web-based wiki which works in conjunction with Jira and contains resources and information for a Project team.
  • Sprint: The basic unit of development in Scrum, the sprint is a timeboxed effort and restricted to a specific duration.
  • Swimlane: A swimlane is a horizontal categorization of issues in the Active sprints of a Scrum board, or on a Kanban board.
  • Workflow: A Jira workflow is a set of statuses and transitions that an issue moves through during its lifecycle, and typically represents a process within your organization.