A 5-day journey to living from your priorities
It’s easy to spend our day reacting to what comes at us. What if you could be proactive, intentionally making decisions based on your priorities? It is possible!
Our five-day short course guides you through the process of identifying your life priorities and scaling them day to everyday decisions. You’ll learn how to establish a rhythm to build good habits and grow a team that will be with you in the journey.
Leaning Scrum for the first time can be a bit overwhelming. There are many new terms and concepts in Scrum. And you may be wondering:
What do all these new Scrum terms mean?
Well we’re here to help.
If you're just getting started in your Scrum journey, you might want to begin with the definition of Scrum, why Scum matters or even an everyday guide to using Scrum.
If you just have questions about key Scrum terms, below you will find a glossary of crucial Scrum concepts with definitions and links to relevant articles.
Three Pillars of Scrum
Scrum is founded on the three pillars of empiricism.
Transparency
Transparency is the discipline of making things more visible. So much productivity and value are lost when there isn’t clarity, focus or shared understanding.
Inspection
Once things are visible, the team can inspect them to achieve shared understanding and grow.
Adaptation
The Scrum team makes necessary changes based on what they learn during inspection. The environment is constantly changing, and as leaders, we need to help our people and processes grow and adapt.
Scrum Roles
Scrum Master
The Scrum Master is a master of process and an empowerer of people as they focus on maximizing the impact of the development team. They support the team by removing obstacles and representing Scrum to the rest of the organization. Learn about the Scrum Master role.
Product Owner
The Scrum Product Owner's primary responsibility is to maximize the value delivered to the product. They serve as the inflection point between the development team and stakeholders. Learn about the Product Owner Role.
Development Team
The Development Team is a self-organizing, cross-functional group that makes up most of the Scrum team. They transform backlog items into new value each sprint. Learn more about the Development Team role.
Scrum Events
Daily Scrum
Also called the standup, the Daily Scrum is a fifteen-minute meeting where the development team inspects the previous day's work, plans the next day’s work and identifies any barriers to getting things done. Learn to keep your team in sync with a daily standup.
Backlog Refinement
During the backlog refinement session, the Scrum team reviews new product backlog items asking questions to clarify the requirements and the goals. There is flexibility about when during the sprint to have the backlog refinement. Learn how to facilitate a backlog refinement session.
Sprint Planning
At the beginning of a new sprint, the team meets together to discuss how they will reach the sprint goal. They review the work selected for the sprint and make an initial plan that can be adapted via the daily scrum. Learn how to do sprint planning in Scrum.
Sprint Review
The sprint review occurs at the end of the sprint to inspect the delivered work. Various stakeholders and subject matter experts from across the organization attend to give feedback on the work completed. Learn to run a sprint review.
Retrospective
The retrospective occurs at the end of the sprint, focusing on the whole Scrum team. The tone is positive and productive, focused on improving the team. The team will identify points of growth and action steps to take in the next sprint. Learn how to facilitate a Scrum retrospective.
Scrum Artifacts
The Backlog
There are actually two backlogs, the product backlog and the sprint backlog. They each contain the definitive list of work to be done. The product owner keeps the backlog ordered by priority. Learn to use the backlog in Scrum.
Product Backlog Items (PBIs)
Each item in the backlog represents precise work and value to deliver. Often these PBIs are written using both user stories and acceptance criteria. The PBIs are what gets refined during the backlog refinement session, and if one is too large, it may be broken down into smaller PBIs.
Definition of Done
The definition of done is a list of what must be true in order to consider a PBI done. The whole team creates and agrees to what is in the definition of done and is updated as needed for the team to function effectively. Learn to use the definition of done.
User Stories
User stories are a simple schema to order the PBI requirements around the end user's needs, motivations, and goals. They keep the team focused on the value they create for the end-user. PBIs are evaluated against their user story during the sprint review. Learn to write your own user stories.
Acceptance Criteria
Acceptance Criteria defines the requirements which must be met for the sprint deliverables to be accepted by the product owner. Acceptance criteria follows a consistent structure of Give that... When... Then... See examples of acceptance criteria.
Story Points
Story points measure the relative size of a PBI. They aren’t absolute measurements like hours or days but measure the amount of work a PBI takes relative to other PBIs. Learn to use story points.
Velocity
Velocity measures how many story points a Scrum team completes on average per sprint. This allows the product owner to forecast when future features will be ready. Learn to forecast in Scrum using velocity.
Increment
The increment is the new functionality or value delivered at the end of a sprint. The increment should be ready to release to the end-user even if the team chooses to wait.
Maximize Your Leadership Potential
Leadership isn’t a journey you should take alone. What if you had someone to come alongside you? I provide coaching to help you reach your vision, lead others and grow as a leader.
Scrum Values
Learn to align Scrum values with your organization.
Commitment
The Scrum team members keep their commitment to achieving the goals of the Scrum Team.
Courage
The courage to do the right thing and work on challenging problems is essential for a Scrum team to have a high impact.
Focus
The Scrum team focuses on the sprint goal and the work selected for a given sprint. Being freed up from worrying about the work of future sprints allows the team to deliver value consistently.
Openness
Openness is vital to living out the pillars of transparency, inspection and adaptation. The Scrum team is open about all the work and the challenges with performing the work.
Respect
Collaboration requires respect for each other to be capable, independent people. I have often said Scrum treats you like an adult.
Next steps for applying Scrum.
I hope this article helped you feel confident using and apply important Scrum concepts. If you want to learn more about Scrum in general, check out my What is Scrum? A Guide for Everyday People to Learn Scrum. If you have more questions, please feel free to reach out on LinkedIn.
Still not sure about your next step with Scrum? I offer a couple of free coaching sessions each month. You can signup for a free 1-hour coaching session, and we can work together to identify a good next step for you.
A 5-day journey to living from your priorities
It’s easy to spend our day reacting to what comes at us. What if you could be proactive, intentionally making decisions based on your priorities? It is possible!
Our five-day short course guides you through the process of identifying your life priorities and scaling them day to everyday decisions. You’ll learn how to establish a rhythm to build good habits and grow a team that will be with you in the journey.
This post is part of an upcoming guide called Everyday Scrum? A Guide for Everyday People to Learn Scrum where I will explore and explain the key elements of Scrum.
Perhaps you have heard about Scrum but are not exactly sure what it is. Or maybe you know some about it but are not sure how to apply it, especially outside a software development context.
You find my my current and future guides on everyday.design. Signup to be the first to know when new guides are released.
There are a lot of new terms when learning the Scrum essentials, and this post probably introduced you to some of the vocabulary.
If you want to learn more about specific Scrum topics, here are a few to choose from or check out the scrum FAQs.
Applying Scrum
- How do I keep my team focused on the right work?
- What to do when projects change?
- Getting work done as a team
- How to change direction after investing effort?
Agile in Everyday Life
- Can I use Scrum for non-software development projects?
- Scrum for marketing
- Scrum for creative design
- Scrum in content creation
- Scrum in personal development
- Scrum in education
- Scrum in everyday home projects
Scrum Roles
- What is a Scrum Product Owner?
- What does a Product Owner do each day?
- Getting Certified as a Product Owner
- What is a Scrum Master?
- What does a Scrum Master do each day?
- Getting Certified as a Scrum Master
- Can The Scrum Master And Product Owner Be The Same Person
- How Is A Scrum Master Different Than A Project Manager?
Scrum Meetings
- How to do a standup/check-in?
- How to do sprint planning in Scrum?
- How does backlog refinement work in Scrum?
- What is a sprint review in Scrum?
- How to conduct a retrospective in Scrum?
Scrum General Topics
- Why Use Scrum?
- What Is The Definition Of Scrum?
- What Are The Pros & Cons Of Scrum?
- Scrum: Expectations Vs. Reality
- Is Scrum Hard To Learn?
- How To Align The Scrum Values With Your Organizational Culture
- What's the difference between iterative and incremental development?
- What Is The Definition Of Done In Scrum?
Scrum Advanced Topics
- Learn To Forecast Progress In Scrum
- What If I Don't Have All The Roles In Scrum?
- Scaling Using SAFe
- Cost Estimation
To learn more about Scrum, check out my What is Scrum? A Guide for Everyday People to Learn Scrum. If you have more questions, please feel free to reach out on LinkedIn.