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Agile & Scrum Glossary

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Scrum roles

Product Owner
The person accountable for maximizing the value of the product, primarily by managing the Product Backlog - what gets built and in what order.
Scrum Master
Accountable for establishing Scrum as defined in the Scrum Guide, coaching the team, and removing impediments to the team's progress. Not a project manager or a people manager.
Developers
The people on the Scrum Team committed to creating a usable Increment each Sprint - the term covers anyone doing the work, not only software engineers.
Scrum Team
The Product Owner, Scrum Master, and Developers together - a small, cross-functional, self-managing team with no sub-teams or hierarchies.
Stakeholder
Someone outside the Scrum Team with an interest in the product's outcome - a customer, sponsor, or user - who provides input, especially at Sprint Review.

Scrum events

Sprint
A fixed-length timebox, one month or less, during which a usable Increment is created. Sprints happen back-to-back with no gap.
Sprint Planning
The event that kicks off a Sprint: the team decides what can be delivered and how the work will be achieved, producing a Sprint Goal.
Daily Scrum
A 15-minute daily event for Developers to inspect progress toward the Sprint Goal and adapt the plan for the next 24 hours.
Sprint Review
An inspection of the Sprint's outcome with stakeholders, held at the end of the Sprint, to determine future adaptations - not a formal sign-off gate.
Sprint Retrospective
The final event of a Sprint, where the team inspects how the last Sprint went (people, process, tools) and plans improvements for the next one.
Backlog Refinement
The ongoing activity of adding detail, estimates, and order to Product Backlog items - not a formal Scrum event with a fixed timebox, but ongoing work.

Scrum artifacts

Product Backlog
The single, ordered, ever-evolving list of everything known to be needed in the product - the Product Owner's primary tool.
Sprint Backlog
The Sprint Goal, the Product Backlog items selected for the Sprint, and the plan for delivering them - owned entirely by the Developers.
Increment
A concrete, usable step toward the product goal - every Increment must meet the Definition of Done and be additive to prior Increments.
Sprint Goal
The single objective for the Sprint - the commitment that gives the Sprint Backlog coherence, not a list of the tickets in it.
Definition of Done
A shared, formal description of the quality standard every Increment must meet - once met, work is genuinely releasable.
Definition of Ready
A team's own agreed bar a backlog item clears before entering a Sprint - not part of the official Scrum Guide, but a common team-level practice.
Product Goal
The long-term objective for the Scrum Team - the Product Backlog exists to serve this single goal, and Sprint Goals are steps toward it.

Estimation

Story Point
A relative, team-calibrated unit for sizing backlog items - not a fixed conversion to hours, and not comparable across teams.
Velocity
The average amount of Product Backlog turned into a usable Increment per Sprint, typically measured in story points - a planning input, not a productivity score.
Planning Poker (Scrum Poker)
A consensus estimation technique: each estimator privately picks a card, all reveal simultaneously, and the team discusses any disagreement before settling on a number.
Fibonacci Sequence (agile)
The modified scale 0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21 used for story points - the widening gaps match how estimation uncertainty grows with size.
T-Shirt Sizing
A coarse relative-estimation technique using XS-XXL instead of numbers, trading precision for speed - common for roadmap-level sizing.
Affinity Estimation
Silently sorting backlog items along a size spectrum without discussion, then reviewing the result - a fast way to size a large batch.
Three-Point (PERT) Estimation
Combining optimistic, most-likely, and pessimistic values into a weighted expected value: (O + 4M + P) / 6 - produces a confidence range, not a consensus.
Wideband Delphi
A structured group-estimation method (independent estimate, anonymized comparison, discussion, re-estimate) - the historical ancestor of Planning Poker.
Dot Voting
A prioritization technique, not estimation - participants distribute a fixed number of votes across options to surface what matters most.
Cone of Uncertainty
The principle that estimate accuracy improves as a project moves from a vague idea toward completion - early estimates can be off by 4x in either direction.
Anchoring Bias
The tendency for an estimate to drift toward the first number mentioned, even an arbitrary one - the reason hidden, simultaneous voting exists.

Kanban

Kanban Board
A visual board with columns representing workflow states, used to make work and its flow visible.
WIP Limit
A cap on how many items can be in progress in a given workflow state at once - the core mechanism Kanban uses to expose bottlenecks.
Pull System
Work is pulled into the next stage only when capacity exists, rather than pushed in on a schedule - contrasts with Scrum's batch-planned Sprint.
Cycle Time
The elapsed time from when work starts on an item to when it finishes - a core Kanban flow metric.
Lead Time
The elapsed time from when a request is made to when it is delivered - includes time waiting before work starts, unlike cycle time.
Scrumban
A hybrid combining Scrum's planning cadence and retrospectives with Kanban's continuous flow and WIP limits.

Metrics & general terms

Burndown Chart
A chart plotting remaining work against an ideal pace toward zero across a Sprint - shows whether a Sprint is on track.
Burnup Chart
A chart plotting completed work and total scope as two separate lines - unlike a burndown, it shows scope changes directly.
Technical Debt
The implied cost of future rework caused by choosing an expedient solution now instead of a better one that would take longer.
Spike
A timeboxed investigation used to answer a specific question or reduce uncertainty enough to estimate the real work - not a story with a point value.
INVEST
A checklist for a well-formed user story: Independent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimable, Small, Testable.
User Story
A short description of a feature from a user's perspective, typically "As a [role], I want [goal], so that [benefit]."
Epic
A large body of work too big to fit in one Sprint, broken down into smaller stories before it becomes sprint-ready.
Acceptance Criteria
The specific, testable conditions a story must satisfy to be considered complete - often written as Given/When/Then scenarios.
RICE Score
A prioritization framework: (Reach x Impact x Confidence) / Effort, used to compare product bets on a shared scale.
WSJF (Weighted Shortest Job First)
A SAFe prioritization formula: Cost of Delay divided by Job Size, favoring high-value, quick jobs over slow ones of equal value.
MVP (Minimum Viable Product)
The smallest version of a product that delivers enough value to test a hypothesis with real users or customers.

About this glossary

Every term below is written to be accurate on its own, not just long - a curated set of the terms that actually come up in Scrum, Kanban, and estimation work, not a padded list chasing a round number. Search to filter, or scan by category.

Where to go deeper

This glossary defines terms; the linked guides explain the reasoning behind them in full - the complete Scrum Poker guide, story points, and agile estimation techniques are the best starting points if a definition here leaves you wanting the full picture.

Frequently asked questions

It is curated for accuracy, not padded to a round number - every definition is written to be correct on its own rather than filler chasing a term count.
Story Point CalculatorFree story point calculator: rate complexity, volume, and uncertainty to get a suggested card on the Fibonacci scale - plus honest guidance on when to spike or split instead.Sprint Capacity CalculatorFree sprint capacity calculator: team size, sprint length, days off, and focus factor in - real person-days of capacity out, with guidance for scaling velocity when availability drops.Story Points to Hours ConverterConvert story points to calendar time the only honest way - through your team’s velocity. Get a realistic duration range for a backlog or epic, and learn why per-story hour conversions fail.Printable Planning Poker CardsFree printable Scrum Poker / Planning Poker cards - Fibonacci, T-shirt sizes, or Powers of 2. Print or save as PDF, cut them out, and estimate with a physical deck.Estimation Technique ChooserAnswer a few questions about what you’re sizing and your team’s history to get a recommended agile estimation technique - Scrum Poker, T-shirt sizing, affinity estimation, and more.Planning Poker Cost CalculatorSee what paid planning poker tools actually cost at your team size, sourced from each vendor’s own pricing page - then compare it to $0 with OneMorePoint.Velocity CalculatorEnter your team’s last few sprints to get a rolling average velocity plus a realistic range - not just a single decimal number that hides the variance.Fibonacci GeneratorGenerate the agile-modified Fibonacci deck (0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, ?) or the pure mathematical sequence - pick the term count and see why the gaps widen on purpose.Sprint Goal GeneratorTurn what your sprint is about into a real Sprint Goal - a single objective the sprint serves, not a list of tickets. Free, deterministic templates, no AI.PERT CalculatorEnter optimistic, most likely, and pessimistic estimates to get a weighted expected value and confidence range - the (O + 4M + P) / 6 formula, done for you.User Story GeneratorDraft a user story in the As a / I want / So that format, then check it against the INVEST criteria - free, deterministic, no AI.Acceptance Criteria GeneratorScaffold Given/When/Then acceptance criteria for a user story - free, deterministic Gherkin-style scenario builder, no AI.Burndown Chart GeneratorPaste in daily remaining points and see the ideal-vs-actual burndown instantly - free, no spreadsheet required.Burnup Chart GeneratorTrack scope and completed work as two separate lines - free burnup chart generator that shows mid-sprint scope changes a burndown chart hides.RICE CalculatorScore a feature or idea with the RICE framework - Reach, Impact, Confidence, Effort - free calculator, no sign-up.WSJF CalculatorCalculate Weighted Shortest Job First scores the SAFe way - Cost of Delay divided by Job Size - free calculator, no sign-up.Sprint Date CalculatorGenerate a full sprint schedule from a start date, sprint length, and number of sprints - free, no spreadsheet needed.Focus Factor CalculatorDerive your team's real focus factor from a few recent sprints of actual data, instead of guessing - free, feeds directly into the sprint capacity calculator.Meeting Cost CalculatorSee what a meeting actually costs in salary-hours, per meeting and annualized if it recurs - free calculator, fully loaded hourly cost.Definition of Ready BuilderBuild and print a Definition of Ready checklist for your team - toggle the defaults, add your own, free and printable.Definition of Done BuilderBuild and print a Definition of Done checklist for your team - toggle the defaults, add your own, free and printable.T-Shirt Size ConverterConvert t-shirt sizes to a rough story-point equivalent with an editable mapping - free, with an honest note on the false precision this introduces.Retro Format PickerAnswer 3 quick questions about your sprint to get a matched retrospective format - Start/Stop/Continue, Mad/Sad/Glad, Sailboat, and more.Scrum Timebox CalculatorGet every Scrum event's maximum timebox for your sprint length - Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum, Review, and Retrospective, per the Scrum Guide.Estimation Accuracy TrackerLog estimated vs. actual effort across stories to see your team's real calibration bias - saved locally in your browser, no account needed.Cone of UncertaintySee the realistic estimate range for your project phase - an interactive visualization of Boehm and McConnell's Cone of Uncertainty.Story Splitting HelperGet concrete prompts for splitting an oversized story - workflow steps, business rules, CRUD, data boundaries, interfaces, and happy path vs. edge cases.Team Availability MatrixFind the best meeting time across distributed team members' timezones - enter local working hours, see the UTC overlap heatmap instantly.Random Order GeneratorShuffle a list of names into a random order - free tool for standup order, retro round-robins, or demo presentation order.Sprint Name GeneratorGenerate a fun sprint name - space, mythology, or animal themed - free, instant, no sign-up.Kanban vs Scrum ChooserAnswer 4 questions about how your work arrives and your team structure to get a Scrum, Kanban, or Scrumban recommendation.