Agile Terminology - The Agile Lexicon

For those of you new to Agile, here is a list of basic Agile terms to help you come up to speed. This isn't a complete list, so if there are any that you feel I ought to add, please leave a comment or email me (aaron@agile101.com).

Agile – During the Snowbird conference that produced the Agile Manifesto, representatives of the various “lightweight methodologies” (as they were referred to at the time) adopted the term “Agile” to describe the nature of their related methodologies.

Agile Alliance – An organization that was formed subsequent to the creation of the Agile Manifesto by some of the participants and other interested parties.

Agile Manifesto – A brief document outlining four main beliefs shared by adherents of various Agile software development methodologies. Written during a 2001 retreat at the Snowbird resort in Utah. Not so much a birth of Agile since these methodologies had existed for some time, but more of a christening.

Agile Principles – A list of 12 principles that provide further support to the four main beliefs of the Agile Manifesto.

AUP – An Agile methodology based on IBM’s Rational Unified Process (RUP). The acronym stands for Agile Unified Process.

Co-Location – The business and project team should be located together to enable frequent daily team interaction and thus the odds of project success.

Crystal – An Agile methodology.

DSDM – An Agile Methodology. The acronym stands for Dynamic Systems Development Method.

Extreme Programming – An Agile methodology more commonly known as XP. See "XP."

FDD – An Agile Methodology. The acronym stands for Feature Driven Development.

Iteration – A development cycle, typically a 1-4 week period.

Iteration Planning – Process for planning which stories will be delivered in the upcoming iteration.

Iteration Review – A mini post-mortem to review how the process worked for the previous iteration and how it may be tweaked and improved for upcoming iterations.

Iterative Development – The concept that an application should be delivered incrementally, i.e. development cycles (iterations) can be reckoned in weeks rather than months or years, enabling releases early and often, and maximizing ROI.

Milestone – Typically 2-5 iterations, milestones should be planned as production releases, especially in situations where a production release for every iteration is not feasible or required. A milestone also indicates the completion of a major portion of an application.

Project Board – A board indicating iteration status. This board keeps everyone in synch as to who is doing what, and communicates how the team is progressing in the current iteration.

Scrum (meeting) – Scrum methodology term for a daily meeting. See “Stand Up Meeting.”

Scrum (methodology) – An Agile methodology.

Scrum Master – Help perpetuate Agile best practices and removes barriers between the customer and project team.

Sprint – Scrum methodology term for an iteration. See “Iteration.”

Stand Up Meeting – Daily meeting to synch priorities and raise issues.

Story – Business requirements for deliverables. Also called a User Story.

Story Backlog – The stories defined but not yet assigned to a milestone.

Waterfall – The software development methodology that advocated doing all requirements, then all development, then implementation. The weaknesses with this methodology are often cited as the catalyst behind the Agile movement.

XP – An Agile methodology. The acronym stands for Extreme Programming.