Agile and project management terms

The specific, measurable conditions that a feature or user story must meet to be considered complete and ready for release.

The process of testing a software product to verify that it meets the business requirements and user expectations before it is released to…

A detailed plan that lists specific steps, responsible people, and deadlines needed to solve a problem or achieve a goal in a project.

An ADR (Architecture Decision Record) is a document that captures an important architectural choice, the reasoning behind it, and its…

A structured meeting or process held after a project, sprint, or incident concludes to identify what went well, what went wrong, and what…

An early stage of software development where the product is tested internally by the development team before being released to external…

A checkpoint or stage in a development process where work must be reviewed and authorized by designated people before it can proceed to…

A list of work items, features, or tasks that need to be done but have not been started yet.

A regular process where the product team reviews, clarifies, and prioritizes items in the product backlog to make them ready for…

An early version of a software product released to a limited group of external users for testing before the official public release.

"Don't boil the ocean" means don't try to do something far too big or solve everything at once; focus on a smaller, realistic scope.

To move something to an earlier date or time.

A detailed document that describes a software defect, including what went wrong, when it happens, and how to reproduce it.

At work, cadence means how often something regularly happens, such as a meeting, a release or an update.

The maximum amount of work, resources, or data that a system, team, or person can handle before reaching a limit.

A framework or method used to predict and understand how much work a team or system can handle based on available resources, constraints…

To move something from one time period or stage to the next one.

A group of senior people from different departments who review and approve proposed changes to systems or software before they are…

A temporary period during which no new code changes, updates, or modifications are allowed to be deployed to a production system.

A formal request to modify, add, or remove a feature or requirement in a software project after it has already been planned or started.

A tool or practice that randomly breaks parts of a software system on purpose to test how well it handles failures and recovers.

COB stands for "close of business": the end of normal office hours, usually 5 or 6 pm, used as a deadline.

Code complete refers to the stage in software development when all planned programming for a feature or product is finished.

A formal examination of code, systems, or processes to ensure they meet legal requirements, regulatory standards, and company policies.

A detailed strategy that outlines how to switch from an old system or process to a new one, including timing, steps, and contingency…

The total time it takes from when work starts until it is completed and delivered.

A short, regular team meeting (usually 15 minutes) held every working day where team members share what they completed, what they plan to…

A specific date or time by which a task, project, or deliverable must be completed.

A document or record that tracks important decisions made during a project, including why they were made, who made them, and what…

A set of agreed criteria that a user story or task must meet before the team starts working on it.

A clear statement of what success looks like for a project, goal, or task, including specific metrics or outcomes that show when something…

A clear statement of what specific outcomes, features, or benefits represent value to your customer, business, or project.

EOD stands for "end of day": the end of today's working day, usually used as a deadline.

EOW stands for "end of week": the end of this working week, usually Friday afternoon, used as a deadline.

A structured document or chart that defines who to contact when a problem needs attention, organized by issue type and severity level.

A detailed analysis to determine whether a project, feature, or solution is practical, technically possible, and economically viable…

A point in the software development cycle when no new features can be added to the product, allowing the team to focus on bug fixes and…

A formal or informal request from a user, customer, or team member asking for a new capability or improvement to be added to a software…

The day when a software product, feature, or system goes live to real users in production.

The moment when a software product, feature, or system becomes available to real users in a production environment.

A decision checkpoint where a team determines whether a project or release is ready to proceed (go) or if it must be stopped or delayed…

The process of reviewing, clarifying, and preparing user stories and tasks in a product backlog before they are scheduled for a sprint.

A short, focused sprint dedicated to improving code quality, stability, and security by fixing bugs, refactoring, and addressing technical…

A structured document or strategy that outlines which positions a company plans to fill, when they will hire, how much budget is…

A systematic process of examining how a change or decision will affect different parts of a system, project, or organization before…

The person responsible for coordinating and managing the response to a system outage or critical problem in a technology company.

A problem, bug, or task that needs to be fixed or completed in software development.

A visual project management method that uses a board with columns to track work items as they move from one stage to another, typically…

A Key Performance Indicator (KPI) is a measurable value that shows how effectively someone or a team is achieving business objectives.

A type of performance testing that simulates many users accessing an application simultaneously to measure how the system behaves under…

A significant point or event in a project timeline that marks progress toward completion.

MTTR stands for Mean Time To Repair.

OKR stands for Objectives and Key Results, a goal-setting framework where you define what you want to achieve (Objective) and how you…

The process of transferring on-call responsibilities from one person or team to another, typically at a scheduled time such as shift…

A scheduled system where team members take turns being responsible for responding to production issues and emergencies outside normal…

Something that falls outside the defined boundaries or limits of a project, task, or responsibility.

P0 is the highest priority severity level assigned to critical bugs or issues that must be fixed immediately because they prevent the…

A type of software testing that checks how well an application performs under specific conditions, measuring speed, stability, and…

A strategy to release a new product, feature, or update to users gradually in stages rather than all at once.

An agile estimation technique where team members use cards or hand signals to estimate the effort or complexity of tasks during sprint…

A structured meeting held after a system outage or critical failure to analyze what happened, why it happened, and how to prevent it in…

A structured meeting or review held after a project, incident, or deployment to analyze what happened, identify what went wrong, and…

The level of importance or urgency assigned to a task, feature, or issue that determines the order in which work should be completed.

The person responsible for defining what a software product should do, prioritizing features, and making decisions about product direction.

The initial meeting or event that officially starts a project, where the team aligns on goals, timelines, roles, and deliverables.

A small, preliminary test or demonstration that shows an idea, technology, or solution works before investing time and resources into full…

An early, working version of a product or feature built to test ideas, gather feedback, and identify problems before full development.

At work, to punt on something means to delay a decision or task, or push it to someone else, usually because it is not a priority now.

Quality Assurance (QA) is the process of testing and verifying that software, features, or products work correctly before release.

The process of setting goals, allocating resources, and defining priorities for a three-month business period.

RACI is a matrix framework used in project management to clearly assign four types of responsibilities (Responsible, Accountable…

A set of automated tests designed to verify that recent code changes did not break existing functionality or introduce new bugs.

Official documentation that describes the new features, bug fixes, improvements, and known issues in a software version released to users.

The specific features, functions, or conditions that a software product or system must have to solve a business problem or meet user needs.

A structured team meeting held after a project sprint or release to discuss what went well, what went poorly, and what the team should…

RFC stands for Request for Comments.

A document or database that lists all identified risks in a project, including their likelihood, impact, and mitigation strategies.

A strategic plan that outlines what a product, team, or company will build or achieve over a specific time period, typically organized by…

A detailed strategy prepared in advance to quickly revert software, systems, or deployments to a previous stable version if something goes…

A detailed, step-by-step guide that lists all the procedures and commands a team needs to execute to perform a specific task, deploy code…

The range of work, features, or responsibilities included in a project, task, or assignment.

Scrum is an Agile framework for managing software projects through iterative cycles called sprints, where teams meet regularly in short…

A scrum master is a facilitator and coach for a team using the Agile Scrum methodology.

A formal examination of code, systems, or infrastructure to identify security vulnerabilities, weaknesses, and compliance gaps before…

SEV1 is a severity classification used to label the most critical system failures or bugs that require immediate attention and halt normal…

The level or degree of how serious or critical a problem, issue, or bug is in software development.

A structured table or framework that classifies problems, bugs, or risks by their impact level and how quickly they need to be fixed.

Formal approval or authorization from a manager, stakeholder, or client to proceed with a project, release, or decision.

A Service Level Agreement is a formal contract between a service provider and client that specifies guaranteed performance standards…

SLO stands for Service Level Objective.

SOP stands for Standard Operating Procedure—a set of step-by-step instructions that defines how a team should perform a task or process…

A detailed description of the requirements, features, or technical details that a product, system, or component must have.

A short, fixed time period (usually 1-4 weeks) during which a development team completes a set amount of work toward a larger project goal.

A scheduled meeting at the end of a sprint where the development team presents completed work to stakeholders, product owners, and other…

A unit of measurement used in Agile software development to estimate the effort, complexity, and risk required to complete a user story.

TBD stands for "to be decided" (or "to be determined"): something is not decided yet and will be confirmed later.

A separate copy of your software system where developers and quality assurance teams test new features and fixes before releasing them to…

A document that outlines the strategy, scope, schedule, and resources needed to test software before release.

A ticket is a record in a tracking system that documents a task, bug, feature request, or issue that needs to be completed or fixed.

The process of assessing and prioritizing issues, bugs, or tasks based on their severity and urgency to decide which ones to handle first.

UAT stands for User Acceptance Testing.

A brief description of a feature or functionality from the perspective of an end user, explaining what they want to do and why.

In agile development, velocity is the amount of work a team completes in a fixed time period, usually measured in story points or tasks…

A software development methodology where each phase (requirements, design, implementation, testing, deployment) must be completed before…

WIP stands for Work In Progress.