Agile Techniques Library
Every agile practice you’ll use across your career — from daily standups on day one to scaling frameworks as a lead. Each entry tells you which level it belongs to and how it fits into delivery.
Scrum Framework
The events, roles, and commitments that form the backbone of iterative delivery.
Sprint Planning
Define what will be delivered in the sprint and how the work will be accomplished. Time-boxed to 2 hours per week of sprint.
Daily Standup
A 15-minute daily event for Developers to synchronise activities, inspect progress toward the Sprint Goal, and identify impediments.
Sprint Retrospective
Inspect the team’s process, identify improvements, and create a plan to implement them in the next sprint.
Sprint Review
A working session where the team presents the completed increment to stakeholders to inspect outcomes and adapt the Product Backlog.
Backlog Refinement
An ongoing activity where the team reviews, estimates, and orders Product Backlog items to ensure they are ready for future sprints.
Definition of Done
A shared, formal commitment that defines the quality criteria all Product Backlog items must meet to be considered complete.
Kanban & Flow
Visual workflow management that limits work in progress and optimises flow efficiency.
Kanban Board
A visual workflow management tool using columns and cards to represent work states, making flow visible to the entire team.
WIP Limits
Restrict the number of work items allowed in each workflow stage, forcing teams to finish work before starting new work.
Cycle Time & Lead Time
Measure how long work takes from start to completion and from request to delivery, revealing queue waste and flow health.
Cumulative Flow Diagram
A stacked area chart showing how work accumulates in each state over time, revealing bottlenecks and WIP trends.
XP / Engineering Practices
Technical disciplines that enable sustainable, high-quality agile delivery.
Test-Driven Development
Write automated tests before production code, then write just enough code to pass, and refactor continuously. Red-Green-Refactor.
Pair Programming
Two developers work together at one workstation — one writes code while the other reviews and strategises, swapping roles regularly.
Continuous Integration
Developers integrate code into a shared repository frequently — usually multiple times per day — with automated build and test verification.
Refactoring
Improve internal code structure without changing external behaviour, keeping the codebase maintainable and reducing technical debt.
Simple Design
Build the simplest solution that could possibly work, adding complexity only when proven necessary by actual requirements.
Agile Planning
User stories, estimation, and forecasting techniques for predictable delivery.
User Stories
A short, simple description of a feature told from the perspective of the end user, following the INVEST criteria.
Story Points
A relative unit of measure for estimating effort, accounting for complexity, uncertainty, and risk — not just time.
Planning Poker
A consensus-based estimation technique where team members use numbered cards to privately vote on effort, then discuss differences.
Velocity Tracking
Measure how many story points a team completes per sprint, used for capacity planning and forecasting rather than performance evaluation.
Release Planning
Map Product Backlog items to future releases based on team velocity and business priorities, creating a realistic delivery forecast.
Agile Testing
Testing practices that fit naturally into iterative, fast-paced delivery cycles.
Behavior-Driven Development
Use natural language scenarios (Given-When-Then) to describe system behaviour, fostering collaboration between technical and business stakeholders.
ATDD
The “Three Amigos” define acceptance tests from the user’s perspective before development begins, ensuring shared understanding.
Shift Left Testing
Move testing activities earlier in the development lifecycle to find and fix defects when they are cheapest to resolve.
Exploratory Testing in Agile
Simultaneous learning, test design, and test execution using charters and time-boxed sessions to discover what scripted tests miss.
Automated Regression in Agile
Automatically re-run tests on every code change to detect unintended side effects and protect existing functionality.
Scaling & Advanced
Frameworks and coordination practices for agile at scale.
SAFe
The Scaled Agile Framework structures work around Agile Release Trains with PI Planning for enterprises with 50+ people.
LeSS
Large-Scale Scrum applies Scrum principles to multiple teams with minimal additional roles, rules, or processes.
Nexus
Scrum.org’s minimal scaling framework for 3-9 teams, adding a Nexus Integration Team to resolve cross-team dependencies.
Scrum of Scrums
Representatives from multiple Scrum teams meet regularly to share progress, surface cross-team dependencies, and resolve impediments.
Delivery Glossary
150+ agile, Scrum, and delivery terms defined — from Acceptance Criteria to Velocity.