A coaching intervention that is focused on helping teams, leaders and organizations to improve their ability to gracefully change / adapt to changing needs, may be identified as Agile Coaching.

The Product Backlog is one of the Scrum Artifacts. The Product Backlog is an ordered list of everything that is known to be needed in the product. It is the single source of requirements for any changes to be made to the product. The Product Backlog is an emergent artifact and is never complete. It is constantly changing to reflect the ever-changing needs of the stakeholders. The Product Backlog is owned by the Product Owner. The Product Backlog is ordered by value, with the most valuable items at the top of the list. The Product Owner is responsible for ordering the Product Backlog, but may do so with input from the Development Team and other stakeholders. Key benefits of a Product Backlog include: Transparency of product requirements (upcoming work) for all stakeholders The ability to constantly adapt the product to changing needs Improved communication between the Product Owner and the Development Team A clear order of product requirements based on value.

Sprints are the heartbeat of Scrum, where ideas are turned into highest possible value. Sprints are fixed length events of one month or less that repeat one after the other and create consistency. Shorter Sprints are preferred as they generate more learning cycles and limit risk of cost and effort to a smaller time frame.

Kanban is a lean method, a framework to visualize work and improve the flow of value through the system. Initiated by Toyota as part of the Toyota Production System, Kanban (in Japanese) is a visual card used as a scheduling system, showcasing the essential information and progress of the work through the product development system. Following four essential practices help optimize the flow of value: Visualize the workflow Limit work in progress Manage flow Make process policies explicit Through pull based movement of the work, Kanban helps achieve evolutionary improvements in process and product.

Agility is an ability to gracefully adapt to changing needs. In a dynamic and changing environment many variable such as: Customer's Needs, Technology, Market Conditions, Competition may change requiring a team / product / organization respond to these changes to stay relevant in the market.

The Sprint Retrospective is one of the prescribed Scrum Event - an opportunity for the Scrum Team to inspect itself and create a plan for improvements to be enacted during the next Sprint. The Team may inspect their processes, communication and interactions among people, and tools used to identify opportunities to simplify processes, automate steps, reduce any waste, reduce hand-offs etc. The result of the Sprint Retrospective is improved effectiveness of the Scrum Team and better quality product/solutions. The end of the retrospective marks the end of the Sprint.

The Sprint Backlog is one of the Scrum artifacts that creates transparency of the work of the current Sprint. It is set of Product Backlog Items selected by the Developers for the Sprint, plus a plan for delivering the product Increment and realizing the Sprint Goal.

A3 problem-solving is a structured approach to problem solving. A3 problem-solving involves finding the root cause of a problem, developing a plan of action, and ensuring the plan is actioned. Presented on a A3 size paper, the A3 process promotes simple structure, logical thinking, effective collaboration, and active communication. A3 thinking promotes a responsibility focused conversation about What is the right thing to do. A3 Template / Report may have below areas: Background Current conditions Goals/Targets Analysis Proposed Countermeasures Plan Follow Up The aim with A3 is to not fix the symption, but to go to the root-cause of the problems and eliminate the problem efficiently in a way that's strategically aligned with the organizational goals.

The Cynefin Framework is a decision making framework, that recognizes the casual differences between systems and proposes new approaches to decision making in complex environemtn. Cynefin is a sense-making model not a categorization model. If the question is How do we make sense of the world, so we can act in it. In nature, there are 3 basic systems: Ordered Systems, Choatic Systems and Complicated Systems. Once people know in which domain / system they are in, they can choose the domain specific response.

Facilitation is an intervention through which a group improves the way it communicates, examines and addresses problems, and makes decisions. A neutral and unbiased facilitator would create the environment, design the structure and may use various facilitation techniques to help a group improve it's effectiveness.

A User Story is a story told by the user (of the product) of her/his challenges, or opportunities. The original intent of the User Story has been that a User Story is to be told not written. A User Story card is a promise for further communication. Communication that should happen between the Development Team and the Customer or the Product Owner to create a shared understanding of the user's needs. Further Reading: Writing Effective User Stories Becoming User Centric with User Stories

"The Product Goal describes a future state of the product which can serve as a target for the Scrum Team to plan against." - Scrum Guide 2020. Crafted and Communicated by the Product Owner, the Product Goal is the long-term objective, a specific and measurable benefit or outcome a product should create. The Scrum Team is focused on one product goal at a time. They must fulfill (or abandon) one product goal before taking on the next.

Estimation in product development is used to guess how much work can be completed and by when. Various estimation techniques such as: Story Points, Planning Poker, T-Shirt Sizes, etc.. allow a team to relatively size the effort required to complete an item. Estimation involves assumptions of the impact of various variables to complete an item such as: Effort needed by the team (various functional experts) to complete an item Complexity of the task Unkonwns involved and so on..... While, Estimation may help to create a shared understanding about the work at hand among the developers, Product Owner and stakholders (optional), it usually takes away disproportional amount of time which is a big waste. Assumptions based approaches are weak ideas at their best. A much better and effective approach to forward looking decision making in complex environment is decision making based on Empiricism. See also: Empiricism

Most popular - Agile and Scrum Glossary

Product Backlog Refinement (PBR)

Agile Coaching

Product Backlog

Agile Software Development

Sprint

Kanban

Agility

Sprint Retrospective

Sprint Backlog

A3 Problem Solving

Extreme Programming (XP)

Cynefin

Facilitation

User Story

Product Goal

Estimation