By: Jessica McLean

Welcome to Agile Terminology 101! I’m Jess (Agile Meridian Marketing Consultant) and I’ll be your teacher.

All jokes aside, when you’re newly introduced to the world of Agile it can be a little overwhelming – I know it was for me! There is some confusion and distortion of the agile terminologies. That’s why we decided to break down some of these terms by providing true definitions and what that definition means for each agile term.

Let’s begin, shall we?

Agile –

True Definition: Relating to or denoting a method of project management, used especially for software development, that is characterized by the division of tasks into short phases of work and frequent reassessment and adaption of plans.

What that means: Basically, it means you’re taking a large task or project and breaking it down into bite-sized tasks and phases based on priority. It’s a concept that makes projects easier to manage and keeps you and your team on track to meet deadlines.  May also be referred to as Agiile Methodology.

Facilitation –

True Definition: The act of facilitating. 

What that means: This one gets me every time, I remember the first time I looked up facilitation and felt that the definition wasn’t helpful AT ALL. So let’s break it down, to facilitate means to make it easier, so in essence, if you’re facilitating a meeting, you’re making the meeting easy to digest, whether that be by mediating the group discussion or simply creating the agenda.

Business Agility –

True Definition: Refers to the rapid, continuous, and systematic evolutionary adaption and entrepreneurial innovation directed at gaining and maintaining competitive advantage.

What that means: Basically, applying the agile principles to the entire organization, it allows a business to be more responsive to change, and the market, and reduce costs without sacrificing quality!

Agile Mindset -

True Definition: Creating and responding to change in an uncertain and turbulent environment. It’s about thinking through how you can understand what’s going on in the environment, identify what uncertainty you’re facing, and figure out how to adapt as you go along.

What that means: I like to reference a Forbes article I recently read for this one – they state that to have an agile mindset you are focused on delivering higher customer value by getting work done in small, collaborative teams.  

Growth Mindset –

True Definition: A concept in which people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work – brains and talent are just the starting point.

What that means: Personally, I love talking about growth (and fixed) mindsets because they are so intriguing – to have a growth mindset just means that you are a forever learner! You know that there’s always room to grow and you welcome the opportunity to better your skills and take on new and challenging tasks to take your professional (and personal) abilities to the next level.

Development Process - 

True Definition:  The development process is the series of steps taken to create a software product or application. 

What that means:  It typically involves planning, analysis, design, coding, testing, and deployment, as well as ongoing maintenance and improvement.

 Fixed Mindset –

True Definition: A concept in which people believe their basic qualities, like their intelligence or talent, are simply fixed traits. They spend their time documenting their intelligence or talent instead of developing them. They also believe that talent alone creates success – without effort.

What that means: The fixed mindset definition is pretty cut and dry. They’re basically saying “If you got it, you got it” – having a fixed mindset means that you believe that where you’re at is as good as it gets.

Agile Project Management -

True Definition:  Agile project management is a flexible and adaptive approach to managing projects that value individuals and interactions, working software, customer collaboration, and response to change over processes and tools, comprehensive documentation, and strict planning.

What that means: Agile project management emphasizes a flexible and adaptive approach to managing projects that prioritizes collaboration with stakeholders and responding to change over strict planning and adherence to a set process.

Agile Manifesto -

True Definition:  The Agile Manifesto is a set of principles for software development that values individuals and interactions, working software, customer collaboration, response to change over processes and tools, comprehensive documentation, contract negotiation, and following a plan. The Agile Manifesto was created in 2001 by a group of software developers in response to their frustration with traditional, rigid software development methodologies.

What that means -  The goal of the Agile Manifesto is to provide a flexible and adaptive approach to software development that prioritizes delivering value to the customer and responding to change throughout the development process. Today, the Agile Manifesto is widely adopted in software development and has been extended to other industries as well.

Agile Team – 

True Definition:  An agile team is a group of individuals who work together to deliver a product or service using the Agile methodology. 

What that means:  Agile teams typically consist of cross-functional members who are self-organizing, and work in sprints or iterations to deliver working software incrementally. The goal of an agile team is to deliver value to the customer through rapid, iterative development and continuous improvement.

Scrum Team -

True Definition: A Scrum team is a specific type of Agile team that follows the Scrum framework for managing and completing projects.

What that means:  Scrum is a specific implementation of Agile, which is a set of values and practices that help teams work together to deliver products or services in a collaborative and flexible way.  A Scrum team is typically composed of a Scrum Master, a Product Owner, and a Development Team.

And there you have it, folks! A few common Agile terms are broken down for all the newbies out there. 

If you’re interested in learning more about any of these – check out our store page for upcoming classes that cover these topics or reach out to the meridian team for a chat!