The vocabulary the exams and the daily work both assume you already have. Every entry gives the definition, the source it is drawn from, and the misreadings that follow from getting it wrong.
42 concepts, page 1 of 3
Deciding how to close the gaps in a complete solution, given that building is only one of three options and usually the slowest.
Strategy
Two separate archetypes for two separate jobs. Buyer personas describe who decides to purchase, user personas describe who has to live with the result.
Discovery
The Scrum Team holds every skill needed to create value each Sprint, without depending on people outside the team.
Scrum
The things an organisation can do that competitors cannot easily copy, and the filter that decides which market problems are worth this company solving.
Strategy
Scrum is founded on empiricism and lean thinking. Transparency, inspection and adaptation are the pillars that make empirical process control work.
Scrum
Scrum prescribes no forecasting technique. What it defines is that the Sprint Goal is the commitment, and that projections come from observation.
Scrum
A true leader who serves the Scrum Team, the Product Owner and the organisation, and is accountable for the Scrum Team's effectiveness.
Scrum
Mapping needs to target markets, sizing the segments, and checking that the ones you choose are large enough to support the business the product has to become.
Strategy
A problem held by many people in a defined market, stated without a solution attached, and qualified on urgency, pervasiveness and willingness to pay.
Discovery
Decisions made from evidence gathered outside the building rather than from opinion gathered inside it, and the specific habits that produce that evidence.
Strategy
Value is established by evidence rather than assertion, and the Increment is what makes it inspectable.
Scrum
Comparing candidate opportunities against consistent criteria so the choice is made on the same basis every time, and so a rejected opportunity can be shown why it was rejected.
Prioritisation
Order expresses strategy, not preference, and being accountable for it is not the same as doing it yourself.
Scrum
Output is what the team produced. Outcome is what changed for someone because of it. A product owner is accountable for the second and is usually measured on the first.
Metrics
Describing the product by the market problems it solves rather than the features it contains, then turning that internal description into messages written for one persona at a time.
Strategy
Ranking requirements on evidence of how many people have the problem and how urgent it is, so the order can be defended without anyone raising their voice.
Prioritisation
The ongoing activity of breaking down and further defining Product Backlog items into smaller, more precise items. It is not an event.
Scrum
Every backlog item carries an assumption that someone wants it. Discovery finds the assumptions, validation buys evidence, and the choice of technique is a trade between cost and quality of learning.
Discovery
The vocabulary a product owner needs to argue about value in the terms the business already uses. Cost of delay, sunk cost, opportunity cost, total cost of ownership and lifetime value.
Metrics
Watching how the product performs in the market, what it costs the company to run, and what it contributes to profit, after the launch has stopped being news.
Metrics