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Software Engineering vocabulary · Agile and Team Workflow

Agile

Meaning in software engineering, with examples

/ˈædʒəl/adjectiveCommon term

In software engineering, agile means: Describing a way of working in short cycles, delivering small pieces often and changing plans based on feedback, instead of following one long fixed plan.

In Turkish: çevik

How it is used

Often capitalized when used as a noun: 'We use Agile', 'Agile coach'. Scrum and Kanban are the best-known agile methods. People also say 'agile team', 'agile mindset' and, critically, 'agile in name only'.

Example sentences

  1. We follow an agile process with two-week sprints and a demo at the end.

  2. Being agile doesn't mean we never plan; it means we plan in smaller steps.

Common collocations

  • agile methodology
  • agile team
  • agile process
  • agile coach
  • sprintA fixed period, usually one or two weeks, in which a team commits to finishing a chosen set of work items.
  • stand-upA short daily team meeting, often 15 minutes, where each person says what they did, what they will do next and whether anything is blocking them.
  • backlogThe ordered list of work a team has not started yet, such as features, bugs and improvements, with the most important items at the top.
  • user storyA short description of a feature from the user's point of view, often written as 'As a [type of user], I want [goal] so that [reason]'.
  • iterateTo go through the items of a collection one by one, or more generally to repeat a process and improve the result each time.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Agile and Team Workflow

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