Methodolo-gee!
This popular iterative and incremental software development methodology emphasises flexibility and customer satisfaction. It's also (supposedly) widely hated.
What is Agile?
"This item, often written on a card, describes a feature from the perspective of an end-user, usually formatted as 'As a [role], I want [goal/desire] so that [benefit]'."
What is a User Story?
The most common estimation unit in Agile corresponds to the effort required to complete a user story, and is often measured in t-shirt sizes, days or points. Incidentally, our current client scolded their previous developer because they don't care about these.
What are Story Points?
In 1947, Grace Hopper recorded the first instance of a computer 'bug' when this winged insect was found lodged in a relay."
A moth (will accept butterfly but it was a moth)
This software development methodology, named for its step-by-step approach, traditionally consists of six phases including analysis, design, and testing.
What is the Waterfall model?
This is a prioritized list of user stories, used to manage product requirements in Agile development.
What is a Product Backlog?
Named after a gambling game, this Agile estimation technique involves the team making educated guesses through a process of elimination and consensus.
What is Planning Poker?
Quack quack! When programmers refer to 'rubber duck debugging,' they're talking about explaining their code line by line to a rubber duck or inanimate object to find what?"
What is a bug or error?
This software development "doctrine" emphasizes real-time communication, ideally in person, over written documents, and values working software over comprehensive documentation.
What is the Agile Manifesto?
This term describes a large body of work that can be broken down into a number of smaller tasks or stories.
What is an Epic?
This is the term for the initial rough estimation of the overall effort or cost of a project, often done during the early stages of a project. We have a template for this in Google Sheets, we don't normally use Coda.
What is The Ballpark Estimate?
In 1999, NASA's Mars Climate Orbiter spacecraft was lost due to a mismatch between these two units of measurement.
What are metric and imperial units?
This software development methodology is a disciplined agile delivery framework that is part of the larger Agile movement but has a more prescriptive nature. There are rituals, ceremonies and a "master"
What is Scrum?
In Scrum, this is the meeting where the team reviews the product backlog, discusses technical considerations and estimates the effort required for each user story.
What is Backlog Refinement?
DOUBLE JEOPARDY! DOUBLE POINTS!
This term refers to the tendency of software engineers to underestimate the time required to complete tasks, named after a planning fallacy researcher
What is Hofstadter's Law?
In a humorous attempt to address a 'heisenbug,' developers might reference this famous physicist’s uncertainty principle."
Who is Werner Heisenberg?
This methodology, originating from Toyota's production system, emphasizes efficiency and is often visualized with a board of sticky notes.
What is Kanban?
In romance and in software, what do you call a report that a Tester would file?
"This statistical method, often used in estimation, involves generating a range of possible outcomes and their likelihoods based on certain variables and historical data."
What is Monte-Carlo estimation?
This slithering, mythical "creature" is known for quietly sneaking into projects and expanding the scope without permission, much to the dismay of developers. Also the title of a Radiohead song.
What is Scope Creep?