We thought it wise to have a terminology section to help tie it all together and perhaps demystify some of the words that we use and may take for granted that people are familiar with them. You will see these terms used all over the site and out in the wild where they might have alternative meanings. Some terms might be common and well known within an industry, but others could be specific the NRM areas that we focus on. This will be an ongoing effort as we add more terms.
Where appropriate we link back to the area and topic to help preserve context. Otherwise, it is safe to assume a term applies to all topics within an area.
Common Terms
Some of the common terms that we use that serve as a basis or common ground from which we built up the other NRM areas.
| Term | Meaning(s) |
|---|---|
| Waste | A bad thing for any company often manifests as lost effort, capacity, or opportunity. |
| Framework | A well-documented method for doing something important. Consistent and easily repeatable. We have a Frameworks page for more detail on the various Frameworks and where they apply. |
| TL;DR | Short form of “Too Long; Didn’t Read” representing a high-level summary for those that don’t have time to read a long article. |
Nimble Business Planning Terms
Some of the more popular terms that we use withing Nimble Business Planning area which includes Business Agility, Continuous North Star, and Flow Engineering.
| Term | Meaning(s) |
|---|---|
| Agile (Business Agility) | A somewhat generic term for a collection of concepts that combine to deliver incremental value and continually improve how that value is delivered. |
| Waterfall (opposite of Business Agility)) | A dated method from the dark times overloaded with extensive early planning and brutally long delivery cycles. |
| Estimation (Business Agility) | A touchy subject for many with multiple schools of thought regarding precision and effort. – No estimates – estimates are not terribly reliable and not really worth the effort over just doing the work. – T-Shirt sizing – XXL, XL, L, M, S representing a wild guess on the amount of effort involved. – Fibonacci sequence – 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13 and so on – similar to T-Shirts sizing but often confused with days as the standard unit over a relative effort variation. |
| Sprint (Business Agility) | A fixed duration of time (typically 2 weeks) where a team works to deliver a small incremental slice of functionality. |
| User Story Mapping (Business Agility) | A popular technique to collaboratively work through the steps, dependencies, and other details involved in creating something of value. |
| Continuous Improvement | A popular and highly overloaded term that has come to represent any and all continuous improvement efforts. There are many options available we know and prefer Flow Engineering the best but can assist with any. |
| Scaling (Business Agility) | Similar to other types of scaling this has to do with how to coordinate large scale efforts across multiple teams for better outcomes. Multiple scaling methods include SAFe, FAST Agile, LeSS and Spotify. |
| Value Stream (Business Agility & Flow Engineering) | The concept around how value is delivered to customers. Involves greater awareness of customer values, optimized delivery flow and continuous improvement. Aligned within SAFe Release Trains but also can work outside of that individually for isolated processes or a chain of interrelated processes. |
| Definition of Ready (DoR) (Business Agility) | The state that a backlog work item should reach in order to be considered ready for action. Typically involves some defined guidelines explaining what this state looks like that is likely unique to a business. Example: a work item title might describe what is needed but may be subject to interpretation which could cause problems. Title alone typically does not really have sufficient detail regarding what is involved, who it is for and more. So, you decide what is needed to reduce ambiguity and leave too much room for misinterpretation that would lead to rework. |
| Team Working Agreement (TWA) (Business Agility) | An agreement created by the team describing how they work together as a team. This can help to eliminate potential for misunderstanding creating a better dynamic between team members. |
| Definition of Done (DoD) (Business Agility) | The guideline established suggesting that an active work item is considered done. Often this involves everything needed to put this into service without any remaining known work directly related to it. Exception: Additional work realized that might be good to have but does not break the spirit of what this work item called for. As such newly realized work can and should be captured in the backlog for future consideration and not impede this one |
Nimble Governance Terms
Some of the frequently used terms related to Nimble Governance which includes Data Governance, Supply Chains, and Third Parties.
| Term | Meaning(s) |
|---|---|
Nimble Risk Terms
Some of the frequently used terms that are related to Nimble Risk which includes Environmental Risk, Operational Risk, Risk Registers, and Risk Response Playbooks.
| Term | Meaning(s) |
|---|---|
Nimble Effects Terms
Some of the frequently used terms within the Nimble Effects space having to do with Communities of Practice, Cultural, Leadership, Organizational Structures, Organizational Learning, and Business Debt.
| Term | Meaning(s) |
|---|---|
| Effect | A deeply engrained element of a business that has a great deal of influence regarding how it operates. |
| Technical Debt | We use this somewhat generically to cover a wide variety of debt types that can impede performance. These tend to focus on software and its operational infrastructures. |
| Change Management | A formalized effort to smooth over and make significant change more palatable. Tied with Leadership this involves a great deal of communication, planning, inclusion and implementation for best results and less resistance. |
| Business Debt | We use this term as a higher-level construct containing both Technical Debt and Operational Debt but not the financial side of things. Combined these debts introduce a great deal of risk and potential costs. |
| Operational Debt | These are the types of debt related to how the business is running. Eliminated these debts can streamline performance, reduce costs and eliminate risk. |