PRINCE2 Agile Foundation key terms

The ability of an organisation, team or individual to respond quickly and cost-effectively to change, and to keep delivering value while requirements, technology or the surrounding situation shift.

A way of working in which decisions are based on what is observed, measured and learned through experience and experimentation, rather than on detailed prediction made in advance.

Building a product in repeated cycles that each add a usable piece, so that feedback, learning and value arrive early and the risk of a late failure is reduced.

A fixed, non-negotiable period of time, such as a sprint or a stage, in which a defined amount of work is attempted; the end date stays fixed and scope is adjusted instead.

A sense-making model that sorts situations into clear, complicated, complex, chaotic and confused domains, helping a team choose an appropriate response; complex work suits emergent, agile ways of working.

A PRINCE2 Agile concept in which some elements are agreed and held fixed, typically time, cost and quality, while others, usually scope and detailed requirements, are flexed to protect the fixed elements.

The idea that PRINCE2 supplies governance through principles, themes and processes that describe what must be done, while agile methods supply delivery techniques describing how the work is done, tailored together.

An agreement between customer and supplier written to support collaboration, frequent delivery and changing scope, for example by fixing time and cost and flexing scope within an agreed budget.

A lightweight agile framework in which a small, self-organising team delivers a usable increment each sprint, using defined roles, events and artefacts and inspecting and adapting as it goes.

A short, fixed timebox, commonly between two and four weeks, at the end of which the Scrum team produces a usable and potentially shippable increment of the product.

An ordered and constantly evolving list of everything the team might build, held by the product owner, with the most valuable and best-understood items at the top ready for the next sprint.

The single person accountable for maximising the value of the product, who owns and orders the product backlog and decides what the team should work on next.

The person who helps the team and the wider organisation apply Scrum well, removes impediments, coaches agile behaviour and shields the team from interruption, acting as a servant-leader rather than a traditional manager.

A short daily meeting, usually no more than fifteen minutes, where team members synchronise their work, share progress, plan the next day and surface any impediments.

A regular meeting at the end of a sprint or stage where the team reviews how it worked together and agrees practical improvements to try during the next period.

An agreed checklist describing what finished means for a product increment, so that everyone shares the same quality expectations and completed work is genuinely complete.

A flow-based method that visualises work on a board, limits how much work is in progress and manages queues so that items move steadily from request through to delivery.

A maximum number of items allowed in a column or stage of a Kanban board, which exposes bottlenecks, encourages finishing existing work before starting more and improves flow.

A way of working in which the next item is started only when capacity becomes free and someone pulls it into the stage, rather than work being pushed onto the team.

The total elapsed time from when a piece of work is requested, or enters the system, until it is delivered, used to measure and improve the flow of work.

An approach for developing new products under uncertainty that uses short experiments, a minimum viable product and validated learning to decide whether to persevere or change direction.

The smallest version of a product that lets a team test its key assumptions with real users and gather learning, rather than a partly built version of the final product.

The Lean Startup cycle of building a small experiment, measuring how users respond and learning whether the idea works, then deciding to persevere, adjust or pivot.

A structured change of direction in a Lean Startup, where learning shows the current approach will not work and the team redirects the product or business model while keeping what it has learned.

A short, plain-language description of a need written from the user's point of view, usually with acceptance criteria, small enough to be discussed and delivered within a short timebox.

The seven universal principles, covering continued business justification, learning from experience, defined roles, managing by stages, managing by exception, focus on products and tailoring, that must underpin every PRINCE2 project.

Adapting PRINCE2's themes, processes and management products to the size, complexity, risk and agile context of a project, while still applying the principles in full.

The justification for the project, describing reasons, options, expected benefits, costs, risks and timescales, and reviewed throughout so the project stops if the justification is lost.

A way of delegating decisions so that a manager or project board intervenes only when tolerances are forecast to be exceeded, freeing them to concentrate on genuine exceptions.

The permissible amount of deviation from planned targets for time, cost, scope, quality, risk or benefits that a level of management may allow before the matter must be escalated.

The agreed description of a piece of work, covering products, constraints, tolerances and reporting requirements, handed by a project or stage manager to the team delivering it, often as a sprint.

A log that captures lessons as they arise and a report that summarises them for wider use, supporting the principle that a project learns from experience and shares what it finds.

A regular report from the project manager to the project board summarising progress, status and any issues at an agreed frequency, often aligned to sprint or stage boundaries.

A PRINCE2 Agile assessment of six project characteristics, such as flexibility of what is delivered, team capability, access to the customer, project type and buy-in, each rated one to ten to show how much agility the project can support.

The five areas PRINCE2 Agile highlights as needing particular attention when applying the framework: the Agilometer, requirements, rich communication, frequent releases and ability to innovate.

A focus area emphasising frequent, face-to-face, visual and informal communication, such as boards, charts, stand-ups, co-location and video, so information moves quickly and misunderstanding is reduced.

A leadership style in which the manager's job is to help the team succeed, removing obstacles, providing what is needed, coaching and shielding the team rather than directing each task.

The practice of letting the team decide for itself how to carry out its work, including who does what and how tasks are approached, within agreed boundaries and constraints.

Working openly so that progress, problems, decisions and information are visible to everyone who needs them, which builds trust and allows better-informed decisions.