Terms and abbreviations

Why Terms and Abbreviations? Many terms, abbreviations and words can have a number of different meanings depending on the culture, context, traditions, etc. they are used in.

The “Definition of Term” are therefore used here to define the meaning of a specific term or word as it is used in this context – this site.
Example: the abbreviation ATM means “Automatic Teller Machine” if you are in the financial sector, whereas it mean “Asynchronous Transmission Mode” if you are in the telecommunication industry.
List of Terms and Abbreviations Below is a list of the terms and definitions used on this site – the list cannot be guaranteed to be complete.

Term & Abbreviation Description
Activities Longman dictionary defines Activities as things that people do, especially in order to achieve a particular aim. Activities are typically broken down into tasks.
ALCOA According to FDA, data integrity refers to the completeness, consistency, and accuracy of data. Complete, consistent, and accurate data shall be:

  • Attributable,
  • Legible,
  • Contemporaneously recorded,
  • Original or a true copy, and
  • Accurate
‘Done’ The term ‘Done‘ is used in Scrum to define the criteria for when the implementation of a User Story or Epic is considered completed.

The criteria for ‘Done’ can either be a general one for all User Stories or Epics and defined in e.g.the Quality Management System or it can be a specific one for a specific User Story or Epic.
Epic An Epic is a more complex type of User Story which indicates many but related requirements. They are typically too complex to implement in a single Sprint and therefore has to be broken down before the Scrum Team can accept them for implementation.
Event Events are used for the planning and monitoring of the progress with the tasks.
INVEST The abbreviation INVEST is a mnemonic for the characteristics of a good quality User Story. The User Stories are a way to communicate the requirement to a product or system.
Plan A detailed proposal which describes the activities and resources needed to achieve an objective. For example a Plan to implement a new IT Service or Process. ISO/IEC 20000 requires a Plan for the management of each IT Service Management Process.
Quality Assurance A planned and systematic means for assuring management that the defined standards, practices, procedures, and methods of the process are applied.
Quality ISO 8402-1986 standard defines quality as “the totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that bears its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs.”

RACI

 The abbreviation RACI is an abbreviation for the four terms listed below. Each of these terms refer to the activities associated with a role:

Responsibility: This is attributed to the person who gets the task done!
Accountable:This means ‘the buck stops here’—this is the person who provides direction and authorises an activity!
Consulted: This is for those who know something useful in the context and therefore need to be involved and support the solution!
Informed: This is for those who need to know what is going on in order to do their job!
Risk Longman dictionary defines a risk as the possibility that something bad, unpleasant, or dangerous may happen.

ICH 9 defines risk as the combination of the probability of occurrence of harm and the severity of that harm (ISO/IEC Guide 51).
SME A Subject Matter Expert has a deep knowledge of a specific process, function or technology (or, a combination of all three). An SME is considered an authority on a certain topic – not only educated on the subject but has the capacity to share their knowledge with other interested parties. The SME is important to the company because it gives it a competitive edge having readily inhouse access to the knowledge of the SME.
Scrum Team The Scrum Team is the group of people who perform the Sprint. The team consist of three different “participants”:
System The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) defines systems as people, machines, and methods organized to accomplish a set of specific functions. Computer or related systems can refer to computer hardware, software, peripheral devices, networks, cloud infrastructure, operators, and associated documents (e.g., user manuals and standard operating procedures)
Task Tasks are used for getting the job/activity done, i.e. it is a piece of work needed to be completed in order to create the solution so it adhere to the definition of Done‘.

Typically a task is something that can be completed in from a few hours to a couple of days work by one person – the reason for this “limitation” is twofold:
  1. It gives a cadence in the development making it possible to close activities daily creating a feeling of progress.
  2. It help making more reliable estimates for a User Story if it is broken down into tasks with a very short duration which are then summarised to give a sanity check of the User Story estimate. Small task are easier to estimate and looking at the task list it is easy to see if something is missing.
User Story A User Story is a way to express a requirement to a system, a service, a product, etc, in terms that are familiar to most people without the need of technical insight.