Scrum is an agile framework that helps teams structure and manage their work through a set of values, principles, and practices. Inspired by the rugby play of the same name, it encourages teams to learn through experience, self-organize while working on a problem, and reflect on their wins and losses to continuously improve.
A Scrum team is a self-organizing unit with three specific roles designed to optimize flexibility and productivity. Each role has distinct responsibilities, but they all collaborate closely to deliver the product incrementally. This structure ensures clear accountability and focus.
Scrum artifacts are key pieces of information that help define the product and the work required to create it. They provide transparency and create opportunities for inspection and adaptation. These artifacts ensure the entire team and stakeholders are aligned on goals and progress.
While both are agile frameworks, Scrum and Kanban offer different approaches to managing work and delivering value.
Scrum excels at helping teams adapt to changing conditions and user needs. Its iterative approach uses short release cycles for constant learning and improvement. This incremental delivery ensures teams can quickly pivot and deliver higher value to customers.
The framework also promotes transparency, clear communication, and collective ownership. Empowering cross-functional teams to self-organize reduces bottlenecks and increases resilience. Regular feedback loops keep the team motivated and stakeholders aligned on progress.
Implementing Scrum is a significant undertaking that often requires a major cultural shift. Teams can struggle with the new ceremonies and the need for deep-seated trust and transparency. Navigating these issues involves understanding the inherent trade-offs.
How long is a typical sprint?
Sprints are typically two to four weeks long. This fixed duration allows the team to deliver a usable product increment consistently, providing a regular cadence for planning, execution, and review. The length is chosen to be short enough to adapt to changes quickly.
Can Scrum be used for non-software projects?
Absolutely. While it originated in software development, Scrum's principles of iterative progress and continuous improvement are effective for marketing, sales, and other complex projects. Its adaptability makes it a versatile framework for various industries.
What's the difference between a Scrum Master and a Project Manager?
A Scrum Master is a servant-leader who facilitates the Scrum process and removes impediments for the team. A traditional Project Manager focuses more on planning, resource allocation, and managing timelines, often with a more directive approach.
Solution selling is a sales approach focused on understanding a customer's pain points to offer a comprehensive solution, not just a product.
A sales demonstration is a presentation showing a prospect how a product or service works and how it can solve their specific problems.
The buying cycle is the journey a customer takes from first realizing they have a need to making the final purchase decision.
The buying process is the journey a customer takes from first realizing a need to making a final purchase decision and evaluating it afterward.
A Software Development Kit (SDK) is a set of tools that allows developers to create applications for a specific software package or platform.
Incident response is an organization's systematic approach to managing and mitigating the aftermath of a security breach or cyberattack.
Mobile compatibility ensures your site or app works flawlessly on mobile devices, like smartphones and tablets, for a seamless user experience.
User testing involves observing real users interact with a product to identify usability issues and improve the overall user experience.
Account Click-Through Rate (CTR) is the percentage of individuals from a target account who click on a link in an ad, email, or on a webpage.
Loss aversion is our tendency to feel the sting of a loss more acutely than the pleasure of an equivalent gain.
Quality Assurance (QA) is the systematic process of ensuring a product or service meets specified quality standards from development to delivery.
API security is the practice of protecting application programming interfaces from attacks, preventing data breaches and unauthorized access.
Personalization is the practice of using data to tailor products, services, or content to an individual's specific needs and preferences.
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Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) measures the mean annual growth of an investment over a specified period of time longer than one year.
Inbound leads are potential customers who proactively reach out after finding your business through content, social media, or search.
Regression analysis is a statistical method for estimating the relationships between a dependent variable and one or more independent variables.
A payment gateway is a service that authorizes and processes payments for businesses, acting as a secure link between the customer and the merchant.
Customer segmentation is dividing customers into groups based on shared traits. This allows for more targeted and effective marketing efforts.
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A competitive advantage is a unique edge that allows a business to produce goods or services better or more cheaply than its rivals.
Product-market fit is when a product meets the needs of a strong market, leading to high demand, customer satisfaction, and organic growth.
Time on site, or session duration, is a key web metric that tracks the total time a visitor spends on your website during a single visit.
Net Revenue Retention (NRR) is the percentage of recurring revenue kept from existing customers, including upsells, downgrades, and churn.
Territory management is the process of segmenting customers into groups by geography or other factors to optimize sales efforts and resources.
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Demand is the economic principle describing a consumer's desire and willingness to purchase a specific good or service at a particular price.
Lead scraping is the process of automatically extracting contact information and other relevant data about potential customers from online sources.
Channel partners are third-party firms that help market and sell a company's products or services, acting as an indirect sales force.
Social selling is the art of using social media to find, connect with, build relationships with, and nurture sales prospects.
Sales Operations KPIs are measurable metrics that track the efficiency and effectiveness of a sales team's operational processes.
A version control system (VCS) tracks changes to files over time, allowing you to recall specific versions and collaborate without conflicts.
Low-hanging fruit are the most obvious and easy-to-tackle tasks or goals that provide a quick, valuable return for minimal effort.
A sales quota is a time-bound sales goal for a rep or team, measured in revenue or units sold, to be met within a specific period.
A weighted sales pipeline forecasts revenue by assigning a closing probability to each deal, giving a more accurate picture of potential income.
Data-driven lead generation is the process of using data insights to identify, attract, and convert high-quality leads into customers.
The buyer journey maps the path a potential customer takes, from first learning about a product to the final decision to buy.
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Digital advertising is the practice of delivering promotional content to users through various online and digital channels like social media or search engines.
Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM) is the portion of the market you can realistically capture with your current resources, sales, and marketing.
A warm email is a message sent to a prospect with whom you have a pre-existing connection, like a mutual contact or a prior interaction.
A User Interface (UI) is the point where humans and computers interact. It encompasses all visual elements like screens, icons, and buttons.
A commission is a service charge paid to an agent for a transaction. It's typically a percentage of the sale, rewarding performance directly.
A Digital Sales Room is a private online space where sellers share all relevant content with buyers to streamline the sales cycle.
Firmographics are descriptive attributes of organizations, used to segment companies by characteristics like industry, size, and location.
Upselling is a sales tactic encouraging customers to purchase a higher-end version of a product or related add-ons to boost revenue.
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Account management is the post-sales practice of building and nurturing long-term relationships with a company's most valuable clients.
A Single Page Application (SPA) is a web app that interacts with the user by dynamically rewriting the current page rather than loading new pages.
SPIN selling is a sales technique using a sequence of questions—Situation, Problem, Implication, Need-Payoff—to uncover a buyer's needs.
Customer Success is a business strategy focused on proactively helping customers achieve their goals with your product or service.
Lead conversion is the process of turning a prospect into a customer by getting them to complete a desired action, such as making a purchase.
The Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) framework focuses on understanding customer needs by identifying the specific 'job' they are trying to accomplish.
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An Account Executive (AE) is a sales professional responsible for closing new business deals and managing existing client relationships to drive revenue.
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Omnichannel marketing creates a seamless, unified customer experience by integrating a company's various communication and sales channels.
Audience targeting is the process of segmenting consumers into specific groups to deliver more personalized and relevant marketing messages.
Lead routing is the automated process of distributing incoming leads to the right sales reps based on predefined criteria.
AI data enrichment uses artificial intelligence to automatically enhance and update raw data, making it more complete, accurate, and valuable.
Opportunity management is the process of tracking potential sales from first contact to a closed deal, helping teams prioritize and win more.
CRM analytics is the process of analyzing data from your CRM to uncover insights that help you better understand and serve your customers.
Lightning Components is a UI framework for building dynamic web apps for mobile and desktop devices on the Salesforce Lightning Platform.
A Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) is a prospect who has shown interest based on marketing efforts but isn't yet ready for a sales conversation.
Channel marketing is a strategy where a company sells its products or services through third-party partners, like resellers or affiliates.
Regression testing ensures that new code changes don’t negatively impact existing features. It's a key step to maintain software quality after updates.
Data encryption translates data into another form, or code, so that only people with access to a secret key or password can read it.
A hybrid sales model blends traditional and digital sales methods to engage customers across multiple channels and buying preferences.
Lead scoring models rank prospects by assigning points for their behaviors and demographics, helping sales teams prioritize their outreach.
Sales funnel metrics are key data points that track how effectively you're moving potential customers from awareness to a final purchase.
A sales pitch is a persuasive presentation of a product or service, aimed at convincing a potential customer to make a purchase.
A Search Engine Results Page (SERP) is the page displayed by a search engine after a user enters a query, listing results ranked by relevance.
A touchpoint is any time a potential or existing customer comes in contact with your brand, from seeing an ad to receiving an email.
A lead generation funnel is a systematic process that guides potential customers from initial awareness of your brand to becoming qualified leads.
Fulfillment logistics is the entire process of getting an order to a customer, from storing inventory to picking, packing, and final shipment.
Adobe Analytics is a leading web analytics solution for gaining real-time insights into user activity across websites and mobile applications.
Email deliverability is the ability for your emails to successfully land in your recipients' inboxes instead of their spam folders.
A hard sell is an aggressive sales technique that uses high-pressure tactics to push a customer into making an immediate purchase decision.
An Application Programming Interface (API) is a set of rules that lets different software applications talk to each other and share information.
The awareness stage is the first step in the buyer's journey, where a potential customer realizes they have a problem or an opportunity to explore.
A complex sale features a long sales cycle, multiple stakeholders, and a high-value transaction, demanding a strategic, consultative approach.
Dark social is the sharing of content through private channels like messaging apps or email. This traffic is hard to track as it lacks referral data.
Closed opportunities are potential deals that have concluded. They are categorized as either 'closed-won' (a sale was made) or 'closed-lost'.
Functional testing verifies that software performs its intended functions as specified in the requirements, ensuring it works as users expect.
Account-Based Everything (ABE) is a strategy aligning sales, marketing, and success teams to focus on a specific set of high-value accounts.
Multi-touch attribution is a marketing analytics method that credits multiple touchpoints on the customer journey for a conversion.
A performance plan is a formal document outlining an employee's goals, expectations, and metrics for success over a specific period.
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Lead nurturing is the process of developing and reinforcing relationships with buyers at every stage of the sales funnel.
An account is a company or organization that you're targeting for sales. It can be a prospective, current, or even a past customer.
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Data privacy is an individual's right to control their personal information, including how it's collected, processed, stored, and shared.
Account-Based Marketing (ABM) benchmarks are key metrics used to measure the performance and success of your targeted account strategies.
SQL (Structured Query Language) is the standard language for managing and querying data within relational databases.
A trusted advisor is an expert who builds a deep client relationship by consistently prioritizing their best interests over any single transaction.
Accounts Payable (AP) is the money a company owes its suppliers for goods or services bought on credit. It's listed as a current liability.
A marketing budget breakdown is a detailed plan that allocates your total marketing funds across various channels, campaigns, and activities.
Analytical CRM analyzes customer data to uncover actionable insights, helping businesses make smarter decisions and improve customer interactions.
Marketing analytics involves measuring and analyzing marketing data to understand campaign performance and improve return on investment (ROI).
Buying criteria are the specific requirements and standards a customer uses to evaluate products or services before making a decision.