5 vocabulary questions on standup and Agile meeting language — velocity, "done done", parking lot, timeboxing, and blocker vs impediment.
Key standup vocabulary covered
velocity — story points completed per sprint; measures team delivery capacity
done done — fully complete per the team's Definition of Done (not just code-written)
parking lot — off-topic items saved for a separate follow-up discussion
timebox — a fixed maximum time limit for a meeting or activity
blocker / impediment — anything preventing progress; impediment is the formal Scrum term
0 / 5 completed
1 / 5
A Scrum Master says: "Our velocity has dropped this sprint — we delivered 22 points instead of the expected 30." What does velocity mean in a standup or sprint context?
Velocity is an Agile/Scrum metric: the total number of story points a team completes (delivers to "done") per sprint.
How it is used:
Teams track velocity over multiple sprints to identify a stable average
Average velocity is used in sprint planning to decide how many story points to commit to
"Our velocity has dropped" = the team completed fewer points than expected
Example: If a team consistently delivers ~28 story points per sprint, the planning team should not commit to 50 — it is unrealistic given past velocity.
Standup use: Velocity is usually discussed at the end of a sprint (in the sprint review or retrospective) rather than in daily standups — but it is important vocabulary to understand when you hear it.
2 / 5
A developer says: "The feature is done — well, it's done done." What is the difference between "done" and "done done" in engineering teams?
"Done done" is a colloquial but widely used term in Agile teams — it signals that the work meets the team's full Definition of Done (DoD), not just that the code has been written.
The distinction:
"Done" (casually) = I finished writing the code
"Done done" = code is written + reviewed + tests pass + merged + deployed to the agreed environment + acceptance criteria met
Why it matters: In standups, if someone says "it's done but not done done," it means the work is still in progress — there are remaining steps (e.g., waiting for code review, waiting for QA sign-off).
Definition of Done (DoD) is the team's agreed checklist of what "complete" means for any given piece of work. Teams define this in their Scrum setup.
3 / 5
During a standup, the Scrum Master says: "That's an important point — let's add it to the parking lot and discuss it after." What is a parking lot in a meeting?
Parking lot is a meeting facilitation technique. Topics that arise but are off-topic or too detailed for the current agenda are "parked" — noted down but not discussed immediately.
Purpose: To keep meetings focused and on time while ensuring no important topic is lost. The parked items are discussed in a separate follow-up.
In standups specifically: Standups are timeboxed (15 minutes). If a topic starts going deep, the facilitator "parks it" to protect the standup format. The discussion happens offline or in a follow-up meeting.
How it looks in practice:
"Let's park that for now." = not discussing it right now
"I'll add that to the parking lot." = noting it for later
"We have three items in the parking lot after this standup." = three follow-up discussions needed
4 / 5
A team lead says: "Let's timebox this discussion to 5 minutes — we need to move on." What does timeboxing a standup (or any meeting discussion) mean?
Timebox = a fixed, non-extendable time limit applied to a meeting, activity, or discussion.
In Scrum: All Scrum ceremonies are timeboxed:
Daily standup — timeboxed to 15 minutes
Sprint planning — timeboxed (e.g., 4 hours for a 2-week sprint)
Retrospective — timeboxed (e.g., 1.5 hours)
The key principle: When the timebox expires, the activity ends — even if not everything has been covered. This is intentional — it forces prioritisation and prevents meetings from overrunning.
Using the vocabulary:
"Let's timebox this to 10 minutes." = we have 10 minutes for this topic
"We're out of our timebox — let's take the rest offline."
"The standup was timeboxed but we ran over." = the meeting exceeded its limit
5 / 5
A new developer asks: "What's the difference between a blocker and an impediment? My Scrum Master uses both." Are they the same thing?
Blocker and impediment are effectively synonyms — they both describe anything that prevents a team member or team from making progress.
The formal distinction:
Impediment is the term used in the Scrum Guide. During the Daily Scrum, the Scrum Master is responsible for removing impediments.
Blocker is the everyday informal term most developers use in standups, Slack messages, and Jira.
In practice: Most teams use "blocker" in daily conversation and "impediment" in formal Scrum documentation or when speaking precisely. Both appear in standups.
Examples:
"I have a blocker — waiting on access credentials." (daily standup)
"The Scrum Master is responsible for impediment removal." (Scrum documentation)
"Can you raise that as an impediment in Jira?" (formal tracking)