The Ultimate English Verb Guide to Surviving Your Scrum Ceremonies

Welcome back to Code With Botina. Today, we are taking a break from pure code to talk about another fundamental tool in our tech stack: the English language.

If you work in the software industry, chances are you use agile methodologies like Scrum. And if you aspire to work in international teams or open-source projects, you will need to communicate in English. Sometimes the issue isn't a lack of programming skills, but rather not knowing how to explain what you did yesterday, what you will do today, or what is blocking you.

To help our community level up, I have compiled this extensive and definitive list of the most commonly used English verbs during Scrum ceremonies. I have included the present tense, the past tense (to report what you already did), and the future tense (to commit to what you will do).

Bookmark this post for your next meeting!

1. Sprint Planning

In this ceremony, you define what will be done and how. Here you need verbs for estimating, committing, and organizing.

Estimate (Past: Estimated | Future: Will estimate)
- Usage: When you assign story points or time to a task. "We estimated this task at 5 points."
Allocate (Past: Allocated | Future: Will allocate)
- Usage: To assign resources, time, or capacity to a specific task.
Prioritize (Past: Prioritized | Future: Will prioritize)
- Usage: When you order the Backlog, deciding what is most important to deliver first.
Commit (Past: Committed | Future: Will commit)
- Usage: To express that the team promises to deliver a set of user stories by the end of the Sprint.
Break down (Past: Broke down | Future: Will break down)
- Usage: When a user story is too large and you need to split it into smaller technical tasks.
Define (Past: Defined | Future: Will define)
- Usage: When establishing Acceptance Criteria or the Definition of Done.
Assign (Past: Assigned | Future: Will assign)
- Usage: When a task is linked to a specific developer's name.
Clarify (Past: Clarified | Future: Will clarify)
- Usage: When you ask the Product Owner to explain a confusing requirement in more detail.
Forecast (Past: Forecasted | Future: Will forecast)
- Usage: To predict how much work the team believes they can complete based on past velocity.
Scope (Past: Scoped | Future: Will scope)
- Usage: To define the exact extent and boundaries of a feature you are going to develop.

2. Daily Scrum (The Daily Stand-up)

The 15-minute meeting where you answer: What did I do yesterday? What will I do today? What is blocking me? Here you need pure action verbs.

Work on (Past: Worked on | Future: Will work on)
- Usage: The most common verb. You use it to say which task you were coding. "Yesterday, I worked on the login API."
Block (Past: Blocked | Future: Will block)
- Usage: Crucial for raising your hand when something prevents you from making progress. "I am blocked by the database migration."
Complete (Past: Completed | Future: Will complete)
- Usage: To report that you finished a task 100%.
Tackle (Past: Tackled | Future: Will tackle)
- Usage: A very professional way to say you are going to "face" or start working on a difficult problem.
Update (Past: Updated | Future: Will update)
- Usage: When you refreshed a library, changed the status of your Jira ticket, or modified documentation.
Sync (Past: Synced | Future: Will sync)
- Usage: When you need a quick chat with another developer after the Daily to align your work. "I will sync with John regarding the JWT implementation."
Resolve (Past: Resolved | Future: Will resolve)
- Usage: When you fix a bug or a code conflict.
Implement (Past: Implemented | Future: Will implement)
- Usage: When you translate business logic into code (e.g., "I implemented the payment gateway").
Investigate (Past: Investigated | Future: Will investigate)
- Usage: When you aren't coding yet, but reading logs or researching why something is failing.
Review (Past: Reviewed | Future: Will review)
- Usage: Widely used to say you were checking a teammate's code (Pull Requests).

3. Sprint Review

Here you show working software to the stakeholders (clients/owners). It's time to show off.

Demonstrate / Demo (Past: Demonstrated / Demoed | Future: Will demonstrate / Will demo)
- Usage: When you share your screen and show how the new feature works live.
Present (Past: Presented | Future: Will present)
- Usage: Similar to demo, but more focused on explaining the business value of what was delivered.
Deliver (Past: Delivered | Future: Will deliver)
- Usage: To talk about the value or features the team successfully finished in this Sprint.
Accept (Past: Accepted | Future: Will accept)
- Usage: Used by the Product Owner when they review your work and confirm it meets the criteria.
Reject (Past: Rejected | Future: Will reject)
- Usage: When the work does not meet the requirements and must go back to the backlog.
Gather (Past: Gathered | Future: Will gather)
- Usage: Usually used with "feedback." It means you are collecting the clients' opinions.
Showcase (Past: Showcased | Future: Will showcase)
- Usage: To proudly display the work accomplished by the development team.
Release (Past: Released | Future: Will release)
- Usage: When the feature being shown is already available for real users to interact with in production.
Inspect (Past: Inspected | Future: Will inspect)
- Usage: To analyze the delivered software increment to see if it aligns with the product goal.

4. Sprint Retrospective

The ceremony to talk about us, the team. What we did right, what we did wrong, and how to improve our processes.

Improve (Past: Improved | Future: Will improve)
- Usage: The core of the retrospective. Talking about which technical or human processes we will do better.
Reflect (Past: Reflected | Future: Will reflect)
- Usage: To take a moment to think deeply about the last work cycle.
Identify (Past: Identified | Future: Will identify)
- Usage: When the team finds the root cause of an issue or a bottleneck in their workflow.
Brainstorm (Past: Brainstormed | Future: Will brainstorm)
- Usage: To generate a quick flow of ideas among everyone to solve a specific problem.
Propose (Past: Proposed | Future: Will propose)
- Usage: When you suggest a new tool, a new team rule, or an architectural change.
Adapt (Past: Adapted | Future: Will adapt)
- Usage: To change our behavior or processes in response to the issues we identified.
Iterate (Past: Iterated | Future: Will iterate)
- Usage: To apply continuous, small changes to our work process to perfect it step by step.
Fail (Past: Failed | Future: Will fail)
- Usage: It is healthy to talk about mistakes. You use this to admit what went wrong during the Sprint.
Learn (Past: Learned | Future: Will learn)
- Usage: The consequence of failing. The knowledge we extract from the mistake.
Celebrate (Past: Celebrated | Future: Will celebrate)
- Usage: To acknowledge achievements, congratulate a teammate for their help, and applaud good work.

5. Backlog Refinement

The meeting where we prepare future work so it is ready when Planning arrives.

Refine (Past: Refined | Future: Will refine)
- Usage: To clean up, clarify, and detail user stories so they are ready for development.
Detail (Past: Detailed | Future: Will detail)
- Usage: To add technical information, mocks, or exact descriptions to an empty ticket.
Split (Past: Split [irregular] | Future: Will split)
- Usage: To divide a gigantic user story (Epic) into smaller stories that fit into a single Sprint.
Discard (Past: Discarded | Future: Will discard)
- Usage: To remove tickets from the backlog that no longer make business sense or are obsolete.
Analyze (Past: Analyzed | Future: Will analyze)
- Usage: To study the technical requirements before committing to coding them.
Revise (Past: Revised | Future: Will revise)
- Usage: To look back at an old estimate or requirement because business rules have changed.
Reorder (Past: Reordered | Future: Will reorder)
- Usage: To change the priority order of the tickets on the board.

Technical English doesn't have to be a blocker in your career. Take these verbs, write them on sticky notes, or use them as a template for your next Daily. The more you use them, the more natural they will become.

Is there any other verb you use a lot in your meetings that isn't on the list? Leave it in the comments and let's grow this guide!

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