Iteration

One turn of a team's working cycle, fixed in length, ending in something that could in principle be delivered.

An iteration is one repetition of the cycle: plan, do, review, repeat. The fixed length is the load-bearing part, because it is what converts a queue of work into a series of comparable periods, and it is why scope rather than the end date moves when an iteration runs short of time. An iteration ending in something potentially deliverable is not the same as something delivered: whether the output actually reaches anyone is a separate decision, and the gap between the two is where undelivered increments accumulate.

See also

Cadence

The fixed length of the cycle a team plans, works and reviews in. Its value comes from repeating, not from being short.

Term
Flow-based delivery

Work organised as a continuous pull with no fixed iteration, controlled instead by a limit on how much may be in progress at once.

Term

Where this comes up

Closing an agile project: ending work that could always run one more sprint

Predictive work gets an ending for free, the day the thing is handed over. Iterative work has to manufacture one, which is why so much of it never formally ends at all.

7 min
Delivery cadence: the rhythm you work to, and how often something actually ships

Cadence is the beat the work runs to. Delivery cadence is how often finished output reaches the people who asked for it. Teams conflate the two and then wonder why nobody feels the pace.

7 min
Iteration-based and flow-based agile: one fixes the interval, the other fixes the queue

Iteration-based agile fixes the length of the cycle and commits a batch to it. Flow-based agile fixes the amount of work in progress and pulls the next item when a slot frees.

9 min