# Pivotal Tracker ## Terms ### **Epic** Epics capture high-level goals associated with a feature, and usually consist of many stories (and bugs). It isn't compulsory to have Epics in every project, but they do help in maintaining a sense of "achievement" within the team. Simply completing story after story, fixing bug after bug, can get monotonous... and "completing" an epic marks the end of a consolidated effort by the team. ### **Story** The smallest part of a feature is called a User Story. It is a concrete, well-understood, independent unit of work that can be delivered to the user for some demonstrable value (n.b.: also see Chores). Stories are estimated by using a "points system" before they are started. ### **Chore** A purely technical task that does not add *demonstrable* value to any user of the system. It is important to track such chores because they add value to the overall project. For e.g.: refactoring code, upgrading dependencies, adding automation scripts. ### **Bug** A feature in production that does not function as expected. 💔 ### **Blocker** * A question related to a story that needs to be answered before that story can be worked on. * A dependency where another story needs to be completed before a story can be worked on. ### **Release** A marker in the Backlog that represents a version to be delivered or a milestone to be achieved. All stories "above" a Release marker must be delivered and accepted, before the due date. ## Lists ### **Current Iteration** A prioritized list of stories to be worked on during the current iteration. An iteration is usually one (1) week long, but this can be configured in Pivotal on a per-project level. ### **Backlog** A prioritised list of stories planned to be worked on in the upcoming iterations. ### **Icebox** An unprioritsed list of all stories, chores, and bugs. Items from the Icebox are added the Backlog during prioritisation discussions, usually an [Iteration Planning Meeting](https://engineering.obvious.in/project-management/broken-reference).