Capability

[key-puh-bil-i-tee]

Definition of Capability

A Story that provides value to an external Stakeholder; an Item that has Business Value. (Compare to Chore)

See:

Story, A request from a stakeholder for something of value (it could be an Epic); A unit of work that is ‘small enough’ to be agreed to by the Team; a...
Chore A Story that provides value to the Team or Product, as opposed to an external Stakeholder; an Item whose value is other than Business Value. (Compare to Capability)

Examples

By tracking and monitoring these Stories (for each Epic) as they move through the levels of the Backlog, everyone can understand what the status of the Capability, Issue, or Risk is.

In general, I do not consider anything that a Stakeholder asks for to be a Chore. Therefore, if one of the Team’s Stakeholders is asking for refactoring as a specific request, then it would be a Capability; but if the Team needs to do the refactoring so that it has Clean Code to work with, it is a Chore.

Scrum Value #4: Do whatever Chores are necessary to support the work they are supposed to be doing These Chores are the Team’s have-to-do internal items that are required by-products to get the work done. Chores provide internal value to the team as opposed to external stakeholder value.

Cite This Term

"Capability" ScrumDictionary.com. Accessed Apr 25, 2024. https://scrumdictionary.com/term/capability/.