Scrum defines three artifacts, each of which is designed to provide transparency and opportunities for inspection and adaptation. The Product Backlog is an ordered, emergent list of what is needed to improve the product, and it is the single source of work undertaken by the Scrum Team. It is owned by the Product Owner, who is responsible for its content, availability, and ordering, and the items within it can be described with three attributes: value, risk or uncertainty, and effort. The Product Backlog is committed to a long-term Product Goal, which describes a future state of the product and gives the team a strategic direction. To keep the Product Backlog healthy, the team engages in ongoing refinement, adding detail, estimates, and order to items; this activity typically consumes no more than ten percent of the Developers' capacity.
The Sprint Backlog is the set of Product Backlog items selected for the current Sprint, plus the plan to deliver them and the Sprint Goal. It is owned by the Developers, who update it throughout the Sprint as they learn more about the work. The Increment is a concrete stepping stone toward the Product Goal, representing the sum of all Product Backlog items completed during a Sprint plus the value of all previous Increments, and a team should produce at least one Increment per Sprint and often more if it is useful. Each Increment must satisfy the team's Definition of Done, a shared understanding of what it means for work to be complete. The Definition of Done typically includes activities such as code review, testing, integration, documentation, and potentially release to production, and it is a shared commitment of the entire Scrum Team rather than the responsibility of any single role. The Sprint Goal is the commitment associated with the Sprint Backlog, while the Definition of Done is the commitment associated with the Increment, and together these commitments make progress and quality visible.