ISO/IEC 33202:2024

Software and systems engineering - Core agile practices

This document defines a set of core practices and concepts that have wide acceptance in organizations and industries using agile practices and concepts. This document defines a set of core practices that are present in agile methodologies. The practices and concepts defined in this document are applicable to a single agile team, as well as to multiple agile teams. These practices and concepts are applicable throughout the life cycle of software systems, products and services.

Ingénierie du logiciel et des systèmes — Pratiques agiles essentielles

General Information

• Status: Published
• Publication Date: 25-Jul-2024
• ICS: 35.080 - Software
• Technical Committee: ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 7 - Software and systems engineering
• Drafting Committee: ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 7 - Software and systems engineering
• Current Stage: 6060 - International Standard published
• Start Date: 26-Jul-2024
• Due Date: 25-Mar-2025
• Completion Date: 26-Jul-2024

Overview

ISO/IEC 33202:2024 - Software and systems engineering - Core agile practices defines a concise, vendor‑neutral set of core agile practices and concepts that have wide acceptance across industries. The standard describes practices applicable to a single agile team or multiple teams and across the entire life cycle of software systems, products and services. It frames each practice with purpose, overview and expected outcomes, and includes conceptual foundations and conformance guidance for organizations that want to adopt or align to the standard.

Key Topics and Requirements

The standard organizes content into conceptual foundations, conformance rules, and a catalogue of core practices. Key technical topics include:

• Conceptual foundations: distinctions between practices and processes, criteria for defining a practice, and common agile concepts such as cadence, gemba and limiting work in progress.
• Conformance: intended usage and definitions for achieving full conformance to the standard.
• Practice descriptions: each practice is presented with a purpose, overview, and outcomes, providing a consistent structure for adoption and assessment.
• Core practices (selected examples from the standard):
  • Agreement, Acquisition, Supply
  • Cross‑functional, Feature and Component team practices
  • Co‑located and Distributed team practices
  • Collective ownership
  • Release planning and Release review
  • Deployment planning, Iteration planning, Synchronized iteration
  • Daily synchronization, Cross‑team and Product owner synchronization meetings
  • Value stream mapping

The standard does not prescribe a single agile methodology; instead it defines widely accepted practices and outcome expectations that organizations can implement, adapt or assess.

Practical Applications and Users

ISO/IEC 33202:2024 is practical for:

• Agile teams and team leads seeking a standardized reference for core practices.
• Agile coaches, scrum masters and product owners aligning team behaviors across programs.
• Engineering managers and program managers coordinating multiple teams or scaling agile.
• Procurement and supplier relationships where acquisition and supply practices need alignment.
• Organizations implementing process improvement, internal audits, or external certification where standardized agile practice descriptions support evaluation.
• Tool vendors and training providers who want to map features and curricula to an internationally recognized set of agile practices.

Using this standard helps reduce ambiguity when scaling agile, contracting work across teams or suppliers, and embedding agile practices consistently across the product life cycle.

Related Standards (if applicable)

For organizations aligning lifecycle or process frameworks, consider mapping ISO/IEC 33202:2024 to other ISO/IEC software and systems engineering standards (for example, ISO/IEC 12207 on software life cycle processes) to create a coherent compliance and improvement program.

Keywords: ISO/IEC 33202, core agile practices, agile standard, software engineering standard, agile teams, agile scaling, agile practices, value stream mapping.

Standards Content (Sample)

International
Standard
ISO/IEC 33202
First edition
Software and systems
2024-07
engineering — Core agile practices
Ingénierie du logiciel et des systèmes — Pratiques agiles
essentielles
Reference number
© ISO/IEC 2024
All rights reserved. Unless otherwise specified, or required in the context of its implementation, no part of this publication may
be reproduced or utilized otherwise in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, or posting on
the internet or an intranet, without prior written permission. Permission can be requested from either ISO at the address below
or ISO’s member body in the country of the requester.
ISO copyright office
CP 401 • Ch. de Blandonnet 8
CH-1214 Vernier, Geneva
Phone: [phone]
Email: [e-mail]
Website: www.iso.org
Published in Switzerland
© ISO/IEC 2024 – All rights reserved
ii
Contents Page
Foreword .viii
Introduction .ix
1 Scope . 1
2 Normative references . 1
3 Terms and definitions . 1
4 Conformance . 4
4.1 Intended usage .4
4.2 Full conformance .4
5 Conceptual foundations. 4
5.1 Practices and processes .4
5.2 Agile practices and concepts .5
5.3 Agile practices .5
5.4 Criteria for practices .6
5.5 Description of practices .6
5.6 Some agile concepts .6
5.6.1 Cadence .6
5.6.2 Gemba.6
5.6.3 Limiting work in progress .6
6 Core agile practices . 7
6.1 Agreement practice .7
6.1.1 Purpose .7
6.1.2 Overview .7
6.1.3 Outcomes .7
6.2 Acquisition practice .7
6.2.1 Purpose .7
6.2.2 Overview .7
6.2.3 Outcomes .7
6.3 Supply practice .8
6.3.1 Purpose .8
6.3.2 Overview .8
6.3.3 Outcomes .8
6.4 Cross-functional team practice.8
6.4.1 Purpose .8
6.4.2 Overview .8
6.4.3 Outcomes .8
6.5 Feature team practice .8
6.5.1 Purpose .8
6.5.2 Overview .8
6.5.3 Outcomes .9
6.6 Component team practice .9
6.6.1 Purpose .9
6.6.2 Overview .9
6.6.3 Outcomes .9
6.7 Co-located team practice .9
6.7.1 Purpose .9
6.7.2 Overview .10
6.7.3 Outcomes .10
6.8 Distributed team practice .10
6.8.1 Purpose .10
6.8.2 Overview .10
6.8.3 Outcomes .10
6.9 Collective ownership practice .10
6.9.1 Purpose .10

© ISO/IEC 2024 – All rights reserved
iii
6.9.2 Overview .10
6.9.3 Outcomes .11
6.10 Release planning practice .11
6.10.1 Purpose .11
6.10.2 Overview .11
6.10.3 Outcomes .11
6.11 Deployment planning practice .11
6.11.1 Purpose .11
6.11.2 Overview .11
6.11.3 Outcomes . 12
6.12 Iteration planning practice . 12
6.12.1 Purpose . 12
6.12.2 Overview . 12
6.12.3 Outcomes . 12
6.13 Synchronized iteration practice. 12
6.13.1 Purpose . 12
6.13.2 Overview . 12
6.13.3 Outcomes . 12
6.14 Daily synchronization meeting practice . 13
6.14.1 Purpose . 13
6.14.2 Overview . 13
6.14.3 Outcomes . 13
6.15 Cross-team synchronization meeting practice. 13
6.15.1 Purpose . 13
6.15.2 Overview . 13
6.15.3 Outcomes . 13
6.16 Product owner synchronization meeting practice .14
6.16.1 Purpose .14
6.16.2 Overview .14
6.16.3 Outcomes .14
6.17 Value stream mapping practice .14
6.17.1 Purpose .14
6.17.2 Overview .14
6.17.3 Outcomes .14
6.18 Release review practice . 15
6.18.1 Purpose . 15
6.18.2 Overview . 15
6.18.3 Outcomes . 15
6.19 Iteration review practice . 15
6.19.1 Purpose . 15
6.19.2 Overview . 15
6.19.3 Outcomes . 15
6.20 Team retrospective practice .16
6.20.1 Purpose .16
6.20.2 Overview .16
6.20.3 Outcomes .16
6.21 Program retrospective review practice .16
6.21.1 Purpose .16
6.21.2 Overview .16
6.21.3 Outcomes .16
6.22 Program board governance practice .17
6.22.1 Purpose .17
6.22.2 Overview .17
6.22.3 Outcomes .17
6.23 Agile adoption improvement practice .17
6.23.1 Purpose .17
6.23.2 Overview .17
6.23.3 Outcomes .17
6.24 Visual management practice .18

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6.24.1 Purpose .18
6.24.2 Overview .18
6.24.3 Outcomes .18
6.25 Distributed agile governance practice .18
6.25.1 Purpose .18
6.25.2 Overview .18
6.25.3 Outcomes .18
6.26 User stories practice .19
6.26.1 Purpose .19
6.26.2 Overview .19
6.26.3 Outcomes .19
6.27 Product backlog elicitation practice .19
6.27.1 Purpose .19
6.27.2 Overview .19
6.27.3 Outcomes .19
6.28 Product backlog refinement practice .19
6.28.1 Purpose .19
6.28.2 Overview .19
6.28.3 Outcomes . 20
6.29 User story mapping practice . 20
6.29.1 Purpose . 20
6.29.2 Overview . 20
6.29.3 Outcomes . 20
6.30 Relative estimation practice. 20
6.30.1 Purpose . 20
6.30.2 Overview .21
6.30.3 Outcomes .21
6.31 Active stakeholder participation practice .21
6.31.1 Purpose .21
6.31.2 Overview .21
6.31.3 Outcomes .21
6.32 Initial architecture practice .21
6.32.1 Purpose .21
6.32.2 Overview . 22
6.32.3 Outcomes . 22
6.33 Intentional architecture practice . 22
6.33.1 Purpose . 22
6.33.2 Overview . 22
6.33.3 Outcomes . 22
6.34 Architecture description practice . 23
6.34.1 Purpose . 23
6.34.2 Overview . 23
6.34.3 Outcomes . 23
6.35 Incremental architecture practice . . 23
6.35.1 Purpose . 23
6.35.2 Overview . 23
6.35.3 Outcomes .24
6.36 Simple design practice .24
6.36.1 Purpose .24
6.36.2 Overview .24
6.36.3 Outcomes .24
6.37 Test-driven development practice .24
6.37.1 Purpose .24
6.37.2 Overview .24
6.37.3 Outcomes . 25
6.38 Acceptance test-driven development practice . 25
6.38.1 Purpose . 25
6.38.2 Overview . 25
6.38.3 Outcomes . 25

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6.39 Behaviour-driven development practice . 26
6.39.1 Purpose . 26
6.39.2 Overview . 26
6.39.3 Outcomes . 26
6.40 Feature-driven development practice . 26
6.40.1 Purpose . 26
6.40.2 Overview . 26
6.40.3 Outcomes . 26
6.41 Agile testing pyramid practice . .27
6.41.1 Purpose .27
6.41.2 Overview .27
6.41.3 Outcomes .27
6.42 Continuous integration practice .27
6.42.1 Purpose .27
6.42.2 Overview .27
6.42.3 Outcomes .27
6.43 Continuous deployment practice. 28
6.43.1 Purpose . 28
6.43.2 Overview . 28
6.43.3 Outcomes . 28
6.44 Continuous delivery practice . 28
6.44.1 Purpose . 28
6.44.2 Overview . 28
6.44.3 Outcomes . 28
6.45 Continuous documentation practice . 29
6.45.1 Purpose . 29
6.45.2 Overview . 29
6.45.3 Outcomes . 29
6.46 Lean documentation practice . 29
6.46.1 Purpose . 29
6.46.2 Overview . 29
6.46.3 Outcomes . 29
6.47 Feature toggles practice . . 30
6.47.1 Purpose . 30
6.47.2 Overview . 30
6.47.3 Outcomes . 30
6.48 Refactoring practice . 30
6.48.1 Purpose . 30
6.48.2 Overview . 30
6.48.3 Outcomes . 30
6.49 Test str
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