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Modern professions · IT · with audio

IT vocabulary: teamwork

Stand-up, sprint, backlog, blocker — 20 words you’ll hear in every meeting and work chat, with audio, phonetics, simple explanations and examples.

  • 20 words
  • Audio and phonetics
  • Simple explanations
  • 3 exercises
  • No sign-up
To the wordsPractice

The language of an IT team

Most IT teams work in an Agile way: short sprints, a daily stand-up, a backlog of tasks and a retrospective at the end. These words are heard every day in teams all over the world.

They’re useful not only for developers but for project managers, testers, designers, analysts, recruiters and anyone moving into IT from another field.

Teamwork words

How a working week in IT sounds: from stand-up to retro. Tap to hear.

Speed
  1. a short daily team meeting
  2. a short period of work, usually two weeks
  3. the list of work still to do
  4. a piece of work
  5. a task or issue in a tracker such as Jira
  6. the time by which something must be done
  7. a guess of how long something will take
  8. how important or urgent something is
  9. a problem that stops your work
  10. when people get together to discuss work
  11. a phone or video conversation
  12. comments on someone’s work
  13. a meeting about what went well and what to improve
  14. the person who leads a team
  15. the person responsible for what the product does
  16. someone with an interest in a project
  17. something a product must do
  18. how much work a project includes
  19. working from home or anywhere, not in the office
  20. helping a new employee start

Practice: test yourself

10 words from the list per round. After every answer you hear the word and the right option lights up.

Choose an exercise

How to speak up in meetings

  • Learn the stand-up formula: “Yesterday I…, today I’m going to…, I have a blocker: …” and use it daily.
  • Note down phrases your colleagues use that sound natural, and use them yourself in the next meeting.
  • Don’t be afraid to ask: “Could you say that again?” is a normal phrase even for native speakers.

FAQ

Didn’t find your answer? Send us a request — we’ll tell you everything.

What are a stand-up and a sprint?

A stand-up is a short daily meeting of 10–15 minutes: what I did yesterday, what I’ll do today, what’s in my way. A sprint is a work cycle, usually 1–2 weeks, in which the team completes its planned tasks.

What is a blocker?

A blocker is a problem that stops you from continuing: no access, waiting for a colleague’s decision, a server that’s down. You mention blockers at the stand-up so the team can help remove them.

How do I speak at a stand-up?

Keep it short: “Yesterday I finished the login page. Today I’m going to fix the payment bug. No blockers.” Work phrases and a role-play with AI are in the English for IT mini-course.

What’s next

Next step

Keep learning with a mini-course

Short online courses by Slay School teachers: a 15-minute lesson a day with audio, exercises and dialogues, and the words you forget come back on their own.

  • Day 1 is free
  • 15 minutes a day, at your own pace
  • Every word has audio
  • Lifetime access once paid
Start for freeAll mini-courses

All you need to start is an email or a Google account.