--
Definition of Done (DoD) and Definition of Ready (DoR) are important — and too often misunderstood— concepts in Scrum. Let’s clarify what they are…
DoD = Definition of Done
The DoD is usually a short document in the form of a checklist, that defines when a product backlog item (i.e. user story) is considered “done”. It has various rationales and various ways to explain it:
- You need a common definition of what “done” (= “this user story is finished”) means. Otherwise it will mean something else for every person on the team.
- All your non-functional requirements reside in the DoD.
- A general list of acceptance criteria to be added to every story’s specific acceptance criteria.
- Many improvements you find in your retrospectives end up in the DoD.
Most teams start with no or a very simple DoD. They then add to the DoD after each sprint as needed. Tip: Don’t paralyze yourself with an excessive DoD! But keep in mind: “done” in an agile project means “no more work needs to be done before shipping”. So if someone says “the feature is done, but it only needs to be integrated, tested, deployed, …” it would NOT be considered “done” in an agile sense!
The best check whether something is “done” is to simply ship it! If you can ship it, it’s really done; if you cannot ship it, simply do the work missing before you can ship it to make it “done”. Mind you: you don’t need to actually ship it, but you need to make believable that you could.
A typical DoD might look like this example:
- Automated tests are written and all tests are green
- Code is refactored and reviewed
- Code is integrated with master branch
- Deployed to staging environment
- Translated into English and German
A concise definition of done will help you deliver quality, keep your slate clean and react flexibly to changing requirements.
DoR = Definition of Ready
The DoR is the little cousin of the DoD. It is a checklist of what needs to be done to a product backlog item before the team can start…
