{"id":5003169,"date":"2015-12-16T21:50:13","date_gmt":"2015-12-17T05:50:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aadev22.local\/?post_type=aa_glossary&#038;p=5003169"},"modified":"2023-10-18T12:38:12","modified_gmt":"2023-10-18T19:38:12","slug":"definition-of-done","status":"publish","type":"aa_glossary","link":"https:\/\/agilealliance.org\/glossary\/definition-of-done\/","title":{"rendered":"Definition of Done"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div>\n<p>The team agrees on, and displays prominently somewhere in the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/agilealliance.org\/resources\/experience-reports\/distributed-team-technology-co-located-teams\/\">team room<\/a>, a list of criteria that must be met before a product increment \u201coften a <a href=\"https:\/\/agilealliance.org\/glossary\/user-stories\/\">user story<\/a>\u201d is considered \u201cdone\u201d. Failure to meet these criteria at the end of a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/agilealliance.org\/glossary\/iteration\/\">sprint<\/a>\u00a0normally implies that the work should not be counted toward that sprint\u2019s\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/agilealliance.org\/glossary\/velocity\/\">velocity<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h2>Also Known As<\/h2>\n<div>\n<div>\n<p>Software developers have a reputation for being somewhat careless when answering the question \u201care you done with this feature\u201d? In fairness, this is an ambiguous question \u2013 it can mean \u201cdone programming\u201d and this is generally what a developer will have in mind when answering. However, the meaning of interest is usually \u201care you done programming, creating test data, actually testing, ensuring it\u2019s deployable, documenting\u2026\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Proverbially, to get an answer to that, the question to ask is, \u201cI know that you are done, but are you DONE-done?\u201d. See also \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/agilealliance.org\/glossary\/definition-of-ready\/\">READY-ready<\/a>\u201c.<\/p>\n<p>Some teams use the term \u201cDone List\u201d or \u201cDone Checklist\u201d; the less widespread term \u201cproduct sashimi\u201d offers a compelling image of well-defined slices of a product.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h2>Expected Benefits<\/h2>\n<div>\n<div>\n<ul>\n<li>the Definition of Done provides a checklist that usefully guides pre-implementation activities: discussion, estimation, design<\/li>\n<li>the Definition of Done limits the cost of rework once a feature has been accepted as \u201cdone\u201d<\/li>\n<li>having an explicit contract limits the risk of misunderstanding and conflict between the development team and the customer\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/agilealliance.org\/glossary\/product-owner\/\">or product owner<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h2>Common Pitfalls<\/h2>\n<div>\n<div>\n<ul>\n<li>obsessing over the list of criteria can be counter-productive; the list needs to define the minimum work generally required to get a product increment to the \u201cdone\u201d state<\/li>\n<li>individual features or user stories may have specific \u201cdone\u201d criteria in addition to the ones that apply to work in general<\/li>\n<li>if the definition of done is merely a shared understanding, rather than spelled out and displayed on a wall, it may lose much of its effectiveness; a good part of its value lies in being an explicit contract known to all members of the team<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h2>Origins<\/h2>\n<div>\n<div>\n<ul>\n<li>2002: an early\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/xp123.com\/articles\/coaching-drills-and-exercises\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">article<\/a>\u00a0by Bill Wake calls attention to the possible inconsistencies arising from terms commonly used within teams, such as \u201cdone\u201d<\/li>\n<li>2003: early Scrum training\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20090206155846\/http:\/\/otug.org\/meeting\/200311\/slides.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">materials<\/a>\u00a0hint at the future importance of the \u201cDefinition of Done\u201d, initially only in the form of a slide title: \u201cThe story of Done\u201d<\/li>\n<li>2005: the first exercises inviting Scrum trainees to reflect on their (local) \u201cdefinition of done\u201d appear in\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.danube.com\/docs\/certifiedscrum\/csm.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">later iterations<\/a>\u00a0of Scrum training materials<\/li>\n<li>2007: by that point the \u201cDefinition of Done\u201d as a full-fledged practice, and as a textual checklist displayed in the team room, has become widespread<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h2>Signs of Use<\/h2>\n<div>\n<div>\n<ul>\n<li>upon request, the team can point to its explicit Definition of Done<\/li>\n<li>the team actually uses the Definition of Done at the end of a sprint to justify the decision to count work towards velocity or not<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The definition of done is an agreed upon list of the activities deemed necessary to get a product increment, usually represented by a user story, to a done state by the end of a sprint.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":8067461,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","categories":[908],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5003169","aa_glossary","type-aa_glossary","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-process"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agilealliance.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/aa_glossary\/5003169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agilealliance.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/aa_glossary"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agilealliance.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/aa_glossary"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agilealliance.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agilealliance.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5003169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/agilealliance.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/aa_glossary\/5003169\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agilealliance.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8067461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agilealliance.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5003169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agilealliance.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5003169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agilealliance.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5003169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}