Definition of Done (D.O.D)
- Philip Wilsdon (Unlicensed)
How do you know when something is actually finished? In digital product development, this has become increasingly difficult
When an item that comes from the Product Backlog eventually gets moved to “Done” - what does this mean?
The definition of done tries to make sure that everyone in the team has a shared understanding of what “Done” means, improve transparency and to enable the team to decide if work has actually been completed.
The definition of done will evolve or expand depending on how mature the team is and the team improving their criteria to improve the quality of the product.
Examples of what items may make up the definition of done could include
The code has been peer-reviewed
The code has been deployed to test environment
The feature has been tested against acceptance criteria
The feature has passed regression testing
The feature has passed smoke testing
If required, documentation has been done
The feature has been checked by the UX designer
The PO is happy with what has been developed and demoed
Essentially, if a product backlog item does not pass the definition of done, it should not be in the done column
Some teams who run more of a hypothesis development backlog may even add items to their definition of done including
Is the feature doing what we predicted with live users
Is the data we are recording from users backing up our hypothesis
If the feature on the production environment is not doing performing as predicted, the team may consider it not done and there for more work has to be done to get the desired results.