Agile QuickTip: Publishing your Team’s Definition of Done

Publishing your Scrum team’s definition of done

Taking the extra step of publishing your scrum team’s definition of ‘done’ could help your agile team to collaborate and focus on getting things finished.

Every scrum team and every agile team is always looking for ways to deliver as much value as possible in each sprint. This means maximizing what they can finish.

The problem is, that sometimes when one person claims a story is done, it might not mean the same thing as another person calling it done. This creates ambiguity and a lack of transparency, and causes frustration on teams when things seem less ‘complete’ than expected.

Transparency

Creating more transparency can really help here. By publishing an explicit and visible definition of done that exhausts all the things the team has to do to get a story complete, it alleviates that ambiguity.

Now, when one team members says something is ‘done’, it means the same to every other team member. By publishing the definition and making it explicit, even other stakeholders and product owner know what it means for work be complete.

This makes it easier for the whole scrum or agile team to collaborate and align their efforts to get this work done. This also helps keep the team a lot more focused on maximizing the value they can deliver.

Did you enjoy this Agile QuickTip by Giora Morein? Don’t forget to check out the website ThinkLouder.com or subscribe on YouTube to see if you’ve missed any episodes. Join the conversation by connecting with me on Instagram or via Twitter, @gioramorein