Understanding the Black-Box

Riffs of the DoD

Dmytro BibikovSoftServe

2015v.1.0

You know this – right?

Planning

Analysis

Design

Coding

Testing

Performance

Pilot

User Acceptance

Architecture,Infrastructure

› Definition of Done [DoD] != Definition of Ready [DoR]

› Definition of Done [DoD] != Acceptance criteria [ACC]

› Conditions of Satisfaction [CoS]:– usually messed with either DoR or ACC so be careful

Important Highlights

› DoD / DoR / ACC – Which one is the Egg?

› Just enough of all (there is no silver bullet formula for that)

› It’s better to live with uncertainty  than to embrace false certainty

› Extend it as you go

› Align all the parties to avoid trip to ‘no mans land’

› Never pull anything into a sprint that is not ready, and never let anything out of the sprint that is not done

Ground Rules:

› DoR:– In simple terms, a user story needs to meet some criteria

before it can be picked up for a sprint.– Involved in defining DoR: Team, PO, SM.– In DoR, the team is the "client" and the product owner is the

"supplier."

Distinguishing DoR

› What happens when Team starts without DoR?

› What you need to know for DoR on story level:– Why - What are the stakeholders or the business trying

to achieve? What is their goal or outcome? What is the business context?

– What - What is the outcome vision? What is the end result of the user story?

– How - What is the strategy to implement the user story? Is the story small enough (i.e., story points versus team velocity)?

DoR for Story

› ACC:– The acceptance of this criteria means that AAA is enabled

when an incident BBB is submitted. - See more at– Differs from story to story– Only defines that set of functionality is shippable

Don’t mess ACC with DoD

› DoD:– Clear and concise list of requirements that the user story

must satisfy for the team to call it complete– Common for each and every backlog item– Defines when the story is shippable

› DoD:– The term applies more to the product increment as a whole– In most cases, the term implies that the product increment is

shippable– The term is defined in the Scrum Guide– Used as a way to communicate the following to the PO: Overall

Software Quality; Whether the increment is shippable or not

ACC vs DoD in details / formal version

› ACC:– The term applies to an individual PBI/Story– The Acceptance Criteria are different for each PBI/Story– Term is not defined in the Scrum Guide– Used as a way to communicate to all involved that the requirements for

a particular PBI/story have been met

Setting the right order

› Where is our ACC?!

› DoD and DoR are long-term contract for all the parties

› ACC is supplementary agreement per feature

› Failure in setting things up leads to ‘no mans land’ case

Why we need to align?

› Who should align in each case / who is involved?

DoR Release Story Task

ACC Epic Feature Story

DoD Release PBI Task

Basic Layers

› Talk to your mates and colleagues both shores. You might find out you don’t need a Definition of Done at all, only a common Definition of Ready. Because ...

› Nothing is ever done, only ready for the next step:– DoR spread through all the SDLC layers can

substitute DoD

CONCLUSION

DoD Samples to start with

› https://scrumcrazy.wordpress.com/2011/03/05/terminology-definition-of-done-vs-acceptance-criteria/

› http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-the-Definition-of-Done-DoD-and-the-Definition-of-Ready-DoR-in-Agile-processes

› http://www.allaboutagile.com/definition-of-done-10-point-checklist/

› https://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/blog/clarifying-the-relationship-between-definition-of-done-and-conditions-of-sa

› http://guide.agilealliance.org/guide/definition-of-ready.html

References