Definition of Done (DoD)

The Definition of Done (DoD) is another crucial and shared agreement within an agile team.

It acts as a checklist that establishes the criteria that a backlog item (such as a User Story) or a Product Increment must meet to be considered completely finished.

Unlike the Acceptance Criteria (specific to each story), the DoD is a unified standard that applies to all work performed by the team.

Its purpose is to create a shared and transparent understanding of expected quality and completeness, avoiding ambiguities and the problem of "almost done" work.

Ensuring Incremental Quality and Completeness

The main objective of DoD is to ensure quality assurance and to ensure that when the team declares something as "Done", it really is, leaving no unfinished work hidden.

It helps to avoid situations where a feature is considered finished from a coding perspective, but important steps such as thorough testing, code reviews, documentation updates or code cleanup are still missing.

The DoD defines all the activities necessary for a product increment to be potentially deliverable and of high quality, ensuring that unnecessary technical debt is not accumulated and that the work meets the standards agreed upon by the team.

Collaborative DoD Checklist Creation

Like the Definition of "Ready", the DoD is not imposed, but must be collaboratively created and agreed upon by the entire Scrum Team (or Agile Team).

It is defined through a discussion where the team sets its own standards for quality and completeness.

This checklist is unique to each team and its context.

Common items typically included in a DoD are:

• Code completed.
• Code reviews performed.
• Unit tests written and passed (often with a minimum % coverage).
• Integration tests performed.
• Regression tests passed.
• Automation tests updated (with % coverage).
• Necessary documentation updated.
• Acceptance by Product Owner.
• Review and acceptance by UX designer (if applicable).

The list should be clear, but not overly complex so as not to become bureaucratic. It can be a physical list or a shared understanding.

DoD and its Impact on Estimation

A clear and shared DoD has a direct and positive impact on work estimation.

When the team estimates a User Story (e.g., using story points), it should not only consider the coding effort, but all the work required to meet the DoD.

This includes time for testing, documentation, reviews, etc.

Without a clear DoD, estimates can be inconsistent and significantly undere