C · Quality gatesIntermediate30 min read
7. Definition of Done that bites
Agile & Scrum · 40 pages source format
DoD is the quality contract for every Increment. If “tested” is vague, bugs escape. Make DoD checkable and shared.
What you'll learn
- DoD vs acceptance criteria
- Team vs org DoD
- Undone work
Draft a real DoD
Include: code reviewed, tests at agreed level, a11y/security notes if relevant, docs/runbook updates, deployed to staging.
- Acceptance criteria met
- Unit/integration/E2E as agreed for the change
- No new Sev-1/2 known issues
- Feature flag / rollback path if needed
- Observability: log/metric/trace touch if user-facing
Do this now
Write a 6–10 item DoD checklist your team could adopt next sprint.
Clear?
Name undone work
If you “finish” without meeting DoD, you created technical debt with a smile.
Do this now
List undone work from your last release. Put it on the backlog explicitly.
Clear?