Understanding DOR and DOD in Scrum: Guidelines for Quality Assurance and Team Collaboration
Introduction to DOR and DOD
In Scrum, DOR (Definition of Ready) and DOD (Definition of Done) are two critical concepts that play a pivotal role in ensuring the quality and clarity of work within the agile development process. These guidelines help maintain consistency and enhance the overall efficiency of the Scrum team by setting clear criteria for when a product backlog item is deemed ready to start and when it has been fully completed.Definition of Ready (DOR)
The Definition of Ready is a checklist or set of criteria that a product backlog item must meet before it can be tackled by the development team. This ensures that the team has a clear understanding of the requirements and that the item is actionable. The user story is well-defined and understood by all stakeholders. Acceptance criteria are clear and measurable. Dependencies are identified and managed effectively. The team has the necessary resources and skills to complete the work.Definition of Done (DOD)
The Definition of Done is a comprehensive set of criteria that a product backlog item must meet for the team to consider it complete. This ensures that the work is of high quality and that all necessary work has been completed before the item can be delivered. Code is written and reviewed by the code review process. Unit tests are created and pass all the conditions. Acceptance criteria are fully met. Documentation is updated to reflect the new feature. The feature is deployed to a staging environment for testing.Importance of DOR and DOD in Scrum
Both the DOR and DOD are essential for maintaining clarity and quality within the Scrum process. They serve as a shared understanding among the team on what it means for work to be ready to start and what it means for work to be complete.During sprint planning, it is crucial to ensure that user stories w.r.t. the DOR are groomed and completed. For high-priority user stories or those intended for the upcoming sprint, it is imperative that all technical steps, acceptance criteria, and inputs from stakeholders are clearly defined. This ensures that the team is fully prepared to begin these tasks without any ambiguity.
When marking a user story as DOD, it means that all points defined in the DOR have been thoroughly addressed. This signifies a confirmation that the story is ready for production and can be confidently deployed to a live environment or handed over to stakeholders for further use.