Definition of Done is a team’s checklist of all the criteria required to be met so that a deliverable can be considered ready for customer use.
Definition of Done (DoD) is at the Product level, and not story/feature/epic level. If a project team is releasing increments of the product with every iteration, then the product needs to meet the DoD at the end of each iteration.
Examples of DoD for a software product are:
- Works on the latest versions of Chrome, Firefox and Safari
- User acceptance testing (UAT) passed
- eSecurity testing passed
- Load testing passed
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliance testing passed
DoD increases transparency in the team by providing a shared understanding of what “Done” means. Without having a clear DoD, the team may end up having a pile of unreleasable work. DoD is usually defined at the beginning of the first iteration, but it can continue to evolve and change during the course of the project.
Definition of Done vs Acceptance Criteria
DoD is not the same as Acceptance Criteria, which is defined at the story/feature/epic level. For example, “flight search results in the application should be displayed in less than 5 secs” is an example of Acceptance Criterion.
The project team owns the DoD and they collaborate with the product owner to define it. Acceptance Criteria are defined by the product owner.
Further reading: Definition of Done vs Acceptance Criteria