Definition of Done
Unlike acceptance criteria, which are specific to each user story, the Definition of Done applies equally to all increments. It is explicit, known to the whole team, and evolves over time: as the team learns and the product matures, the quality bar rises.
Without a clear Definition of Done, the team may produce a cloud of seemingly done work in an uncertain state, which complicates planning and creates hidden risks for the delivery date.
Who defines it
It is defined jointly by the developers and the Product Owner. The development team contributes the technical quality criteria; the Product Owner contributes the deliverability criteria from the customer's perspective.
Levels of application
The Definition of Done can be applied at different levels of granularity:
Task
- Implemented.
- The code written complies with the project's style guides and guidelines.
- Unit tests carried out.
- Integrated into the repository.
- Integrates correctly with the rest of the system in the build.
- Task tracker updated.
- Agreed metrics met: coverage, static analysis, etc.
- Approved by the tester.
User story
- All associated tasks are done.
- Issues detected during the development phase resolved.
- Code documented with relevant comments where they add clarity.
- Documentation and other project requirements completed.
- Meets the agreed acceptance criteria.
- Integration tests performed.
- Cumulative unit tests and acceptance tests passed (manually or automatically).
Sprint
- All planned stories are done.
- Sprint Review held and stakeholder feedback gathered.
- Retrospective held and at least one improvement action identified.
- Approved by the Product Owner.
Differences from acceptance criteria
Acceptance criteria focus on each backlog item individually: the Product Owner defines them to explain what they expect from a specific story. The Definition of Done concerns increments in general: it defines the minimum quality standard that any delivered work must meet.
A story can meet its acceptance criteria and still not satisfy the Definition of Done if, for example, the code does not pass static analysis or is not correctly integrated.
Reinforced DoD in Teams with AI
When part of the code is generated with AI tools, the standard Definition of Done is not enough. Teams working with coding assistants or AI agents need to add specific criteria—what Scrum Manager's guide Scrum en equipos con IA [Scrum in Teams with AI, in Spanish] calls the reinforced DoD:
- Static analysis: AI-generated code passes static analysis tools with no critical errors before being integrated.
- No duplication: verification that the AI has not introduced duplicate code. Duplication tends to increase significantly in AI-assisted projects; the recommended threshold is below 5%.
- Security: a vulnerability review specific to AI-generated code.
- AI supervising AI: use of AI agents as automated reviewers of other agents' output, with traffic-light indicators and alerts.
- Human review: a product builder (developer) reviews and validates the code before it is integrated, paying special attention to the subtle errors that AI introduces under an appearance of correctness.
When the team works with SDD, the Definition of Done is enriched with four conditions: the code meets the tasks' success criteria, it respects the approved design, commits are atomic (each one linked to a task, and each task to a design and a set of requirements), and the spec has been updated if the implementation diverged from it. The last condition is the one that prevents drift between spec and code.
Prototypes generated through vibe coding or rapid conversational generation are not considered releasable increments: they are learning artifacts for validating hypotheses. Counting them as done under the Definition of Done without passing the reinforced DoD is one of the most common ways in which AI-generated code turns into accumulated technical debt.
Common mistake
Having a Definition of Done that nobody checks. Teams often agree on a DoD in the first few weeks and then neither review it nor apply it consistently. As a result, each team member implicitly applies their own definition of "done," which leads to inconsistent quality across stories and increments. The DoD is not a project kickoff document: it is a living standard that must be visible and reviewed at every Sprint Retrospective.
Resources
📄 Definition of Done o definición de hecho [Definition of Done, in Spanish]Scrum Manager Blog · Mar 2023
📄 Scrum Master v.4.0 [in Spanish]Free download · Scrum Manager
📄 Scrum Master en equipos con IA v.1.0 [Scrum Master in Teams with AI v.1.0, in Spanish]Free download · Scrum Manager
See also
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