In Scrum, Can The Development Team Decide What Is "done"? If So, Why?

By Author: mrugesh panchal
Total Articles: 48
Comment this article

Continuous and sustained improvement is a key principle followed in scrum methodology. Even though many teams conduct sprint review meetings and sprint retrospective meetings at the end of each sprint, in most instances they still fail to implement scrum framework in a proper manner and fail to get the desired sprint results. There could be two primary reasons why this happens:
• Scrum teams fail to follow or maintain effectual and implementable scrum standards while carrying out their sprints, and while conducting their scrum meetings
• The product backlog is not properly created and prioritized, or, the definition of “done” is not properly stated
The main purpose of having a retrospective in scrum is to reflect and discover what works and what goes wrong while scrum is implemented in a project. Many a times, retrospectives fail to identify the root cause of an unsuccessful sprint. The definition of “done” plays an integral part in developing successful user stories, and while the stakeholders generally decide when a particular user ...
... story is “done”, can the development team suggest a definition of “done” in scrum?

Why “done” is so important in scrum?
The definition of “done” is very important in scrum. Besides writing good quality user stories in the product backlog and defining proper acceptance criteria in the product backlog items, it is equally important that each team member is made aware about the acceptance criteria linked with the stories and exactly how the development is to be carried out during the daily sprints. There should be a clear understanding regarding how the stories are to be developed, and it is not just the development team, but even stakeholders and investors should have a fair idea about the complexity and nature of the product backlog. From the stakeholders’ point of view, they should know about “done” so they can know what to expect from the user stories once they are developed and “shipped” in the market. The role of scrum master too is made easier when the acceptance criterion is made clear to him or her. It becomes very easy to support scrum implementation when the team is absolutely certain about how to proceed with the development of project functionality. Each person knows exactly what to do, and in what manner, which further reduces any extensive intervention by the scrum master as far as scrum enforcing is concerned. Considering each aspect linked with scrum, when the definition of “done” is clarified in a proper and effective manner, the entire project tends to benefit from all aspects.

Can the development team suggest the definition of “done”?
The primary role of the product owner is to represent, and balance out the requirements of the investors and the stakeholders on one hand, and function as an interrogatory and a decision maker on the other. The product owner has to balance out both the aspects and facilitate the scrum proceedings. It is worth knowing that the stakeholders can also include non-investor entities such as the operations department, marketing and sales department, and so on. In certain instances, the team too can be a stakeholder if all members collectively own the project. Therefore, if the team identifies a particular requirement, or suggests a change in a developable feature, the change should also ideally reflect in the acceptance criteria stated in the product backlog item. The development team is the most appropriate entity for suggesting changes since it knows about the feasibility and the practical aspects associated with development. It can decide what features are developable and what more can be done to increase the business value of the user story. In most cases, the development team does not bother about anything else other than developing the user stories included in the sprint backlog during the sprint planning meeting. However, as an exception, at times the team takes a special interest in the project and tries to deliver something more than what they have committed to. Typically this can lead to a robust and healthy scrum environment where collaboration and productivity is at its maximum, and the scrum team is raring to “do more” than what is expected of it. In such situations, the product owner can review the suggestions put forward by the team and communicate them to the stakeholders. If the stakeholders decide to entertain the suggestions, the product owner can update the acceptance criteria in the backlog item and reprioritize the backlog based upon the recently enhanced business value of the particular user story.