Definition of Done: What It Is and How to Use It

Galen Low

on Jun 11, 2026

I’ve learned that most debates about the definition of done aren’t about the work; they’re about expectations. Here’s how to create a definition of done that aligns quality, trust, and delivery.

Key Takeaways

Quality Consistency: Establishing a shared definition of done prevents confusion and improves work quality across the team.

Improved Forecasting: A clear definition aids in accurate velocity forecasting and better project planning.

Common Pitfalls: Avoid making the definition too detailed or neglecting to enforce it, as both can lead to issues.

Practical Steps: The article outlines concrete steps to create a successful definition of done for agile teams.

The definition of done (DoD) is the shared standard that determines when work is truly complete. It helps prevent quality gaps, rework, and surprises right at the end of the sprint. I've seen development teams lose trust, miss deadlines, and create unnecessary conflict because everyone had a different interpretation of "done."

In this guide, you'll learn how to create a definition of done that aligns your agile team, improves predictability, and strengthens quality, along with practical examples, templates, and common mistakes to avoid.

What Is the Definition of Done?

The definition of done is a formal, shared set of criteria that a product backlog item or increment must satisfy before the team considers it complete and potentially releasable. Think of it as the quality contract your team agrees to uphold on every piece of work, regardless of its size or complexity.

Here are the key characteristics of an effective definition of done:

Transparency: Everyone on the team and key stakeholders can see it, read it, and reference it at any time.
Measurable: Each criterion is binary. The work either meets it or it doesn't, but the thresholds you choose for quantitative criteria deserve real thought. An 80% code coverage target is binary in enforcement, but the choice of 80% over 70% or 90% is a judgment call you should make deliberately
Universally understood: Every member of the Scrum team must be able to interpret each item in the same way.
Consistently applied: The same checklist must be applied to every deliverable and product backlog item.
Achievable within a sprint: The criteria should be realistic enough that the team can meet them during a single sprint or iteration.

On software development projects, developers typically own the definition of done because they're the ones accountable for adhering to it. That said, the product owner and scrum master should contribute.

If your organization has its own definition of done standards, every Scrum team must follow those as a minimum baseline. Teams can always add stricter criteria on top, but they can't go below the organizational floor.

Why the Definition of Done Matters

A clear definition of done matters because it prevents partially completed work from slipping through the cracks and provides a shared standard of quality.

Here are some additional reasons a shared definition of done matters:

Acts as a built-in quality gate: Every item must pass the same bar before it can be complete. This stops half-finished work from sneaking into your product increment and piling up as technical debt.
Eliminates ambiguity: When the team shares one definition, you don't end up in situations where conflicting definitions impact the speed or quality of work. A shared definition of done means fewer conflicts, fewer surprises, and cleaner demos.
Improves forecasting: When done means the same thing every sprint, you can forecast velocity with confidence and plan releases without padding estimates to account for rework.
Builds stakeholder trust: When product owners, leadership, and external stakeholders can see your team enforces a clear quality standard, they trust your outputs.
Prevents integration chaos: If you’re working in a way that requires the team to integrate their work into a shared increment, a shared understanding of the definition of done is the foundation for consistent, releasable increments.

How to Create a Definition of Done

Here are the key steps in the process of creating a definition of done.

Audit your current workflow: Map out every step your work already goes through before it reaches production. Talk to developers, testers, designers, and anyone else who touches the work. You'll discover informal quality steps that should be formalized.
Identify non-negotiable quality criteria: Decide which activities must happen for every piece of work. These typically include code review, automated testing, documentation updates, and security scans. Be honest about what you're currently skipping.
Draft the checklist collaboratively: Bring the whole team together and hash it out using a whiteboard or shared document where everyone can add, challenge, and refine items in real time. A definition of done that's adopted through consensus holds up under pressure far better than one that was voted through over objections.
Validate against org standards: Cross-reference your draft with any company-wide quality policies, regulatory requirements, or industry standards your product must meet. If your organization already has a baseline definition of done, start there and build on it.
Make it visible: Post the definition where your team works every day. That might mean a poster on the wall, a pinned message in Slack, or a panel in your project management tool.
Commit to enforcing it: A definition of done that gets overridden when deadlines loom is worse than having none at all, because it creates a false sense of quality.

Definition of Done Examples

Here are a few examples of definitions of done for different types of projects:

Definition of Done for Software Development Projects

Software projects face a wide variety of quality risks: bugs, security vulnerabilities, performance regressions, and integration failures. The definition of done for a software team needs to cover the full path from code to a releasable state.

This could look like:

All code written and peer-reviewed by at least one other developer
Unit tests passing with agreed coverage threshold
Integration tests green in the CI/CD pipeline
No open bugs at critical or high severity
Technical documentation updated to reflect changes
Code merged to the main branch
Product owner has reviewed and accepted the work
Performance benchmarks met per agreed thresholds

Definition of Done for Marketing Projects

Marketing work often has compliance, brand, and measurement dimensions that differ from software.

Here’s how the definition of done might look for a marketing project:

Content reviewed and approved by the legal team
SEO checklist completed, including meta descriptions, alt text, and internal links
All assets uploaded to the CMS and formatted correctly
Analytics tracking configured and verified in the staging environment
Final copy proofread by a second team member
Campaign launch checklist signed off by the team lead

Definition of Done for Design Projects

Design teams need their definition of done to bridge the gap between creative intent and technical handoff. Without one, designs arrive at development incomplete, with missing specs, unvalidated responsive behavior, or accessibility gaps that get discovered too late.

Here’s an example definition of done for a design project:

Design reviewed against accessibility standards per WCAG 2.2
Handoff file prepared in the agreed tool with all specs, assets, and annotations
Stakeholder sign-off received and documented
Design system components updated if new patterns were introduced
Responsive behavior validated across agreed breakpoints

Definition of Done vs. Acceptance Criteria

The definition of done is your team-level quality standard, while acceptance criteria are feature-level functional requirements.

Think of the definition of done as the baseline that applies universally, and acceptance criteria as unique to each sprint backlog or product backlog item. A product backlog item is done when it meets both its acceptance criteria and the team's definition of done.

Aspect	Definition of Done	Acceptance Criteria
Scope	Applies to every product backlog item and increment	Specific to an individual user story or product backlog item
Ownership	Owned by the developers, with input from the full Scrum team	Written by or with the product owner
Specificity	General quality standards for all work	Detailed functional requirements for one piece of work
Frequency of change	Rarely changes; updated during sprint retrospectives	Changes with every new user story
Enforcement point	Checked before any item is marked complete	Verified during story review or acceptance testing

Common Pitfalls and Mistakes

Here are some common mistakes to avoid as you create definitions of done:

Skipping items to move faster: Teams under deadline pressure often drop criteria like security review, accessibility testing, or documentation. This creates hidden technical debt that surfaces later as bugs, rework, or compliance issues.
Making the checklist too granular: An overly detailed definition of done becomes a bureaucratic chore. If your checklist has 30 items and developers spend more time checking boxes than building software, you've gone too far. Be specific enough to be meaningful, but general enough to stay practical.
Changing the definition of done per story: The whole point of the definition of done is consistency. Functionality-specific conditions belong in the acceptance criteria, not the definition of done.
Never revisiting it: A definition of done should evolve as your practices mature, your tooling changes, or your product grows. I'd suggest reviewing it during retrospectives at least once a quarter, and adjusting when the team identifies gaps or friction.
Not enforcing it: A definition that gets waived when someone important asks is useless. The Scrum master's job is to protect the definition, even when a stakeholder wants to ship something that doesn't meet the bar. If criteria are routinely overridden, the team loses trust in the standard and stops taking it seriously.
Confusing "done" with deployed: The definition of done governs whether an increment is releasable, not whether it has been released. A product backlog item can be done without being deployed. Don't add "deployed to production" to your definition of done unless your team truly owns the release process end to end.
Neglecting to reference it: Many teams technically have a definition of done, but if no one has looked at it since it was created six months ago, it isn't functioning as a quality standard.

What’s Next?

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