Are We Done Yet?

What does "done" mean to your team/organization? Which definition do you prefer? The date or scope commitments (maybe even both!) were met, without too many (or too large of) issues, and so sufficiency is declared. Done is declared. The work increment met its success criteria, it "ships", and customers are happy. You're done! On non-Agile projects, we've experienced things like "defect triage" to debate bug severity, particularly showstoppers, or de-scoping of "required" requirements because of an impending deadline. The product is only demonstrated to customers or senior managers near the end of the project, with often unhappy and even disastrous results. Agile approaches should provide considerable flexibility to deliver value incrementally over the course of the project, but how does a team know the features are done? How does a team and the organization know that the incremental value is ready for the customers to see and use? Teams need to know what "done" means at the individual story level, the theme level, and the release level, so they can always work toward being done at every level. In this presentation, we will discuss: How to define acceptance criteria for each story, The team working agreement (commonly called a Definition of Done) for technical excellence, with examples, Guidelines for Story, Feature, and Release Done criteria, "Done" traps to recognize and avoid. If your teams or organization struggle with getting consistently to "Done", this presentation is for you.

• Earl Everett

  2 Recordings

  Earl Everett is an Agile practitioner who coaches and guides Teams and their organizations on their journeys of agility. His first agile experience was in 1974, when he began playing rugby, a immersive game played by high-performing cross-functional teams utilizing 'inspect and adapt'. In software, he began his journey as a programmer/analyst, and during the next four decades, he's worn the hats of developer, BA, tester, PM, Scrum Master, Product Owner, coach, manager, director, and business owner along the way. He practiced Rapid Application Development before it had a name and has been in-the-agile-trenches since adopting XP practices in 2001 and Scrum in 2002. He's built and coached teams in the U.S., Canada, China, India, and Germany, which consistently achieve high performance, higher quality, improved market focus, and greater satisfaction. He is President of Advancing with Agile, LLC, providing Agile development consulting and training for teams, groups, and companies to begin and/or advance their Agile journeys. Earl presents regularly at conferences, and Agile and professional groups on topics related to software development and testing, project and product management, leadership, and organizational change. He is a Certified Scrum Professional (CSP), SAFe Program Consultant (SPC4), Certified Scrum Master (CSM), and Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO).

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