Comments on: What does ‘Done’ mean in Agile Software Development?

By: JLD

JLD — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 11:05:19 +0000

I find it frustrating that Agile is often blamed for ‘reasons not to do something’, documentation, deadlines etc. Having contention over what done means doesnt help at all and it makes me think that if a community is unable to give anything more precise than ‘it varies’ after 10 or so years, then we are playing into the hands of Agile critics.

For me its simple. Done is when the Product Owner says its done. It then is burnt and ticked off, it counts towards velocity and marked across the business as complete.

If, after inspection, the delivable doesnt quite hit the spot, either from a support point of view or functional, then we write a story to enhance it or a bug fix to fix it. If this is percieved as a failure, the Product Owner takes the heat.

Waiting for a product to be ‘tested’ by real users and marking it as done only after a suitable storm watch period is untennable in my opinion. Suprised to hear that statement and would staunchly psuh back on that approach.

In summary, done does not vary. Done is when the single wringable neck says its complete.

By: Sam Anderson

Sam Anderson — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 06:53:23 +0000

The done term can certainly refer if one task set up to finish in a scheduled duration is finished and no more things related to it are pending. We can go for the next iteration following this up.

By: Rick Tonoli

Rick Tonoli — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 06:42:40 +0000

Nice, I like it. Personally I go with the concept of a “done list” stuck up somewhere defining what it means for the team to be “done” or done done as they say. You might be interested in this as well: http://www.scrumalliance.org/articles/107-how-do-we-know-when-we-are-done

By: Tim VanFosson

Tim VanFosson — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 21:43:04 +0000

Done, to me, means when the current features are completed and live and the customer is no longer willing to pay for new features.