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Software Engineering vocabulary · Agile and Team Workflow

Definition of done

Meaning in software engineering, with examples

nounCommon term

In software engineering, definition of done means: A shared checklist of quality conditions that every piece of work must meet before the team can call it done, such as tested, reviewed and documented.

In Turkish: tamamlanma tanımı, bitti tanımı

How it is used

A Scrum term, shortened to DoD. It applies to every story, while acceptance criteria are different for each story. Teams agree on, update and meet the definition of done; work that does not meet it goes back to the backlog.

Example sentences

  1. Our definition of done includes updated help articles, not just working code.

  2. It works on my laptop, but it doesn't meet the definition of done until it's tested on mobile.

Common collocations

  • meet the definition of done
  • agree on a definition of done
  • team definition of done
  • DoD checklist
  • acceptance criteriaA list of specific conditions that a feature or user story must meet before the team and the product owner agree that it is done.
  • sprintA fixed period, usually one or two weeks, in which a team commits to finishing a chosen set of work items.
  • user storyA short description of a feature from the user's point of view, often written as 'As a [type of user], I want [goal] so that [reason]'.
  • retrospectiveA meeting at the end of a sprint or project where the team talks about what went well, what went badly and what to change next time.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Agile and Team Workflow

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