Done-Done? How About Ready-Ready?

Thinking about how I was going to explain the agile term “Done-Done” led me off on a tangent which I’m now going to take you on too.

I’ve used the phrase “Done like dinner” in the past without really understanding its original meaning. It sounded cool and catchy. And so, I started using it to emphasize the Definition of Done (DoD) and Done-Done as applied to the criteria for when sprint backlog items are considered completed, done and done-done.

Turns out “Done like dinner” had a meaning beyond the words themselves.

According to Collins Dictionary, the phrase,

“Be done like dinner”

is of Australian origin meaning  “to be completely defeated often unfairly, in a contest or competitive situation”.

My use of the phrase to add colour and spice to the DoD and Done-Done now no longer seems appropriate. It’s the complete opposite of what is intended by the word “done” when used with Agile ways of working. 

The word “done” whether used in the DoD or Done-Done, signifies victory not defeat when it comes to confirming and verifying the fulfillment of expectations for a completed piece of work.

Meeting the DoD fulfills an agile team’s agreed upon expectations and criteria for a potentially shippable piece of work.

Done-Done extends those expectations and criteria to fulfill the larger organization’s processes for taking each team’s potentially shippable pieces of work and releasing them to Users to use. These processes may include User Acceptance Testing (UAT) and System Integration Testing (SIT). Processes that are beyond the purview of a single team.

If DoD specify the criteria for when a piece of work is considered complete, then the corresponding term to specify the criteria for when a piece of work can be started is the Definition of Ready (DoR). Like the DoD, these criteria are discussed and agreed upon by the team. For a user story, the criteria may include elements of Bill Wake’s INVEST criteria:

• Independent 
• Negotiable 
• Valuable 
• Estimable 
• Small
• Testable 

While most of us in the Agile world are familiar with DoD, Done-Done, and DoR, have you heard the term “Ready-Ready”?

I, for one had never heard the term “Ready-Ready” until recently in a video featuring Jeff Sutherland titled “Scrum: What does it mean to be Ready-Ready?”.

Here’s a summary of the key Ready-Ready criteria worth noting.

A user story or any piece of work is considered Ready-Ready to be worked on when:

1. It has value for the end-user
2. It has been discussed between the Product Owner and the Team
3. It is immediately actionable by the team

Other notable insights from the video include:

• Over 1/3 of product backlog items (PBIs) have no value
• Approximately 65% of software features are never used
• If “end-user value” can’t be articulated then the PBI is considered “junk“. E.g. “junk stories”
• Worst yet is adding junk to junk stories by maintaining and enhancing them

While I’m a staunch supporter of having a good agreed upon DoD, I’m less fussed when it comes to the DoR.

Reason being the more time an individual BA or PO spends “preparing” a PBI before it is deemed ready to be pulled in and worked on by a team, the longer it will be before:

• The team can collaborate and learn together about the work itself rather than spending time transferring knowledge about the work from the BA or PO.
• The completed work can be released to users and stakeholders rather than spending potentially more time in the Product backlog than it takes to do the work when it’s finally pulled into a sprint.

So, when it comes to the DoR, I am an advocate for “less is more”. Specify just enough so that the team has sufficient clarity to identify and take the next step on their own. With each step they take, the more knowledge they’ll discover and the next steps will emerge. 

One thing about the Ready-Ready criteria that I do believe is essential to a minimum DoR is

“What is the value of the work to the end-user?”

If that question doesn’t have a clear answer, then the work isn’t ready to be pulled by the team.

The presence of Done-Done and Ready-Ready criteria represent continuous improvement opportunities.

1. Reduce the time gap between fulfilling the DoD on Done-Done to zero so that, the time to market is achieved as soon as the DoD has been met.
2. Reduce the time gap between the DoR and Ready-Ready to zero by making the end-user value criteria mandatory the DoR as part of simply adhering to the INVEST criteria for user stories.

At the end of the day, Agile teams are performing when they’re sprinting. They’re not performing when they’re spending time in the starting blocks or trying to figure out where the finish line is.