Definition of Ready (DoR) - "Aha! we get it feeling"

I am trying to make my teams root strong and in the process, I am questioning them about the purpose of each and every agile ritual or document they have. I strongly believe the need of understanding the purpose before starting to do it.

Today was the turn for DoR and Board Work Flow. During my preparation I compiled few points from various blogs and thoughts of sharing with you all.

Purpose of DoR:

• It helps to keep the backlog items actionable
• It gives the opportunity to team understand the value of backlog items vs. working on junk stories
• Avoids wastage of time of both when a story is started and after a few days' work (if more information is needed to complete the story, the work on it stops).
• Reduces requirements churn in development.
• it makes sure team builds what is required
• It expose inherent weaknesses of the system.
• The Product Owner and Delivery Team work at different cadences. They focus on different things at different times. This checklist initiates the necessary discussion between Product Owner and the rest of the team.
  

What DoR should contain : 

• What:  Is the goal or end-result of the story clearly defined?  i.e., is the expected behaviour or coverage goal as clear an unambiguous as possible at this stage of development?
• How: Have you considered how to build the feature?  It doesn’t have to be much, but some thought about how to build and integrate the product story into the existing working product.
• Who / Resources:  Are all the necessary resources (i.e., people, tools, IT infrastructure) available and committed to the product story to have a reasonable chance of completing within a reasonable amount of time?
•  The DoR checklist is a living document and should be kept up-to date with the learning. 

I know my team gets very furious at times when they don't see a fully prepared story but I always insist them to work with POs to complete it.  In my opinion stories does not need to be 100% defined with all acceptance criteria. But it should be READY ENOUGH so that team can work on it without waiting in between. It should always be made 100% ready together with during grooming or similar kind sessions.

Board flow discussion was super exciting and would share the outcome in next blog.

until then!

Manisha