What Is the Definition of Ready In Agile and Why Is It Dangerous?

your agile team probably has a definition of done and that's a good thing on the other hand a definition of ready is dangerous and something most teams should avoid hi I'm Mike con and I'm the author of three best-selling books on agel and scrum I help teams succeed with agile and right now I can help you be more successful by convincing you not to use a definition of ready a definition of ready acts as entry criteria for the Sprint nothing is allowed into the Sprint unless it meets that definition of ready to see how this works let's look at a typical definition of ready it might include things like all acceptance criteria have been fully defined the product backlog item has been estimated and is five points or smaller and the user interface has been designed and approved nothing would be allowed into a Sprint unless each of those statements is true a definition of ready such as this can absolutely help a team avoid problems if for example a team has struggled because of bringing big items into its Sprints a rule governing the maximum allowable size of an item is great that rule will solve the problem but there's a downside which is that a definition of ready can prevent a team from overlapping work overlapping or concurrent work is a vital component of most agile approaches testing for example should overlap coding an agile team doesn't delay testing until all coding IS F finished to differing degrees the same could be said of all aspects of software development analysis design testing and coding all overlap a definition of ready can hamper A team's agility think about the example I mentioned which said an item is ready for a Sprint only if all its acceptance criteria have been fully defined that may sound fine but it is going to prevent the overlap of work the definition of ready is requiring that all acceptance criteria be figured out in advance so you can't have some people build the feature at the same time as other people Define the acceptance criteria not only is knowing their criteria in advance sometimes impossible it's usually unnecessary some acceptance criteria are quite reasonably determined while the team is working on the item as another example recall that the sample definition ready I shared included that the user interface has been designed and approved again including this in a definition of ready will prevent work from overlapping this instructs team members that the user interface design must be done before any other work can begin think of any definition of ready as a gate into the Sprint through which work must pass only certain types of work can pass through this Readiness gate it makes sense to picture your definition of ready as a gate because the whole idea really is nothing more than a step back toward a waterfall or stage gate process so is a definition of ready always a bad idea no it's not you may want to consider a definition of ready to call out dependencies on other teams especially if those teams frequently fail to deliver to you when they say they will suppose your team is dependent on something my team is building we promise to give it to you by Tuesday but Tuesday comes and goes and my team gives you nothing Wednesday comes and goes Thursday Friday a week goes by my team finally gives you what we promised but way too late for you to use it and finish whatever you committed to in the current Sprint if my team does this too often you may want to have a definition ready that says you won't bring anything into your Sprint that is still waiting on something from my team if my team owes you something to do your work you want it in hand before the Sprint starts because of how often my team has jammed you up note that this is absolutely an example of how a definition of ready prevents overlapping work it's less agile than if we could overlap work but in this example my team has let you down so often you'll put in place a definition of ready to stop it from happening again well we'll be less agile because of this I think this is a good use of a definition of ready after all your team has stakeholders you need to keep happy and when your promises to them about what you'll deliver are destroyed by my team not delivering to you it's very reasonable for your team to stop overlapping work with my team if you absolutely feel you need to definition of ready I recommend structuring it as a set of guidelines rather than rules consider a definition of ready that says before anything can be started any new or changed screens must be designed and the designs approved this rule will prevent overlapping work a better variation would be to say something like rough mockups of any new screens have been started and are just far enough along that the team can resolve remaining open issues during the Sprint this is a guideline it will still allow work to overlap the mockups need to be far enough along that team members think they can resolve issues during the Sprint in some cases that could mean no more than a mockup on a whiteboard in others it could mean an elaborate nearly complete mockup does your team use a definition already what's included in it and have you been able to continue overlapping work even with a definition of ready I'd love to read about your experiences so please share them in the comments and please do me a favor if this video has been useful click the like button and if you're new to the channel click subscribe so you don't miss out on future tips to help you succeed with agile thank you for watching and I'll see you next time

Channel: Mountain Goat Software

Views: 3,666

Keywords: definition of ready in agile, definition of ready in scrum, definition of ready, definition of ready example, definiton of ready in agile

Id: 4SVwNF3quZo

Length: 5min 49sec (349 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 01 2023