Understanding the Criteria for 'Definition of Ready' (DoR) in Scrum

  Agile   Scrum  

Scrum has two stable states--ready and done--that are linked to user stories. These two states lead to the following Scrum principle:

Never pull anything into a sprint that is not ready, and never let anything out of the sprint that is not done.

The Definition of Ready (DoR) defines the ready state. In simple terms, a user story needs to meet some criteria (or conditions) before it can be picked up for a sprint. The DoR collects all the conditions necessary for a user story to be developed in the current sprint. These conditions are defined by discussion among the team, the product owner and the ScrumMaster. The DoR is important so that everyone on the team is aware of when to pull a user story in which sprint.

In DoR, the team is the "client" and the product owner is the "supplier."

In order to come up with the DoR for a user story, the team conducts regular backlog grooming sessions (aka story time) with the product owner. During these sessions, the product owner presents stories to the team and explains them one by one. If the team is not clear about a particular aspect of a story, the team asks questions of the product owner and clears their apprehensions.

Benefits of implementing a ready user story:

• Avoids wastage of time, both when a story is started and after a few days' work (if more information is needed to …

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