Definition of Ready

When the development team picks a user story from the top of the backlog, the user story needs to have enough detail to estimate the work needed to complete the story within the sprint. If it has enough detail to estimate, it is ready to be developed.

💡 Advisory Note:

If a user story is not Ready in the beginning of the iteration, then it increases the chance that the story will not be done at the end of this sprint.

To help team members to ensure that the user story they wrote contains all the necessary details for the scrum team to understand the work to be done.

• - Does the user story have clear and complete acceptance criteria?

• - Does the user story address the business needs?

• - Is the user story small enough to be implemented in a short amount of time, but large enough to provide value to the customer?

• - Is the user story blocked? For example, does it depend on the following:

  • A deliverable provided by another team

  • incomplete work

When should a Definition of Ready be updated

Update the Definition of Ready anytime when the team observes that there is a missing piece of information in the user stories that repeatedly impacts the planning.

What should be avoided

The Definition of Ready the checklist covers items that apply in a general. Don't add items or details that only apply to one or two user stories.

How to get stories ready

In the case that the highest priority work is not yet ready, it still may be possible to make forward progress. Here are some strategies that may help:

• Backlog refinement sessions are a good time to validate that the prioritized user stories are verified to have a clear description, have required links on UX/UI designs, have well-defined acceptance criteria, and have a business value that can be demonstrated. This will also be a good time to break down large user stories.

• Prioritization sessions are a good time to prioritize user stories that unblock other blocked high-priority work.

• Blocked user stories can often be broken down in a way that unblocks a portion of the original stories' scope. This is a good way to make forward progress even when some work is blocked.