The Definition of Done describes the shared quality standard of a Scrum team: when is a backlog item truly finished? It prevents the dangerous state of “almost done,” where items are considered complete but carry hidden remaining work. Without a clear DoD, technical debt accumulates across Sprints.
A typical Definition of Done includes criteria such as: code is reviewed, unit tests are written and passing, documentation is updated, and the feature is deployed to the staging environment. Every backlog item must meet all criteria before it counts as done. The DoD should be visibly posted and serve as a benchmark at every Sprint Review. Teams that take their DoD seriously deliver more reliable increments and avoid surprises close to a release.
The DoD is established in the Scrum Guide and applies team-wide to all items. It differs from Acceptance Criteria, which describe the functional requirements of an individual story. The DoD can evolve over time, for example when a team introduces automated testing or continuous deployment.
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