What’s the most powerful practice in Agile? My candidate: a team-crafted, team-owned definition of done. Our research findings: product teams are most effective when they have a definition of done defined by the team itself collaboratively. Might the practice of crafting a definition of done – before writing a single line of code – be the most powerful practice in Agile? Or does having a definition of done matter? What is the correlation between Definitions of Done and high performance teams? Thousands of people on product teams all over the world respond to our survey for the Study of Product Team Performance. We asked them. Here's what the data shows. Presented November 2018 to the Silicon Valley Engineering Leadership Community, and January 2017 to the Silicon Valley Agile Trends & Leadership. Speaker: Ron Lichty In addition to training teams in agile, Ron Lichty has spent years coaching managers about how their roles change with agile. While his recent Addison Wesley book, Managing the Unmanageable: Rules, Tools, and Insights for Managing Software People and Teams (http://www.ManagingTheUnmanageable.net) didn’t zero in on agile, both the book and the classes that he and his coauthor give current and prospective managers espouse a deeply agile mindset for managers. He also coauthors the annual Study of Product Team Performance (http://www.ronlichty.com/study.html). The primary focus of his consulting practice, these last five years, has mirrored what he did as a manager: untangling the knots in software development. His career has spanned web applications, system software, entertainment, shrinkwrap products, ecommerce, interface development, embedded devices, professional services and IT - and grew from first level managing to VP Engineering, VP Product and CTO roles. As Ron Lichty Consulting, he takes on fractional Interim VP Engineering roles, trains teams in scrum, transitions teams to agile, trains managers in managing software people and teams, and advises organizations to make their software development “hum.” http://www.ronlichty.com Managing the Unmanageable was recently released as video training - LiveLessons: Managing Software People and Teams - both from Pearson and on O’Reilly’s Safari Network (http://www.ManagingTheUnmanageable.net/video.html).

1. Definitions of Done
&
High Performance Teams
(Lightning Talk)
Ron Lichty
www.ronlichty.com

2. 2
Definitions of Done

4. The Study of Product Team Performance
http://www.ronlichty.com/study.html
4

5. 5
Definition of Done
2016 Study: Does having a definition of done matter?

6. 6
Who Creates Your Definition of Done?

7. 7
Does a Definition of Done Matter?
7.4%
of product teams
that have no
definition of done
…perform worst.
Having a definition of done matters…

8. 8
Does a Definition of Done Matter?
48%
of product teams
that have
definitions of done
handed down by
managers outside the
team were…
average performers
Having a definition of done matters…

9. 9
Does Who Creates It Matter?
45%
of product teams that
rely upon the
team product owner
or the
team collaboratively
to create
the definition of done:
high performance
teams
Having a definition of done created within the team matters most!

10. Study of Product Team Performance
• Definitions of Done
– Definitions of Done matter
– Created within the team matters most
10
more results, and the study itself: http://www.ronlichty.com/study.html

11. The Study of Product Team Performance
more results, and the study itself: http://www.ronlichty.com/study.html
11