2.4Implementing the DoD

Step 1: Draft with the Team

The DoD is a team agreement, not a QA mandate. Bring a draft to a retrospective or dedicated session, discuss each item, and agree on what is realistic for your team's current maturity.

Step 2: Start Small and Grow

If your team currently has no DoD, do not introduce a 15-item checklist overnight. Start with 5 items the team can commit to, then add more as the team builds the habit.

Starter DoD (minimum viable quality):

• Code reviewed by at least one peer
• All existing tests pass
• No critical defects open for this story
• Deployed to staging environment

Mature DoD (target state): The full 10-item list above.

Step 3: Make It Visible

The DoD should be:

• Posted in the team's Slack channel or wiki
• Referenced during sprint reviews ("Let us check the DoD for this story")
• Printed on the wall (for co-located teams)
• Part of the Jira workflow (required fields or checklists)

Step 4: Enforce Without Being Rigid

The DoD should be followed consistently, but exceptions happen. When the team agrees to skip a DoD item for a specific story, document why. If exceptions become the norm, the DoD is too ambitious -- scale it back.