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Glossary
Agile & Scrum

What is Definition of Ready?

A Definition of Ready is a checklist of requirements that a user story or task must satisfy before a development team can begin working on it during a sprint. It serves as a quality filter to ensure that work is well-defined, estimable, and actionable. By confirming that all necessary information is present upfront, teams avoid the delays and confusion that occur when requirements are found to be missing mid-development.

When to use it

Teams should apply a Definition of Ready during backlog grooming and sprint planning to evaluate which items are truly prepared for the upcoming cycle. It solves the problem of stories being pulled into a sprint only to be blocked immediately by missing mockups, unclear logic, or dependencies. This discipline helps maintain a steady flow of work and improves the accuracy of team commitments.

Example

A SaaS team preparing for their Q3 roadmap prioritizes a new user permissions feature. Before the sprint begins, they check the story against their Definition of Ready, which requires a final UI design and a list of specific user roles. Because the UI designs were still in progress, the team decided to postpone the feature by one week rather than starting with incomplete mockups. This decision saved the engineering team from wasting time on rework when the designs eventually changed two days later.

How Planet Roadmap helps with Definition of Ready

Planet Roadmap features a sprint board and customizable task descriptions that allow teams to embed readiness checklists directly into work items to prevent premature starts.

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FAQ

How is a Definition of Ready different from a Definition of Done?
The Definition of Ready focuses on the 'input' criteria required to start a task, while the Definition of Done focuses on the 'output' criteria required to consider a task finished and potentially shippable.
What happens if a story is urgent but doesn't meet the Definition of Ready?
Teams should avoid pulling 'un-ready' stories into a sprint as they carry a high risk of failure; instead, the team should prioritize the immediate tasks required to make that story ready, such as technical discovery or design refinement, before committing to its development.

Related terms

SprintSprint PlanningProduct BacklogBacklog GroomingDefinition of DoneUser StoryAcceptance CriteriaScrumVelocity

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