Any idea to implement a kind of definition of done

[Serge Calderara]

Dear all,

I have a need for a project, where subtasks are assigned to different department ( Dept A, Dept B, Dept C), to implement a kind of definition of done natively ( without any plugin).

Do you have any suggestion of idea how we implement such things ?

regards

[Ivan Bilobrk · Accepted solution]

Hello Serge,

this is an example of how we implemented DoD on Stories, I hope it will be helpful:

We are currently using this process:

1. At the Story level, we have defined a custom field "Definition of done (DoD)" by which the Product Owner defines what all actions need to be done in order to complete the Story. For example, the values can be:

• Code developed,
• Code reviewed,
• Unit tests complete and passing,
• Automated acceptance tests complete and passing,
• User documentation updated,
• Ops documentation updated,
• etc.

Some of the values are marked "true" by default.

2. When changing the status of the Story (currently to the status Ready to start), the automation that creates subtasks for the Story is triggered. The sub-tasks that are created have an issue type depending on the type of work to be done, so for example we can have sub-tasks of the following types:

• Dev Sub-task (for development, code revision, etc.),
• QA Sub-Task (for testing),
• Docs Sub-Task (for updating documentation).
• etc.

Therefore, each member of the development team works on the Story exclusively through a sub-task. In this way, we have a clear picture of which part of the work is completed (or not).

[Serge Calderara]

hello @Ivan Bilobrk thanks for your response.

Something unclear to me

SO I understand that the product owner define at the story, which item in the list need to be set to complete teh story ( 1 or many)

Questions :

1 - Does you different sub task creation are define based on the list of selected item in the story custom field DoD?

2 - At the task level, how to know that the task status is correponding to what you are expecting to be done ?

3- Does the sub task WF has a status which correspond to the list of items from the DoD ?

regards

[Ivan Bilobrk]

Hello @Serge Calderara ,

1. Yes, subtasks are automatically created based on the values in the DoD field (according to the automation rule).

2. I'm not sure if I understood the question correctly, but I'll try to answer.

If by this question you mean "how to achieve that the task level (story) has a status that reflects the statuses of all sub-tasks", a possible solution is also automation rules that will change the status of the task based on the status of the sub-tasks. But setting up automation for "tricky" conditions can be challenging.

The "good old" manual task status update is always an option. With a smaller number of tasks, this is perhaps the best option, especially if you have a Daily Scrum. Sometimes only a human being can tell if something is complete or not. ;)

3. Sub-tasks have a workflow that is different from the workflow at the task level. Furthermore, for the sub-tasks of different "departments" (such as QA, Documentation, Development, ...) we use different issue types, so that they can have a different issue view, different workflow, etc.
Therefore, each sub-task has its own life cycle from TO DO, through IN PROGRESS, all the way to the DONE category. The very statuses you will have within these categories depend on your process and needs.

I hope it helps.

Best regards,

Ivan

[Serge Calderara]

Hello @Ivan Bilobrk , coming back to the native implementation of DOD.

1 - What custom field type do you use for your DOD entries ?

2- Do you have in your project configuration as many issue item as you have DOD items or do you group some in common Task ?

3- How does your automation rules really works when trigger ?

   Do you have sample ?

Thanks for help

regards

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi @Serge Calderara 

I am unclear about your question; perhaps you could clarify what you mean by "a kind of definition of done".  That may help the community to offer better suggestions.

Until we know that, some common definitions of such terms are...

A definition of done for an agile team is a stable, agreed upon list of things to be completed for a team to agree any request is done.  This definition provides transparency and trust with stakeholders so all understand what "done" means.  A variation of this for teams using Kanban methods is the "exit policies" for each step in their workflow.

Acceptance criteria is a list of things a specific request needs to be considered complete.  Some teams use these as checklists to help drive out the work needed, while others use this as acceptance tests, answering the question, "how would our product owner know this was done".  Others using test-driven approaches use such criteria to guide the development process.

Either of those could be managed in Jira in various ways: checklist addons, marketplace addons to show the definition of done, etc.

You also mention what appears to be shared (or delegated) work with other teams / departments.  That seems like work-dependency management rather than either definition of done or acceptance criteria for a team's work.

Kind regards,
Bill