Definition of Ready: An Experience Report from Teams at Cisco

Abstract

Definition of Ready is a set of simple rules adopted by an agile team to help them remember all the things they need to do before a development team starts work on a backlog item. Not having a definition of ready can seriously impede the flow of work through your system. This paper describes where definition of ready fits in a team’s process, and how it can be used as a synchronization point for teams and product owners. This paper presents an example of definition of ready used by agile teams in Cisco. These teams have developed three levels of ready that apply for user stories, sprints and releases. The paper describes how definition of ready provides a focus for backlog grooming, and some consequences of not meeting definition of ready. The paper finishes with perspectives from different roles in the organization and how they are affected by definition of ready.