A systematic review on the use of Definition of Done on agile software development projects

Background: Definition of Done (DoD) is a Scrum practice that consists of a simple list of criteria that adds verifiable or demonstrable value to the product. It is one of the most popular agile practices and assures a balance between short-term delivery of features and long-term product quality, but little is known of its actual use in Agile teams. Objective: To identify possible gaps in the literature and define a starting point to define DoD for practitioners through the identification and synthesis of the DoD criteria used in agile projects as presented in the scientific literature. Method: We applied a Systematic Literature Review of studies published up to (and including) 2016 through database search and backward and forward snowballing. Results: In total, we evaluated 2326 papers, of which 8 included DoD criteria used in agile projects. We identified that some studies presented up to 4 levels of DoD, which include story, sprint, release or project. We identified 62 done criteria, which are related to software verification and validation, deploy, code inspection, test process quality, regulatory compliance, software architecture design, process management, configuration management and non-functional requirements. Conclusion: The main implication for research is a need for more and better empirical studies documenting and evaluating the use of the DoD in agile software development. For the industry, the review provides a map of how DoD is currently being used in the industry and can be used as a starting point to define or compare with their own DoD definition.