Definition of Ready

Definition

A Definition of Ready is an agreement on what conditions must be met before a work item enters a sprint—a "ready-to-start" gate that mirrors Definition of Done's "ready-to-release" gate. It ensures that requirements are understood, dependencies surfaced, impediments removed, and work is sized by the team that will do it.

In the Book

The webinar positions Definition of Ready as addressing a maturity phase: teams that have mastered Definition of Done realize that "Done" is about ending well, while "Ready" is about starting well. The book shows examples including: requirements understood, test plan imaginable, no impediments, sized by team doing work, high priority on backlog, and conversations have happened to create acceptance criteria.

The book contrasts this with traditional requirements documents, which abstract away critical details—it shows a humorous requirement example ("the product shall have four wheels") that misses what really matters. At Conteneo, Definition of Ready included user story maps, data models, problem briefs, lo-fi sketches, and hi-fi interaction models—whatever the team agreed they needed before starting.

Why It Matters

A Definition of Ready prevents teams from starting work that will derail mid-sprint due to unclear requirements, missing information, or hidden dependencies. By establishing what "ready" means at a distributed scale, teams reduce rework, false starts, and context-switching costs. Ready gates also protect teams from being asked to estimate poorly-defined work or commit to items that have impediments the team cannot remove.