Technical stories often get overlooked in Agile development. Teams focus heavily on business features, but infrastructure tasks, refactoring, technical debt, and non-functional improvements are just as critical. These types of stories demand well-defined “Ready” and “Done” criteria to prevent misalignment, rework, and delivery delays.

Let’s break down how Agile teams can define these criteria clearly for technical work and ensure consistent delivery quality across the board.

Why “Ready” and “Done” Matter for Technical Stories

Scrum teams often assume that technical stories are self-explanatory. But assumptions lead to vague tickets, inconsistent implementation, and unmet expectations. The Definition of Ready (DoR) helps ensure that the team agrees on what a story needs before it enters a sprint. The Definition of Done (DoD) ensures that work exits the sprint fully completed, meeting quality standards and deployment expectations.

Without these, technical stories can suffer from:

• Partial implementation or missed acceptance criteria
• Work that isn't testable or releasable
• Excessive rework due to unclear expectations

This is where strong Agile discipline and effective CSM certification or SAFe Scrum Master training can make a huge impact. Certified Scrum Masters are trained to guide teams in building clear, inspectable criteria into every backlog item.

Common Misunderstandings in Technical Story Criteria

Teams frequently write technical stories like:

• “Refactor the logging system”
• “Upgrade the database schema”
• “Implement caching for API responses”

Without additional detail, it’s unclear what “done” looks like. Is testing required? Does documentation need updating? Should it include monitoring updates or rollback plans?

Criteria eliminate this ambiguity.

Establishing a Definition of “Ready” for Technical Stories

Stories should not enter a sprint unless they meet specific “Ready” criteria. These criteria should be collaboratively defined during refinement sessions. For technical work, here are practical elements of a DoR:

• Clear objective: Why is the technical work needed? What’s the value or risk being addressed?
• Dependencies resolved: Are other stories or external inputs required before this story starts?
• Acceptance criteria defined: Is the team aligned on how to validate the work?
• Estimate assigned: Does the team understand the complexity and effort?
• Testability discussed: Are QA and DevOps requirements identified?

These items ensure that a story has enough clarity and context to be pulled into a sprint confidently. Including these in your working agreements helps maintain a shared understanding of what “ready” means.

Defining “Done” for Technical Stories

The Definition of Done must reflect quality expectations that are non-negotiable. For technical stories, this often involves backend logic, tooling, or infrastructure that doesn't have a user-facing component. The DoD should cover:

• Code committed and merged: Work should be in the main branch, not just in a feature branch.
• Unit and integration tests passed: Validate that changes don’t break existing functionality.
• Peer review completed: Another developer has reviewed and approved the changes.
• Monitoring/alerting updated: Especially for backend or infrastructure tasks.
• Documentation written: README updates, configuration guides, or runbooks where needed.

This ensures the team delivers complete, production-ready technical changes that don’t introduce future risks.

How to Align on Ready and Done

Teams that succeed with technical story criteria usually follow these practices:

1. Use Working Agreements

Document your team’s agreed-upon DoR and DoD in Confluence or your team handbook. Refer to it during every refinement session. This consistency reduces debates and saves time.

2. Treat Technical Work Like Product Work

Just because it's backend or DevOps-related doesn't mean it's exempt from definition. Apply the same discipline used in user stories to your technical backlog.

3. Review Criteria During Sprint Planning

Scrum Masters or SAFe Scrum Masters should ask: “Is this story truly ready?” or “Will we meet the DoD by end of sprint?” This aligns everyone before the sprint starts.

4. Use Templates for Common Technical Stories

Create reusable formats for refactoring, infrastructure upgrades, and performance tasks. This speeds up refinement and reduces errors.

Example of Ready and Done for a Technical Story

Story: Refactor API Authentication Module	Definition of Ready	Definition of Done
As a backend engineer, I want to refactor the authentication module so that it supports token expiration and logging improvements.	Acceptance criteria defined Impact analysis completed Estimate assigned No blocking dependencies	Code merged to main branch All tests passing Peer review approved Monitoring updated for auth failures README updated

Role of Scrum Masters in Upholding Criteria

Whether you’re a Certified Scrum Master or have completed SAFe Scrum Master certification, your role includes promoting consistency in Agile practices. One of the most valuable habits is reinforcing the use of “Ready” and “Done” definitions. This helps teams deliver predictable outcomes and maintain sprint integrity.

When Criteria Are Missing

If technical stories frequently miss expectations, conduct a retrospective. Ask questions like:

• Were we clear on what “done” looked like?
• Did we understand the purpose of this story?
• Were edge cases or infrastructure concerns overlooked?

Address the gaps by updating your DoR and DoD definitions and bringing in shared team ownership.

Tools to Help Enforce Criteria

You can use Jira checklists or custom fields to embed DoR and DoD directly into tickets. Tools like Confluence or Notion can store templates and agreement docs. Code review platforms like GitHub and GitLab also allow enforcement of merged code conditions as part of your DoD.

For further reference, explore the Scrum.org Definition of Done guide for community-backed best practices.

Final Thoughts

Technical work deserves the same rigor and transparency as customer-facing features. Clear “Ready” and “Done” criteria bring structure to what would otherwise be ambiguous work. Teams that define and uphold these standards reduce rework, avoid last-minute surprises, and improve delivery consistency across sprints.

If you're looking to deepen your Scrum knowledge and lead these practices effectively, consider enrolling in a certified scrum master training or explore our SAFe Scrum Master training for scaling frameworks.

 

Also read - Automating Sprint Metrics Collection with DevOps Tools

Also see - Scrum for Infrastructure Teams: Applying Agile to Ops Work