Over the last year or so the web team has seen a lot of changes, you might even go so far as to call it an overhaul, one of the things we’ve worked hard to improve is our definition of “done”.<\/p>\n
I don’t know how often you see it in other fields but in my (admittedly\u00a0limited) experience often when a developer says something is “done” it isn’t done at all. Its the old “How are you getting on with the whatsamajig?” “Oh it’s done!” “Let’s put it on the server then.” “Oh no, I still need to…”.<\/p>\n
I’m not sure why this is, I like to think that its because developers are eager beavers keen to please. Maybe it’s because we love to be working on whatever’s next, either way its not good. It leads to disappointment for our customers, endless delays, poor estimates, lack of positive feedback and a general sense that nothing is ever done.<\/p>\n
We’ve been quiet strict on our use of the word “done” over the last 6 months and are now policing each other when we suspect a “not done done” has sneaked in. This\u00a0enforcement has been based on a general understand of what “done” really is, not an agreed definition.<\/p>\n
This approach has served us well so far and it’s certainly a massive improvement on where we were a year ago, but I wonder if it is time for an explicit definition of what we mean by “done”.<\/p>\n
The advantages of a explicit definition include:<\/p>\n
I’m not sure what our definition of “done” should be, I think that’s best left for a team brainstorming session. If we do decide to define “done”, I’m sure we’ll be writing it up here and explaining our reasons behind it in the not too distant future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"