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In Agile projects, teams often hear the terms Definition of Done and Acceptance Criteria, but the lines between them can get blurry.
Both are vital for ensuring quality and clarity, yet they play very different roles in the workflow. Knowing when and how to use Acceptance Criteria helps prevent missed expectations, rework, and frustration for both teams and stakeholders.
Understanding their distinctions helps Agile professionals, Scrum Masters, Product Owners, and team members work smarter, deliver faster, and align better on what “complete” truly means.
In this blog, we’ll break down the key differences between these two concepts and show why knowing the distinction is essential for smooth, effective project delivery.
Detailed, specific, and measurable conditions for a story to be accepted.
When Used
Throughout the project to assess completion.
During story creation and refinement to guide development.
Examples
Code is peer-reviewed, passes unit tests, and is deployed to staging.
“User can log in with email and password, and receive an error message for invalid credentials.”
When Should You Create Your Definition of Done vs. Acceptance Criteria?
The Definition of Done is established upfront, before development starts, and remains consistent over the course of the project. The product owner and team align on the definition of done early on and revisit it periodically to keep it current.
On the other hand, acceptance criteria are created collaboratively for each user story during iteration planning sessions and backlog refinement. The product owner and team discuss and agree on acceptance criteria when detailing out stories to prepare for upcoming sprints.
The acceptance criteria are recorded directly with each user story, rather than in a separate overarching document. They may evolve iteratively as more is learned about how to satisfy the user story.
What are the Similarities Between the Definition of Done and Acceptance Criteria?
The Definition of Done and acceptance criteria are similar in some aspects, but serve different purposes:
Similarities:
Both define conditions for work to be considered complete
They promote alignment on quality standards
They enable validation through testing
They drive collaboration in defining done criteria
They create transparency into progress
Differences:
The Definition of Done is overarching, applying to all work
Acceptance criteria are specific to individual user stories
The Definition of Done is defined upfront and stable
Acceptance criteria are created just in time per story
The Definition of Done focuses on high-level quality standards
So, although both of them serve different purposes, they complement each other to provide complete and high-quality work.
Wrapping Up
The definition of done and acceptance criteria are different, but they are used for complementary purposes. The Definition of Done provides overarching standards for completeness and quality that apply broadly across all work. Acceptance criteria offer detailed specifications that are unique to each user story.
By differentiating between these two artifacts, teams can ensure holistic criteria for high-quality done work from both macro and micro vantage points. Leveraging both in tandem enables organizations to deliver high-value increments with maximum alignment, transparency, compliance, and quality baked in at multiple levels.
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Typically, the Product Owner is responsible for writing the acceptance criteria. However, using a collaborative approach, Acceptance criteria can be written during refinement or planning sessions with the Product Owner, Development Team, and other stakeholders.
The Definition of Done can be defined by the whole development team, as they are responsible for the product increment. However, the Product Owner has the final say over its content and changes.
The main purposes of the acceptance criteria is to define scope and requirements, help in estimation, enable testing/QA, reduce miscommunication, support collaboration, and manage scope creep.
Some of the main purposes of having a Definition of Done in agile software development are establishing a shared understanding, setting quality standards, reducing uncertainty, and framing releasable increments.
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Piyush Rahate
A passionate Lean-Agile Coach with over 19 years of varied experience, I work with professionals, teams and organizations helping them in their pursuit of agility. Being a Professional Scrum Trainer (Scrum.org), SPC (5.0, Scaled Agile), and ICAgile Authorized Instructor.
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