It is the last afternoon of the Sprint. Three of the eight selected items are coded and demonstrable on a laptop, but they have not been through the automated regression suite the Definition of Done requires. The Product Owner suggests showing them at tomorrow's Sprint Review anyway, marked as "pending test". What does Scrum say?

Professional Scrum Master I, objective 3. Managing products with agility medium

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The options

Not correct They may be shown as long as everybody present is told they are not finished

Wrong, and it is the most reasonable-sounding option here because it appears to preserve honesty. The Guide does not offer a labelled exception; an item that does not meet the Definition of Done cannot be released or even presented.

Correct They cannot be released or even presented at the Sprint Review, and they return to the Product Backlog

Correct. Done is the boundary of the Increment, and work outside that boundary has produced no inspectable value — so it goes back to the Product Backlog for future consideration.

Not correct The Product Owner may accept them as Done, since she is accountable for the value of the product

Wrong. Her accountability is for what the product is worth, not for waiving the quality standard; the Developers are required to conform to the Definition of Done and she cannot release them from it.

Not correct They count as part of the Increment because the work itself is complete, and testing is a separate activity

Wrong. Work cannot be considered part of an Increment unless it meets the Definition of Done — which is precisely what makes "complete except for testing" a contradiction in Scrum.

Why

The Definition of Done is what turns effort into an Increment: the moment an item meets it, an Increment is born, and until then the item is work in progress however impressive it looks on a laptop. This is a transparency mechanism before it is a quality one — it gives everybody the same meaning for the word "done" so the Sprint Review inspects something real. Nearly finished work carries no value because nobody can use it, and nobody can trust a decision made on it.

Where this comes from

Cited
Scrum Guide section Commitment: Definition of Done
What it says
If a Product Backlog item does not meet the Definition of Done, it cannot be released or even presented at the Sprint Review.

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