A release is planned for Friday. On Thursday the Product Owner finds that one feature in the release scope has no automated tests, which the Definition of Done requires, and asks whether it can ship anyway with the tests written next Sprint. What does Scrum say?
Professional Scrum Master I, objective 3. Managing products with agility hard
Machine-checked — no person has signed for it. This question was read against the source cited below by an automated pass, which found no contradiction. That is a weaker claim than it sounds: the same kind of process wrote the question, so it can confirm its own mistake.
Treat it as a good draft rather than as settled fact, and read the source below before you rely on it. It is not used in mock exams here — only questions a person has signed for are.
The options
Not correct The Product Owner may authorise the release, since maximising value is her accountability and the feature is valuable now
Wrong, and it is the trap this scenario is built around. Her accountability for value covers what is worth releasing and when; it cannot make unfinished work releasable, because work that does not meet the Definition of Done is not part of an Increment at all.
Correct It cannot be released, or even presented at the Sprint Review — it returns to the Product Backlog for future consideration
Correct. Work that does not meet the Definition of Done is not part of an Increment at all, so there is nothing there to ship, and the item goes back into the ordered backlog.
Not correct It may be released if the Developers agree to relax the Definition of Done for this item only
Wrong. The Developers are required to conform to the Definition of Done, and a standard suspended per item stops describing the product's quality at all.
Not correct It may be released if the Scrum Master records the missing tests as an impediment to be removed next Sprint
Wrong. Logging an impediment is not a waiver, and the Scrum Master has no authority to certify work as Done. Quality does not decrease during the Sprint.
Why
The Definition of Done is what makes a forecast mean anything: it fixes the state at which work becomes an Increment, and therefore the only state in which work is releasable. Any release plan built on almost-Done work is a plan built on an unknown quantity. Note the phrase Scrum uses — not released or even presented at the Sprint Review — and note where the item goes: back to the Product Backlog, in the Product Owner's ordering.
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.
Practise this
Reading one question is not practice. The trainer will draw a set from objective 3 and space the ones you get wrong.
Practise Professional Scrum Master I
More questions on this objective
- A portfolio manager has drawn up a spreadsheet ranking every requested feature by projected revenue and tells the Scrum Team to build them in that order. The Product Owner believes two of the top five items will not be used by the customers she has spoken to. Who is accountable for maximising the value of the product? machine-checked
- 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? machine-checked
- A new Scrum Master is asked by a director where in Scrum the organisation gets to see whether the last four weeks of work were worth anything, and what should change as a result. Which event is she describing? machine-checked
- A Scrum Team spent a Sprint building a bulk-import feature. It meets the Definition of Done, it is usable, and it was released on day nine. At the Sprint Review the stakeholders explain that since the Sprint began their largest customer has moved to a different data format, and nobody will use the feature. What does Scrum say about this Sprint, and what happens now? machine-checked
- A delivery manager introduces a quarterly target: every Scrum Team must raise its velocity by fifteen per cent, and team performance reviews will cite the number. Within two Sprints the team's story point totals have risen and no more working software is reaching users than before. What is the most accurate statement about this measure? machine-checked
- A Scrum Team is agreeing what it will actually put in front of stakeholders at the end of each Sprint. Which TWO of the following statements about the Increment are true in Scrum? machine-checked