Definition of Ready

The contract a ticket must honor before it can enter a sprint. It is the gate that keeps grooming sessions short, sprints predictable, and developers focused on building rather than chasing missing context.

01Why it matters

A ticket without a Definition of Ready is a request, not a story. The five checks below are minimal — each one prevents a recurring class of mid-sprint friction. If a ticket fails any of them in grooming, it does not enter the sprint. It returns to the backlog and the PO completes the missing piece before the next refinement.

02The five checks

Acceptance criteria written in Given / When / Then Each criterion is independently testable by QA without asking clarifying questions. Cover the happy path, edge cases, empty states, boundary values, and mobile behavior. Three to eight per ticket is the working range.
Design assets attached Link to the specific Figma frame — not the whole project. Every state covered: default, hover, active, disabled, loading, error, empty, success. Responsive breakpoints (desktop, tablet, mobile) and edge-case mockups (long text, short text) are present.
Technical notes reviewed The dev team has read the ticket during grooming, raised constraints, and noted dependencies. The PO leaves space for the section; the team owns the how. Spike findings, if any, are linked.
Tracking requirements defined Analytics events are listed with their exact names (following the naming convention) and the properties they fire with. No feature ships without measurement — otherwise we cannot tell if it worked.
Dependencies identified Other tickets this one depends on are linked in Jira with is blocked by. Cross-team dependencies have a named owner and an expected delivery date. External dependencies (third-party API, content, legal approval) are listed.

03How it is enforced

The check happens at the start of the grooming session, not after. If a ticket fails, it is moved out of the candidate list immediately and the PO is the named owner of the gap. This is not a vote — it is a binary gate. Tickets that pass all five enter the sprint backlog; everything else waits.

Rule of thumb

If a developer would need to ping the PO to start work, the ticket is not ready. The Definition of Ready exists so that question never has to be asked.

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