Requirements Maturation Flow 2: Delivering Certainty through Bespoke Completion Criteria
Part of the Requirements Maturation Flow Series
How do you guarantee that delivered work meets expectations without continuous back-and-forth?
By having a clear definition of what “Done” means for a work item.
Without that understanding, work can be marked complete but didn’t meet expectations. It can be held “open” when the initial agreement was met simply because expectations changed in the middle of work or the codification of the expectations changed. Without a clear agreement on what “Done” means, developers can gold-plate features, underestimate the work, or overestimate the work.
A clear understanding of the scope of functionality is essential. However, many work items (if not most) require more than that, such as:
- Creating or updating documentation (e.g., support, customer-facing, training)
- Publishing changes to other teams
- Coordinating work with other teams or stakeholders
- Different types of testing (e.g., automated tests, manual tests, performance test, stress tests, pentests, and integration tests)
- Deployment to different or multiple environments
- Engineering standards that need to be met, like performing code reviews and architectural reviews
Clearly defined completion criteria remove ambiguity from acceptance, fostering accountability and trust between product and engineering teams. Many software development teams recognize this and maintain a general-purpose Definition of Done (DoD). However, teams often only reference their DoD sporadically—typically during retrospective meetings—and some even forget they have one.
Consequently, essential tasks get overlooked during estimation, planning, and implementation phases. The primary reason for this oversight is that most teams rely on a generic DoD that doesn’t accommodate the unique requirements of individual work items. Additionally, because creating tailored Definitions of Done for each work item is uncommon, teams rarely develop the processes needed to consistently define and use bespoke DoDs for their items.
The Requirements Maturation Flow 2 Program (RMF 2) solves these problems by helping teams create and adopt a unique Definition of Done (DoD) for each work item, and it establishes the processes required to create and use such a bespoke DoD for each work item. The practices taught can be used to ensure all the criteria are met before work is accepted as done. The result:
- Reduced rework and development cost
- Fewer misunderstandings and disputes
- More predictable delivery timelines
- Increased stakeholder confidence
- Improved alignment and accountability
When teams align on what “done” means—and hold to it—they deliver with confidence, clarity, and trust.
What You’ll Gain from RMF 2
RMF 2 strengthens the foundation built in RMF 1 by helping your team take the Definition of Done from a generic checklist to a work-item-specific contract.
Through guided practice, your team will:
- Create a unique, explicit Definition of Done for each piece of work
- Uncover hidden work that often gets missed—like testing, documentation, or coordination
- Align everyone on what “done” actually means before implementation begins
- Prevent gold-plating, ambiguity, and disputes about completion
- Improve team predictability by holding work to a shared standard
With a bespoke DoD for every item, teams gain clarity, confidence, and accountability—all while reinforcing the shared understanding built in RMF 1.
Program Details
Delivery Format: Training, coaching, and evaluation over 6 weeks (3 two-week sprints).
Participants
These participants play a key role in defining and accepting work. Some roles are required to make the program effective; others are optional but recommended if they influence or support your team’s Definition of Done process.
| Required | Work item authors and the members of the Scrum/development teams who will implement those work items, and their immediate colleagues such as product managers, business analysts, engineering managers, and line managers |
| Optional | Affiliated colleagues in project/process management, and leadership or team-level process decision-makers in product management, process management, and software engineering |
Activities You’ll Complete in RMF 2
These hands-on activities are designed to help your team create and enforce bespoke Definitions of Done in a repeatable, low-friction way.
| Training | RMF 2 course |
| Coaching | RMF 2 coaching provided during backlog refinement sessions, requirements collaboration sessions with stakeholders/clients, and Demo/Sprint Review events |
| Evaluation | Competency in the adoption of Synapse Framework™ RMF 2 evaluated using the RMF 2 Team Evaluation Worksheet |
| Certification | Once team has reached competency, team becomes certified in RMF 2 |
Participation in Meetings
The RMF 2 coach will work with your team for 6 weeks/3 two-week Sprints to help them adopt the RMF 2 practices, during which the coach will:
- Participate in backlog refinement meetings and Demo/Sprint Review events to help them effectively create and use DoDs for each work item
- Participate in requirements collaboration sessions with stakeholders/clients for 4 hours per sprint, up to 12 hours to guide everyone to achieving the goals of those sessions and of the RMF 2 program
Capacity Impact
| Sprint 1 | 1 day of training, <½ day impact from coaching1 |
| Sprint 2 | <½ day impact from coaching1 |
| Sprint 3 | <½ day impact from coaching1 |
*While most of the work done as a result of RMF 2 is actual work for the team (made visible instead of remaining hidden), there will be a small impact on their capacity for discussion and guidance. As the team becomes proficient, this impact becomes less until it disappears entirely.
Prerequisites
none
Enablers
Footnotes
1 While most of the work done as a result of RMF 2 is actual work for the team (made visible instead of remaining hidden), there will be a small impact on their capacity for discussion and guidance. As the team becomes proficient, this impact becomes less until it disappears entirely.
