Developers are accountable for ensuring work meets the team’s Definition of Done (DoD), but the DoD itself is a shared agreement reflecting collective quality standards. Sustainable delivery requires both enforcing DoD and continuously refining it as a team.

Key Clarifications on Accountability for "Done"

1. Developers Adherence to DoD
   • They are responsible for ensuring that each product increment aligns with the agreed-upon DoD.
   • This encompasses code quality, testing, documentation, and any other standards the team has set.
   • If work doesn’t meet DoD, developers must either fix it or flag it as incomplete.
2. DoD is a Team Agreement (Not Just Developers’)
   • While developers enforce DoD, the entire Scrum Team (Developers, Product Owner, Scrum Master) collaborates on defining it.
   • Example:
     • PO may require user-facing docs.
     • QA (if separate) may contribute test coverage thresholds.
     • Security/DevOps may set compliance checks.
   • Developers ensure that the Definition of Done (DoD) criteria are met, but they do not define the DoD independently.

However, the Product Owner is responsible for accepting or rejecting after verifying that the work completed by the developers meets the DOD (business acceptance) and aligns with the requirement of Product backlog item.

In Scrum, a product increment is a concrete stepping stone towards the Product Goal. Each Increment is additive to all prior Increments plus any new features completed in the latest sprint - and thoroughly verified, ensuring that all Increments work together. To provide value, the Increment must be usable.

Without a usable increment, developers delay delivering value and miss opportunities to gather user feedback, adapt the product, and ensure customer satisfaction. Conversely, incremental releases enable faster feedback, quicker innovation, continuous improvement, rapid adaptation to change, and greater customer satisfaction.