Definition of Awesome

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Origins

The phrase Definition of Awesome emerged in the coaching community in the early 2010s, often credited to Ken Power and later popularized in talks by Jeff Patton and Lyssa Adkins.¹ It was a deliberate counterweight to the way teams were starting to use the Definition of Done: as a finish line. If the DoD asked “is it acceptable?”, the Definition of Awesome asked “what would make us proud?”

The idea has its roots in the older quality literature — Noriaki Kano’s model of basic, performance, and delight attributes; the Toyota notion of kaizen as a permanent reach above today’s standard.² Done is the bar you must clear. Awesome is the horizon you are walking toward.

Why a Ceiling Helps

Definitions of Done, left alone, quietly become ceilings. A team agrees on a checklist, the checklist becomes the goal, and the goal becomes the limit of imagination. Quality flattens out at the level of compliance. Adding an explicit Definition of Awesome restores a sense of vertical space — somewhere to grow into, distinct from the floor you must not fall through.

The two work together:

• Definition of Done protects you from shipping junk. It is enforced. Every increment must clear it.
• Definition of Awesome protects you from forgetting why you got into this work. It is aspirational. Some increments will touch it; many will not.

The trick is to keep them genuinely separate. If everything on the Awesome list quietly migrates onto the Done list, the team has not raised the floor — it has crushed the ceiling.

What Goes on the List

A useful Definition of Awesome reads less like a checklist and more like a manifesto. It captures the qualities the team would love to be known for, expressed in the team’s own voice. Typical entries:

• Loved, not just used. Adoption is necessary but not sufficient. Awesome features make users say something unprompted.
• Performance with headroom. Not just within budget, but visibly fast — under perceptual thresholds even on slow networks.
• Accessible by default. Not retrofitted, but designed in: screen-reader semantics, keyboard parity, color-safe contrast.
• Observable. The team can answer “is it working?” without opening the database.
• A pleasure to maintain. The next engineer to touch this code is grateful, not resentful.
• Documented for humans. Not just for compliance — the explanation makes the decision intelligible to a newcomer.

Using It Without Weaponizing It

The Definition of Awesome is fragile. Two failure modes are common:

• It becomes a stick. Managers start using it as a performance review — why didn’t this story hit the Awesome bar? — and the team quickly learns not to write down anything ambitious.
• It becomes wallpaper. Printed on a poster, never referenced. The team mentions it in onboarding and then forgets.

The healthy middle: treat the Awesome list as a conversation starter during refinement and review. What would it take to push this one item closer to awesome? Is that worth the cost here, or do we ship at done? The point is to make the trade-off visible, not to force a verdict.

Relationship to Done and Done-Done

Definition of Done sets the floor for any single increment. Done-Done extends that floor through release and observation — the change has actually landed. Definition of Awesome lives above both: it describes the work at its best, when constraints loosen and craft has room to breathe. A team that lacks any of the three is unbalanced. Without Done, quality is unpredictable; without Done-Done, work does not arrive; without Awesome, the team forgets it ever cared.

Coaching Tips

Write it together, in one sitting.

An hour-long workshop, the whole team. The list is theirs or it is wallpaper.

Keep it short — six to ten lines.

A long list is a forgotten list. Pick the qualities you would actually be proud of.

Reference it during refinement.

“Which of these would this story have a chance at?” That question changes how the story gets built.

Celebrate when something hits Awesome.

Name it in the review. Public recognition is the cheapest reinforcement available.

Never let leadership weaponize it.

If a manager starts using the list as a performance bar, take it off the wall. It belongs to the craft, not to HR.

Revisit annually.

The ceiling rises as the floor rises. What was awesome last year is the new baseline.

Summary

The Definition of Awesome is a small ritual with an outsized effect on culture. It gives a team somewhere to aim that is not the deadline, the burndown, or the compliance checklist. Done keeps you honest; Awesome keeps you alive. The work of a healthy delivery team is the slow, voluntary closing of the distance between the two.

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