WD-01
Missing Acceptance Criteria
Work Definition
Default severity: critical
Product BacklogProcessQuality
What it detects
Issues of the configured types lack acceptance criteria at the configured workflow stage — leads to scope creep, inconsistent DoD, and rework. AC field name is configurable.
Detection formula
ac_field = config.workflow.acceptance_criteria_field // e.g. \'Acceptance Criteria\', \'AC\', custom field ID IF issue.type IN config.workflow.ac_required_types // default: \[Story, Feature\] AND field_value(ac_field) IS EMPTY THEN FLAGExamples in practice
- A story enters development with an empty Acceptance Criteria field.
- More than half of active stories lack acceptance criteria before work starts.
- Reviewers cannot verify done-ness because the AC field was never populated.
Suggested response
Bring acceptance criteria, sizing, and metadata in line with your definition of ready and done.
Coaching playbook
Symptom
Issues of the configured types lack acceptance criteria at the configured workflow stage — leads to scope creep, inconsistent DoD, and rework. AC field name is configurable.
Why it matters
When "Missing Acceptance Criteria" keeps appearing, the team is signalling a repeatable process gap. Left unexamined, the pattern hides where work really stalls and makes improvement metrics harder to trust.
What you can achieve
Bring acceptance criteria, sizing, and metadata in line with your definition of ready and done.
Facilitation questions
- What system change would stop "Missing Acceptance Criteria" from firing again?
- What do the cited issues have in common — same root cause or same workaround?
- Who owns the two-week experiment and how will we verify on the next import?
Run this rule against your own tracker data with Flow Analyzer.