A new hardware-integration team is being added to a robotics product that already has an established, shared Definition of Done used by the app and firmware teams, and the new team wants to start with its own lighter version "until it settles in," so what is the appropriate approach?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Short Explanation
"We'll meet the real standard once we settle in" sounds reasonable, but every Increment this new team touches in the meantime still has to combine with everyone else's work — there's no such thing as a temporarily lower-quality Increment that's still trustworthy. The new team adopts the shared Definition of Done from day one, the same as everyone else already building the same product.
Full Explanation
A shared Definition of Done only protects the combined Increment if every contributing team actually uses it, which means a new team joining an established product needs to adopt that existing standard immediately rather than phasing into it later. Granting a temporary grace period effectively means the combined Increment carries a hidden quality gap for as long as the exception lasts, and there is no guarantee that gap stays contained to work nobody outside the new team relies on. Letting the new team decide independently once it feels ready removes the very consistency that made the shared Definition of Done valuable to the other teams in the first place, and it puts the timing of that decision in the hands of the team least familiar with the product's existing risks. Routing the decision through a single manager's review also sidesteps the fact that the Definition of Done belongs to the Scrum Team as a whole, not to any one person's authority to adjust unilaterally. The more sound approach treats onboarding as a ramp-up in the new team's skill at meeting the existing standard, not a ramp-up in the standard itself — support, coaching, and pairing from the established teams can help the new team meet the bar quickly without ever lowering it. A useful check is to run the first few of the new team's items through the same Definition of Done the other teams already use and see exactly where the gaps are, rather than assuming a lighter bar is needed before even trying.