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Acceptance Criteria Explained: A Beginner’s Guide for Business Analysts
If you’ve begun learning Business Analysis or Agile Scrum, you’ve most likely come across the term Acceptance Criteria. While user stories describe what a user wants, acceptance criteria specify how you’ll know the feature is finished and functional.
Well-written acceptance criteria help teams generate high-quality software by reducing misunderstandings, improving communication, and facilitating software development.
In this beginner’s guide, you’ll learn what acceptance criteria are, why they’re important, how to write them, and how to utilise Gherkin syntax with practical examples.
What is an Acceptance Criteria?
Acceptance Criteria are a set of conditions that a feature or user narrative must meet before being considered complete.
They outline the intended behaviour of the system and help to guarantee that everyone working on the project has the same knowledge.
Acceptance criteria address issues such as:
- What should the system do?
- What are the expected outcomes?
- How will success be determined?
- When is a feature deemed complete?
