How to write an Acceptance Criteria

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A flower that represents Project Management with the text “Acceptance Criteria�” beneath it.

A three step process to writing Acceptance Criteria.

An acceptance criteria, or AC, is the definition of done and defines the requirements for a feature, campaign, product, service, experience, user story, task, agile user story or subtask to be considered complete.

Step One: Write the User Story or Agile User Story

Define the task or subtask that you are trying to solve.

This step may be a part of the process of creating the Backlog or grooming the Backlog.

Step Two: Write the tests and requirements for completion

Write down the process that Quality Assurance must perform to guarantee that the task or subtask performs as expected.

These requirements should be:

  • Clear, so that everyone understands them.
  • Concise, so there's no ambiguity.
  • Testable by software tests or functional testing so that they can be verified.
  • Focused on the customer or end user.

Step Three: Confirm with Stakeholders

Meet with the client or member of leadership to verify that the criteria meets their desired outcome.

This may require you to update the task or subtask and that's OK.

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