Tests and Requirements: You Can't Have One without the Other

The practice of software development, including agile, requires a clear understanding of business needs. Misunderstanding requirements causes waste, missed schedules, and mistrust within the organization. A disagreement about whether or not an incident is a defect can arise between testers and developers when the cause is really a disagreement about the requirement itself. Ken Pugh describes how you can use acceptance tests to decrease this misunderstanding of intent. A testable requirement provides a single source that serves as the analysis document, acceptance criteria, regression test suite, and progress tracker for any given feature. Ken explores the creation, evaluation, and use of testable requirements by the business and developers. Examine how to transform requirements into stories- small units of work-each of which has business value, small implementation effort, and easy to understand acceptance tests. Learn how testers and requirement elicitors can work together to create acceptance tests prior to implementation.