BDD for product owners
As a product owner you’re the one responsible for the success of the product and, for you, software development is all about the user. You don’t want to see the code; you want to see that the software works for the user in the way you intended.
In practising BDD, you’ll drive product development by specifying your requirements for the software in the language of the business, so that everyone understands.
User stories and related scenarios are developed in collaboration with developers and testers by having conversations — outlining what you need the software to do in different ‘real world’ situations and what the expected outcome or action should be. All relevant stakeholders should be encouraged to ask questions to clarify their understanding of the related, defined examples, so that a set of agreed user stories are ready for development work to begin. From this point on, you’re starting to avoid the risk of rework caused by a lack of shared understanding of requirements.
Naturally, you’ll want to make it practical for everyone on the agile team to get on with their job in alignment with that shared understanding. We all know that things can change as the project evolves, and it’s great to have everything [or: all of our workflows] in sync and everyone up-to-date.
Choosing a BDD tool
You may wish to consider using a tool, or app, to support your BDD practice. For best results, look for one that securely integrates with your end-to-end toolchain, i.e. seamless integration with your agile project management tool, two-way real-time sync with your git repository and support for your team’s favoured automated testing tools. A good BDD tool will become the team’s central resource and display the single source of truth for everyone involved in the project.
Even with the right tool in place to support the team’s BDD practice, it may still be useful to look at options for BDD training and/or coaching. Ensuring that everyone on the team has a secure understanding of the core principles of BDD will support successful adoption of BDD techniques.
Behave Pro for product owners
Considering Behave Pro for Jira as your BDD tool? With Behave Pro you will be able to:
Set key milestones and measure progress against these targets, helping you keep the project on track
Write scenarios on issues as they arise or define scenarios that can be implemented at a later date
Add tags to organise user stories/scenarios based on expected actions
Always be able to view up-to-date scenarios in Jira, thanks to two-way sync with feature file changes in the git repository
See proof that the software works as you intended, thanks to effortless set-up of acceptance tests by testers, with traceability back to the original user story and scenarios
Capture the right information in a framework that is immediately understood by developers, using the well-known ‘Given When Then’ template
Assign user stories to all relevant stakeholders in the project, allowing them to clarify their understanding of the related, defined examples
Prioritize and re-prioritize user stories as required, with drag and drop functionality
Add new scenarios to user stories to discover their true scope, and find those epics pretending to be user stories