Acceptance Criteria That Travel Across Roles

Acceptance criteria collapse when they depend on internal slang. If QA cannot invent a check from the wording alone, the criteria will not protect the release.

We coach observable outcomes: what a user sees, what the system records, and what happens when input is invalid. Each line should be checkable without opening the codebase.

A drill from our Requirements Clinic: hand the criteria to a peer who skipped discovery. If they cannot draft a test case in five minutes, rewrite before the sprint starts.

Clear criteria shorten evening debates and keep handoffs between analysts and engineers honest.