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In Agile, acceptance criteria refer to a set of predefined requirements that must be met to mark a user story complete. Acceptance criteria are also sometimes called the definition of done. They determine the scope and requirements that must be executed by developers to consider the user story finished.

As a product manager or product owner, you may be responsible for writing acceptance criteria for the stories in your product backlog. As with most things agile, there are varying definitions of acceptance criteria.

Since these requirements help formulate the definition of done for your engineers, they need to be easy to test. And the results of these tests must leave no room for interpretation. Tests should reveal straightforward yes/no or pass/fail results. Keep your criteria as simple and straightforward as possible.

A user story on its own leaves a lot of room for interpretation. Acceptance criteria clarifies the expected outcome of a user story in a concrete manner. It also gives developers and QA a clear-cut way to determine whether a story is done.

You want to incorporate these requirements into your process for many reasons. First of all, when you define your desired outcome before development begins, you help promote alignment and shared understanding. This understanding helps reduce the likelihood of surprises down the line.

In addition to helping product people set and manage expectations, acceptance criteria is also helpful for developers. If a requirement is not defined and set at the beginning of a sprint it is more difficult to sneak it in midway through. 

Virtually anyone on the cross-functional team could write acceptance criteria for user stories. Usually, the product owner or manager is responsible for writing acceptance criteria or at least facilitating the discussion about it. That said, it is widely recommended to make writing acceptance criteria a group activity that includes both dev and QA representatives.

This template will be primarily useful for team leaders in preparation for the weekly sprints with the development team. You can detail the acceptance criteria for each user story. Also this template can be used by product owner and scrum master.

For example, you can use the second slide to present data about the Epic-level requirement and the user stories that make up it. The third slide of this template allows you to present the input criteria and outgoing criteria data. This slide will be helpful for startup executives in preparation for their investor meeting. Also, the slides of this template can be used by university teachers when preparing a course on Agile methodology.

Company engineers can use these slides when preparing documentation for the use or testing of new equipment. For example, you can describe in detail what acceptance criteria must be considered when working with the equipment.

Acceptance Criteria The template consists of 4 slides. Each slide has a modern infographic and can be edited to suit your corporate requirements. The Acceptance Criteria Template will be a great addition to your collection of professional presentations.