Behavior-Driven Development (BDD) is a well-known practice for collaboration and teams use it to bridge the gap between product management and the software development team. It is also very popular among quality engineers to develop test automation frameworks.

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. 

Behavior-driven development for Product Owner is a one day workshop prepared by Agilizing.