1. What is it?
   1. a practice in which the whole team collaboratively discusses acceptance criteria, with examples, and then distills them into a set of concrete acceptance tests before development begins (Elizabeth Hendrickson)
   2. additionally, helps drive other activities (Cheezy Morgan)
      1. testing
      2. documentation & specification
   3. it has its roots in BDD
      1. Dan North conceived BDD as a different way to think about TDD (specification rather than testing)
      2. BDD evolved into a practice "to create a single coherent vision and deliver to that"
      3. Eventually, some people started calling it ATDD
      4. Some still believe that BDD and TDD are essentially the same thing
2. Acceptance Criteria
   1. On Acceptance criteria for user stories (Sandy Mamoly)
   2. Tests and Requirements, Requirements and Tests: A Möbius Strip (Uncle Bob)
3. How is it done?
   1. Key Process Patterns (Gojko Adzic)
      1. Deriving scope from goals
      2. Specifying collaboratively
      3. Illustrating using examples
      4. Refining the specification
      5. Automating validation without changing specifications
      6. Validating frequently
      7. Evolving a documentation system
   2. Conversational patterns in BDD (Liz Keogh)
      1. Context Questioning
      2. Outcome Questioning
   3. Challenging Requirements (Gojko Adzic)
      1. Refuse solutions to unknown problems: understand what the real problem is and solve that
      2. Refuse suggestions to use a technology: you're the IT expert
      3. Don't rush into solving the first problem they give you: keep asking "why" until you get to the money
      4. Know your stakeholders: who's going to use this and why?
      5. Don't start with stories! start with a high level example of how people will use the system
4. Writing Specifications
   1. Good Practice
      1. Imperative vs Declarative Scenarios In User Stories (Ben Mabey)
      2. What makes a good feature file
      3. What’s in a Story? (Dan North)
      4. Given/When/Then (Martin Fowler)
   2. Warnings
      1. The Problems With Acceptance Testing (James Shore)
      2. Top 10 reasons why teams fail with Acceptance Testing (Gojko Adzic)
      3. The Cucumber Test Trap (Steve Tooke)
5. Recommended Books
   1. Specification by Example, by Gojko Adzic
   2. Cucumber & Cheese - A Testers Workshop , by Jeff "Cheezy" Morgan