Summary Specification by Example is an emerging practice for creating software based on realistic examples, bridging the communication gap between business stakeholders and the dev teams building the software. In this book, author Gojko Adzic distills interviews with successful teams worldwide, sharing how they specify, develop, and deliver software, without defects, in short iterative delivery cycles. About the Technology Specification by Example is a collaborative method for specifying requirements and tests. Seven patterns, fully explored in this book, are key to making the method effective. The method has four main benefits: it produces living, reliable documentation; it defines expectations clearly and makes validation efficient; it reduces rework; and, above all, it assures delivery teams and business stakeholders that the software that's built is right for its purpose. About the Book This book distills from the experience of leading teams worldwide effective ways to specify, test, and deliver software in short, iterative delivery cycles. Case studies in this book range from small web startups to large financial institutions, working in many processes including XP, Scrum, and Kanban. This book is written for developers, testers, analysts, and business people working together to build great software. Purchase of the print book comes with an offer of a free PDF, ePub, and Kindle eBook from Manning. Also available is all code from the book. What's Inside Common process patterns How to avoid bad practices Fitting SBE in your process 50+ case studies =============================================== Table of Contents Part 1 Getting started Part 2 Key process patterns Part 3 Case studies Key benefits Key process patterns Living documentation Initiating the changes Deriving scope from goals Specifying collaboratively Illustrating using examples Refining the specification Automating validation without changing specifications Validating frequently Evolving a documentation system uSwitch RainStor Iowa Student Loan Sabre Airline Solutions ePlan Services Songkick Concluding thoughts

Summary Writing Great Specifications is an example-rich tutorial that teaches you how to write good Gherkin specification documents that take advantage of the benefits of specification by example. Foreword written by Gojko Adzic. Purchase of the print book includes a free eBook in PDF, Kindle, and ePub formats from Manning Publications. About the Technology The clearest way to communicate a software specification is to provide examples of how it should work. Turning these story-based descriptions into a well-organized dev plan is another matter. Gherkin is a human-friendly, jargon-free language for documenting a suite of examples as an executable specification. It fosters efficient collaboration between business and dev teams, and it's an excellent foundation for the specification by example (SBE) process. About the Book Writing Great Specifications teaches you how to capture executable software designs in Gherkin following the SBE method. Written for both developers and non-technical team members, this practical book starts with collecting individual feature stories and organizing them into a full, testable spec. You'll learn to choose the best scenarios, write them in a way that anyone can understand, and ensure they can be easily updated by anyone.management. What's Inside Reading and writing Gherkin Designing story-based test cases Team Collaboration Managing a suite of Gherkin documents About the Reader Primarily written for developers and architects, this book is accessible to any member of a software design team. About the Author Kamil Nicieja is a seasoned engineer, architect, and project manager with deep expertise in Gherkin and SBE. Table of contents Introduction to specification by example and Gherkin PART 1 - WRITING EXECUTABLE SPECIFICATIONS WITH EXAMPLES The specification layer and the automation layer Mastering the Given-When-Then template The basics of scenario outlines Choosing examples for scenario outlines The life cycle of executable specifications Living documentation PART 2 - MANAGING SPECIFICATION SUITES Organizing scenarios into a specification suite Refactoring features into abilities and business needs Building a domain-driven specification suite Managing large projects with bounded contexts

With Acceptance Test-Driven Development (ATDD), business customers, testers, and developers can collaborate to produce testable requirements that help them build higher quality software more rapidly. However, ATDD is still widely misunderstood by many practitioners. ATDD by Example is the first practical, entry-level, hands-on guide to implementing and successfully applying it. ATDD pioneer Markus Gärtner walks readers step by step through deriving the right systems from business users, and then implementing fully automated, functional tests that accurately reflect business requirements, are intelligible to stakeholders, and promote more effective development. Through two end-to-end case studies, Gärtner demonstrates how ATDD can be applied using diverse frameworks and languages. Each case study is accompanied by an extensive set of artifacts, including test automation classes, step definitions, and full sample implementations. These realistic examples illuminate ATDD's fundamental principles, show how ATDD fits into the broader development process, highlight tips from Gärtner's extensive experience, and identify crucial pitfalls to avoid. Readers will learn to Master the thought processes associated with successful ATDD implementation Use ATDD with Cucumber to describe software in ways businesspeople can understand Test web pages using ATDD tools Bring ATDD to Java with the FitNesse wiki-based acceptance test framework Use examples more effectively in Behavior-Driven Development (BDD) Specify software collaboratively through innovative workshops Implement more user-friendly and collaborative test automation Test more cleanly, listen to test results, and refactor tests for greater value If you're a tester, analyst, developer, or project manager, this book offers a concrete foundation for achieving real benefits with ATDD now-and it will help you reap even more value as you gain experience.

Master BDD to deliver higher-value software more quickly To develop high-value products quickly, software development teams need better ways to collaborate. Agile methods like Scrum and Kanban are helpful, but they’re not enough. Teams need better ways to work inside each sprint or work item. Behavior-driven development (BDD) adds just enough structure for product experts, testers, and developers to collaborate more effectively. Drawing on extensive experience helping teams adopt BDD, Richard Lawrence and Paul Rayner show how to explore changes in system behavior with examples through conversations, how to capture your examples in expressive language, and how to flow the results into effective automated testing with Cucumber. Where most BDD resources focus on test automation, this guide goes deep into how BDD changes team collaboration and what that collaboration looks like day to day. Concrete examples and practical advice will prepare you to succeed with BDD, whatever your context or role. · Learn how to collaborate better by using concrete examples of system behavior · Identify your project’s meaningful increment of value so you’re always working on something important · Begin experimenting with BDD slowly and at low risk · Move smoothly from informal examples to automated tests in Cucumber · Use BDD to deliver more frequently with greater visibility · Make Cucumber scenarios more expressive to ensure you’re building the right thing · Grow a Cucumber suite that acts as high-value living documentation · Sustainably work with complex scenario data · Get beyond the “mini-waterfalls” that often arise on Scrum teams

This book will help you write better stories, spot and fix common issues, split stories so that they are smaller but still valuable, and deal with difficult stuff like crosscutting concerns, long-term effects and non-functional requirements. Above all, this book will help you achieve the promise of agile and iterative delivery: to ensure that the right stuff gets delivered through productive discussions between delivery team members and business stakeholders. Who is this book for? This is a book for anyone working in an iterative delivery environment, doing planning with user stories. The ideas in this book are useful both to people relatively new to user stories and those who have been working with them for years. People who work in software delivery, regardless of their role, will find plenty of tips for engaging stakeholders better and structuring iterative plans more effectively. Business stakeholders working with software teams will discover how to provide better information to their delivery groups, how to set better priorities and how to outrun the competition by achieving more with less software. What's inside? Unsurprisingly, the book contains exactly fifty ideas. They are grouped into five major parts: - Creating stories: This part deals with capturing information about stories before they get accepted into the delivery pipeline. You'll find ideas about what kind of information to note down on story cards and how to quickly spot potential problems. - Planning with stories: This part contains ideas that will help you manage the big-picture view, set milestones and organise long-term work. - Discussing stories: User stories are all about effective conversations, and this part contains ideas to improve discussions between delivery teams and business stakeholders. You'll find out how to discover hidden assumptions and how to facilitate effective conversations to ensure shared understanding. - Splitting stories: The ideas in this part will help you deal with large and difficult stories, offering several strategies for dividing them into smaller chunks that will help you learn fast and deliver value quickly. - Managing iterative delivery: This part contains ideas that will help you work with user stories in the short and mid term, manage capacity, prioritise and reduce scope to achieve the most with the least software. About the authors: Gojko Adzic is a strategic software delivery consultant who works with ambitious teams to improve the quality of their software products and processes. Gojko's book Specification by Example was awarded the #2 spot on the top 100 agile books for 2012 and won the Jolt Award for the best book of 2012. In 2011, he was voted by peers as the most influential agile testing professional, and his blog won the UK agile award for the best online publication in 2010. David Evans is a consultant, coach and trainer specialising in the field of Agile Quality. David helps organisations with strategic process improvement and coaches teams on effective agile practice. He is regularly in demand as a conference speaker and has had several articles published in international journals.

A practical guide to impact mapping, a simple yet incredibly effective method for collaborative strategic planning that helps organizations make an impact with software.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 305-315) and index.