Abstract If you have ever done or tried to do behavior driven development, you know that finding the right scenarios (ie. tests) and writing the Gherkin feature files with the Given/When/Then steps is not so easy. Many teams leave this task entirely for the developers. Others try to use the sprint planning meeting to discuss the exact phrasing. None of these are really perfect. Regarding my experience, for having good scenarios, you have to have a good sprint planning. In this session I am going to talk about what makes a sprint planning good and how you can facilitate your sprint planning meeting in a way that it helps finding the right examples. You will hear about Specification by Examples, the "Three Amigos", example mapping, really good acceptance criteria and also about team motivation, but more importantly you will hear about how to use them efficiently in practice.

1. Gáspár Nagy
coach • trainer • bdd addict • creator of specflow
@gasparnagy • gaspar@specsolutions.eu
Gáspár Nagy
coach • trainer • bdd addict • creator of specflow
@gasparnagy • gaspar@specsolutions.eu
Given/When/Then-ready sprint planning
Agile Tour Vienna • 21/11/2015

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specsolutions.eu/bddaddict
bdd addict
given.when.then
CAUTION!
on stage

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What is BDD?

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An Oversimplified BDD Process
Scenario: Books can be added to the shopping basket
Given the following books
| Author | Title |
| Martin Fowler | Analysis Patterns |
| Gojko Adzic | Bridging the Communication Gap |
And my shopping basket is empty
When I add the book “Analysis Patterns” to my shopping basket
Then my shopping basket should contain 1 copy of “Analysis Patterns”

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The Feature File
Scenario: Books can be added to the shopping basket
Given the following books
| Author | Title |
| Martin Fowler | Analysis Patterns |
| Gojko Adzic | Bridging the Communication Gap |
And my shopping basket is empty
When I add the book “Analysis Patterns” to my shopping basket
Then my shopping basket should contain 1 copy of “Analysis Patterns”
Who writes the
scenarios?
How do you
set the title of
the scenario?
Can I have multiple
when/then steps?

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If you have these questions you are probably on
the wrong track…

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The Sprint Planning

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Demo: Planning the Pizza
Selection Story

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Explain the story as a PO

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Let’s write a Gherkin from the result
Scenario: ...
Given ...
When ...
Then ...

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De-briefing
• PO was unprepared
• We discussed the topics in a foreign language
• The domain was known, but not very exact
• Quality of notes?
• How easy it to write the first scenario?
• Quality of scenario?

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An efficient meeting…

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Demo: Planning the Pizza
Selection Story

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Participate in the facilitated discussion as
PO

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Should be able to add a pizza to the basket
Scenario: Should be able to add a pizza to the basket
Given the following pizza menu
| name | ingredients |
| Aslak Hellesøy | Cucumber, Gherkin, Pickles |
| Uncle Bob | Chicken, Low cal cheese |
| Chris Matts | Garlic, Wasabi, Tomato |
And the shopping basket is empty
When I choose a “Chris Matts” pizza
Then my basket contains 1 “Chris Matts” pizza

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Should be able to add extras to the chosen
pizza
Scenario: Should be able to add extras to the chosen pizza
Given the following pizzas in the basket
| pizza | extras |
| Aslak Hellesøy | - |
| Chris Matts | - |
And the “Aslak Hellesøy” pizza is selected from the basket
When I add extra cheese
And I add extra cucumber
Then the basket should contain
| pizza | extras |
| Aslak Hellesøy | +cheese +cucumber |
| Chris Matts | - |

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How It's Made

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Well guided planning meeting can improve
the “BDD-efficiency” quite much
• Someone needs to facilitate the discussion – not the PO
• The facilitation can be rotated so that everyone gets practice
• The facilitator can guide the discussion with
• Asking questions
• Moderating (stopping?) discussions
• Everyone can ask of course…

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#1 – Pick a guide line
• Choose a theme that you can use to order the questions
• The “sequence of actions” is usually good
• ie. “What you do first?”
• If you use story mapping for planning the stories, this comes quite naturally

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#2 – Keep collecting acceptance criteria
• Once you hear an important rule/behavior/check, note it down as an
acceptance criterion
• Don’t forget that AC is not necessarily text, but formulas, wireframes or
anything that describes the required behavior

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#3 – Make notes visible to everyone
• Writing them up to the whiteboard can work well
• Using (and sharing on projector) a notepad, OneNote or SpecLog is also
very good
• Pro: stored already in a searchable form, usually better visible (zoom), easy to go
back to earlier notes
• Con: harder to get a full overview
• Stop the discussion while the AC is captured
• The team should have an agreement on the captured result
• Was this really what we were discussing about?

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#4 – Collect examples
• Ask for examples if not provided
• Examples can help
• understanding the topic
• discover misunderstandings
• keep the requirements real
• Discover more: Specification by Example, Example mapping

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#5 – Write a glossary
• As a facilitator, keep watching the domain terms and their usage
• Highlight if they are used inconsistently
• Suggest choosing a term
• “Why don’t we give this a name?”
• The terms can be just highlighted in the notes, but you can also build up a
glossary as the discussion goes
• Discover more: Domain Driven Design

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+1 – Formulate the scenarios in Gherkin
• Not necessarily in the planning meeting
• Just before you start implementing the story works usually
• Don’t do it alone
• Try to find broader agreement especially for the first scenarios in a certain
topic
• At this point, you are not discussing the behavior, but finalizing the
ubiquitous language
• Discover more: Three Amigos

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One page summary
#1 – Pick a guide line
#2 – Keep collecting acceptance criteria
#3 – Make notes visible to everyone
#4 – Collect examples
#5 – Write a glossary

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What about my answers?
Who writes the
scenarios?
How do you
set the title of
the scenario?
Can I have multiple
when/then steps?

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The answers
• Who writes the scenarios?
• It does not matter, because we are all on the same page regarding the behavior. But it
makes sense if a developer is typing it in with a tester or PO sitting next to him/her.
• How do you set the title of the scenario?
• You never set it, you start from the acceptance criterion that will be the title.
• Can I have multiple when/then steps?
• The scenario is the formalization of an AC – a simple check. For that you usually
need only one when step and only one or two then steps.

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Try is at home!

29. Gáspár Nagy
coach • trainer • bdd addict • creator of specflow
@gasparnagy • gaspar@specsolutions.eu
Gáspár Nagy
coach • trainer • bdd addict • creator of specflow
@gasparnagy • gaspar@specsolutions.eu
Thank you!

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specsolutions.eu/bddaddict
bdd addict
given.when.then
CAUTION!
on the loose