User stories with acceptance criteria

Describe the behaviour a role needs, in scenarios anyone can run by hand with the dates given.

After the requirements. One story refines one or more requirements. Feeds: tests.

• Write the story as "As a role, I want capability, so that outcome".
• Link the requirements it refines.
• Write two or three scenarios in Given, When and Then, with exact dates from the worked examples.
• Include at least one scenario where the answer is "no".
• Keep the Then about the outcome, not the screen.

1. Could someone else run this scenario and get the same result? Answered in Given column: a specimen request, the test data of TC-03 or TC-09, or the regulator's own example in US-02 AC2, each with its dates.
2. Where is the edge case? Answered in US-04 AC1 (a non-working day), US-01 AC2 (midnight), and US-01 AC1 and AC3 (the time zone).
3. Which requirement does it refine? Answered in Refines, in the table under each story.
4. Is there a negative scenario? Answered in Scenario column: at least one in every story, marked "negative".

• Stories that are tasks. You can spot one when no role gains anything, so the "so that" is empty or repeats the "want".
• Givens with no data, such as "a request": two testers would get two results.
• Thens that check the screen: the test would pass while the deadline is wrong.
• Ten scenarios in one story: the story is really several stories.
• No negative case: the story says what happens, never what must not.

• Every Given uses a specimen request, the extra test data of TC-03 and TC-09, or the regulator's own example in US-02 AC2, with exact dates. They are test scenarios dated after the snapshot, so that each deadline can be checked on the published calendar MINE DEC-11. Rejected: relative dates such as "a request received on a Saturday", which cannot catch a bank holiday.
• US-10 and US-11 each have an EIR scenario, because the EIR differ from FOIA on the refusal notice and on review LAW SRC-03 reg. 11(2), reg. 14(5). Rejected: FOIA-only stories with a note that the EIR are similar, which is how the two regimes get mixed up (RSK-04).
• Scenarios are numbered within their story, so a test can cite US-04 AC2 and still be right when another story gains a scenario. Rejected: one numbered list of scenarios for the whole file.
• US-10 changed in version 1.1: both notices name the Information Commission (CR-01, DEC-15). Rejected: waiting for the next review, which would leave the stories testing a notice that names a body that no longer exists.