1. Behaviour Driven Development Foundations
Explore the purpose of BDD and how it strengthens shared understanding across delivery teams.
- Purpose of BDD
- Common collaboration gaps in software delivery
- Building shared understanding
- Relationships between requirements, examples, tests and working software
- BDD as a communication practice as well as a technical practice
2. Test Coverage and Quality
Examine how BDD can improve software quality and test confidence.
- Role of test data in improving coverage
- Risks associated with test-after approaches
- Benefits of test-before thinking
- Using examples to reveal assumptions
- Identifying edge cases
- Improving confidence in delivered software through BDD
3. User Stories
Develop stronger user stories and evaluate their quality.
- Writing effective user stories
- Linking user stories to business goals
- Using INVEST to assess story quality
- Story sizing
- Story refinement
- Identifying weak or incomplete stories
4. Story Mapping
Use story mapping to visualise user journeys and structure delivery work.
- Building a story map from a user journey
- Identifying activities and tasks
- Creating supporting stories
- Prioritising stories across a workflow
- Using story mapping for planning and alignment
- Applying AI-assisted prompts to improve story maps
5. Acceptance Criteria
Explore how acceptance criteria support clear and testable requirements.
- Purpose of acceptance criteria
- Using SMART to improve clarity and testability
- Turning acceptance criteria into concrete examples
- Identifying gaps and ambiguity
- Discovering missing business rules
- Connecting acceptance criteria to BDD scenarios
6. Shared Understanding and Specification by Example
Explore collaborative approaches that align business, development and testing roles.
The Three Amigos
- Bringing together business, development and testing perspectives
- Facilitating conversations before coding begins
- Challenging assumptions with concrete examples
Specification by Example
- Explaining requirements through examples
- Reducing ambiguity
- Making business rules more visible
- Using AI-assisted prompts to review and strengthen examples
7. Living Documentation and Traceability
Understand how BDD artefacts can remain useful throughout the lifecycle of a product.
- Purpose of living documentation
- Using feature files to document expected behaviour
- Linking scenarios to user stories and business goals
- Keeping documentation aligned with working software
- Avoiding documentation that has no clear audience or value
8. Gherkin Syntax and Structure
Learn the basic structure used to write clear and consistent BDD scenarios.
- Feature structure
- Scenario structure
- Given, When and Then syntax
- Effective use of And and But
- Background sections
- Data tables
- Examples tables
- Rules of thumb for clear Gherkin writing
- Using AI-assisted prompts to generate and refine scenarios
9. Scenario Writing Styles
Compare different approaches to expressing behaviour.
Imperative Style
- Step-by-step descriptions
- More detailed procedural scenarios
Declarative Style
- Focus on expected behaviour and business intent
- More readable and maintainable scenarios
The module also considers:
- Choosing the right level of detail
- Improving readability
- Improving maintainability
- Rewriting scenarios to make their intent clearer
10. Cucumber Implementation
Explore how Gherkin scenarios can become executable specifications.
- Turning Gherkin into executable specifications
- Initialising Cucumber
- Creating step definitions
- Reviewing generated step definitions
- Connecting feature files with implementation code
- Demonstrating the BDD lifecycle from feature file to passing test
- Using AI assistance during implementation
- Maintaining human review of AI-generated outputs
Hands-On Learning
The workshop is strongly practice-based.
Participants work with activities including:
- User story review
- Story mapping
- Acceptance criteria development
- Specification by example
- Three Amigos discussions
- Gherkin scenario writing
- Scenario rewriting
- Cucumber implementation
- AI-assisted prompting
- Living documentation and traceability exercises
The aim is not simply to understand BDD terminology, but to develop a practical way of creating clearer, testable specifications that improve collaboration and shared understanding across delivery teams.
