Which Acceptance Criteria are negotiable?
How the mature teams apply the "N" in the INVEST rule?
Acceptance criteria define what must be true for a backlog item to be considered “Done.”
But that’s also where the team negotiation takes place.
A few days ago, during lunch, I overheard a Product Manager rant about a team that spent two days debating this tiny edge case:
“What if the user double-clicks the Save button while the Wi-Fi drops?”
All because one line in the acceptance criteria was treated like a non negotiable rule.
The “N” in INVEST stands for Negotiable for a reason.
Acceptance Criteria are guardrails (not rules), and great teams know which criteria to fight for and which to let go.
In today’s post, I’ll show you how to apply the “N” in the INVEST rule.
Let’s get started.
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