It's easy to say "rely more heavily on acceptance criteria" but, without some guidelines, the acceptance criteria written end up not being very helpful; they tend to have little to do with acceptance and do a poor job as criteria.
Instituting a few simple rules can boost the effectiveness of shifting toward acceptance criteria as the main vehicle of communication between groups.
- Acceptance criteria are the sole authority on the scope of a block of work.
- Acceptance criteria cannot be modified while a block of work is in-flight.
- An acceptance criterion is met if any of its valid interpretations are met.
I'll drill into each of these pieces of advice separately.
