Use business-facing language for acceptance tests to improve the mutual communication and the common understanding of the requirements. Work closely with the product owner to create what Eric Evan called the ubiquitous language, a common dialect between the business and technology. Misunderstandings are the root cause of most project failures:
- Create a common language and use it inside the project.
- Use an acceptance testing framework, such as Cucumber or FitNesse, to help the business team understand and get them involved.
- Express business values inside acceptance tests, and don't forget about them during development. It's easy to spend too much time on unrelated topics!
- Improve and maintain acceptance tests so that they always act as regression tests.
- Make sure everyone is aware that a passing acceptance test suite means a green light from the business to release the software.