Use Test Scripts to Help Understand the Requirements

Use Test Scripts to Help Understand the Requirements
With greater distance, you need to put more ceremony into communicating requirements. We've been able
to do that while still sticking to many of the techniques that we use in single-site development.
Increasingly I've found that more mature XP teams use acceptance tests as ways of communicating
requirements. Such teams get test scripts written out before the start of an iteration to help clarify the
requirements and give the development team a concrete target to aim at. One style that's worked well is for
a US based customer to write a short narrative (a couple of pages) to flesh out a feature (story in XP lingo).
An Indian based analyst/tester then creates test scripts for this story. This can be done either for automated
or manual testing, although we very much prefer automated tests. As the scripts are developed the US and
Indian analysts coordinate by email and IM as well as regular (2-3 times a week) conference calls to review
the test scripts.
We've found that this has very much helped both the Indian analyst and the US customer really understand
the requirements. Writing out the tests forces the Indian analyst to really understand what's needed and to
ask questions of the US customer as questions turn up. The developers find it easier to ask questions of the
Indian analyst rather than dig through the test scripts, so having an Indian analyst/tester is still important.
Search engines are good, but humans are often easier to work with.


how can this help me in understanding my requirement through Tests