success criteria

[ suhk-SES krahy-TEER-ee-uh ]noun

The things you can actually watch happen that tell you the job is finished.

Explanation

Not the same as describing the feature. “Customer A gets zero rows belonging to customer B, and here is the test that proves it” is a success criterion. “Make it secure” is a wish.

Related words

• EARS notation — Five fill-in-the-blank sentence shapes that turn a vague request into something you can actually test.
• human verification gate — The one point where a named person looks at the work and takes responsibility for it going out.

Prompts that deal with it

• The Titan Audit — Grade your app against 28 giants
• Define Done — “It runs” is not done
• Red Before Green — The test exists before the feature does
• Measure Before Optimising — No guessing at slow