What is Acceptance Criteria?
Acceptance criteria are the conditions that a feature or user story must meet to be accepted as done by the product owner. They translate a story's intent into concrete, verifiable requirements, removing ambiguity about scope and expected behavior.
A common format is Given–When–Then (a structure borrowed from behavior-driven development): "Given a logged-in user, when they click 'Save,' then their changes persist and a confirmation appears." Each criterion should be unambiguous and testable so anyone can objectively judge whether it passes.
For PMs, well-written acceptance criteria prevent the costly "that's not what I meant" cycle at the end of a sprint. They align engineering, design, and QA on exactly what success looks like before work begins, and they form the basis for test cases.
Examples
- "Given an empty cart, when the user visits checkout, then they see an empty-state message and a link back to browsing."
- A story is rejected in the sprint review because one of its four acceptance criteria was not met.
Where PMs use this
Related terms
User Story
A short, plain-language description of a feature told from the perspective of the user who wants it.
Definition of Done
A shared checklist of conditions that any work item must meet before it counts as truly complete.
Product Requirements Document (PRD)
A document that defines what a product or feature should do, for whom, and why — the source of truth for a build.