Acceptance Criteria

[ak-sep-tuh ns krahy-teer-ee-uh]

Definition of Acceptance Criteria

The description of the objective criteria the Team will use to determine whether or not a Story achieves the Value it represents; the part of “Done” that is separate from the Standard of Care and the General Agreements. 

See:

Time-Boxed Story, Time-Boxed Stories have their Acceptance Criteria (at least partially) defined by a time-box, and the actual Results produced are limited to what can be completed (using the Story’s Standard of...
Acceptance-Based Story, A Story whose Acceptance Criteria does not include a Time-Box; the Time an Acceptance-Based Story takes is a byproduct of getting to “Done.” 
Standard of Care, The Standard of Care is the part of “Done” that describes the objective criteria the Team uses to determine whether or not they used the prudence, caution, processes, and procedures...
General Agreement, The Part of a Story’s definition of “Done” that contains information about which SMEs will be involved, who will be the Story Coordinator, what is ‘out of scope’ for the...
Done A piece of work is “Done” when it satisfies the (pre-existing) agreement between Stakeholders and Developers about what it takes for the work to be complete; “Done” for a Story...

Examples

For a Story or Sprint, being Done means the Team has done its job: everything has met both its Acceptance Criteria and its Standard of Care.

Stakeholders usually specify a Story's Acceptance Criteria.

External Sources

Acceptance Criteria or Acceptance Tests

Cite This Term

"Acceptance Criteria" ScrumDictionary.com. Accessed Jul 10, 2025. https://scrumdictionary.com/term/acceptance-criteria/.