Specification by Example

Chapter 6. Specifying collaboratively

Specification by Example is conceptually different from traditional specification or testing processes, especially in the way it relies on collaboration. Specification by Example won’t work if we write documents in isolation, even if we implement all the other patterns described in this book.

In Bridging the Communication Gap, I focused on large, all-team specification workshops as the primary tool for collaborating on specifications. Probably the biggest lesson I’ve learned in working on this book is that the situation is a lot more complicated. Different teams in different contexts have their own way of collaborating on specifications, to the extent that even teams from the same group approach collaboration ...