Good requirements are essential to building a solution that meets business and stakeholder needs. But requirements don’t stand alone. Requirements analysis models, acceptance criteria, and test cases all play important roles in defining and verifying a solution.
Requirements are at the heart of these relationships. They describe the needs a solution must address, but they don’t have to be written as traditional requirement statements. A process model, decision table, or other analysis model may be the best way to express a requirement. Models can also supplement requirements by clarifying business rules, data, processes, and interactions that might be difficult to explain in words alone.
Acceptance criteria and test cases build on that understanding. Acceptance criteria establish the conditions that must be met for a solution to be accepted, while test cases provide the specific inputs, steps, and expected results needed to verify its behavior.
Our Requirements at the Heart infographic illustrates how these four elements work together to confirm that a solution delivers what stakeholders need. The goal isn’t to create more documentation. It’s to make sure everyone understands what’s needed and how they’ll know whether the solution delivers it.