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Project Management vocabulary · Scope & Requirements

Acceptance criteria

Meaning in project management, with examples

/əkˈseptəns kraɪˌtɪriə/nounCommon term

In project management, acceptance criteria means: The specific, agreed conditions that a deliverable or user story must meet before the client or product owner will accept it as complete.

In Turkish: kabul kriterleri, kabul ölçütleri

How it is used

Written in contracts, requirement documents and user stories. Deliverables meet, pass or fail the acceptance criteria. In agile teams they are often written as “Given… when… then…” scenarios.

Example sentences

  1. One of the acceptance criteria is that the page loads in under two seconds on a mobile phone.

  2. The story can't be closed because it doesn't meet all the acceptance criteria yet.

Common collocations

  • meet the acceptance criteria
  • define acceptance criteria
  • clear acceptance criteria
  • definition of doneA shared checklist of quality conditions that every piece of work must meet before the team can call it finished, such as tested, reviewed and documented.
  • user storyA short, simple description of a feature from the point of view of the person who will use it, often written as: As a [user], I want [something] so that [benefit].
  • requirementSomething that the final product or result must do or have, as agreed with the client or users, for example a function, a performance level or a legal rule.
  • sign-offFormal approval from an authorised person that a deliverable, phase or document is complete and acceptable, so the project can move on.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Scope & Requirements

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